Traverse

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I've been very busy lately. I suppose that is the reason why I am not too faithful in blogging for the past few weeks.

Anyway, one major thing that occurred to me this past weekend was Chicago. The thing is, a friend of mine needed to go to Chicago for some business. And since my schedule permitted it, I hopped in. We drove the distance from Buffalo to Chicago on Thursday, did the business on Friday, and went back on Saturday. As one can discern, it is not a lot of time for sight-seeing. After all, it wasn't a sight-seeing trip.

However, we still managed to see a few places here and there. We didn't actually go to the city, but to the nearby suburbs. I went to see and visit the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette. The building was rather architecturally amazing. It was interesting to note that the temple had symbols of many different religions all over the world. The building patterns seemed to be based on the number 9, of which whether it really has some significance or not, I do not know. Apparently, there are Houses of Worship for every continent, and I just visited the one for North America. It is also the oldest standing temple; the oldest one was in Ashgabat, but it was destroyed many years back. The newest one is the one in Delhi, India, which is nicknamed "The Lotus Temple". They are currently building one in Santiago, Chile.

Anyway, I am back here in Buffalo, and I have finished reading my previous novel, entitled In the Hand of Dante, by Nick Tosches. I hated that book. It did not make sense, and I was simply lost, dragging myself into finishing the book. It was too scattered, and the narration felt like it was pieced together simply by the bound material it was printed on.

Anyway, I moved on, and I started reading this new novel, entitled Fieldwork, by Mischa Berlinski. This one is about a woman who apparently was incarcerated in a Thai prison, and then suddenly she dies. The main character on the other hand decides to investigate the story of her death, which takes him to California, to Chiang Mai, and other places. I like the progression so far. The ironic thing is, both my previous novel and this one shared one trait, that is, the author is a character in the story. In the previous novel, Nick Tosches was a character, and an evil character nonetheless. He killed a number of other characters and stole a manuscript of Dante's "Divine Comedy". In this novel, Mischa Berlinski is the journalist, living in Thailand, who stumbles upon the story of the dead woman anthropologist, who spent the past few years living in the Thai prison in Chiang Mai.

So, this one comes out interesting. I wonder how it would end.

(Leafy Stairs, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Nice to Know You

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Have you ever watched The Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts? You know, the movie where she gets engaged multiple times, and yet she doesn't get married because she somehow has a fear of weddings? Well, her character somehow reminded me of myself, not that I am getting married anytime soon.

I remember her character making plenty of different eggs just to know what type of eggs she wants.

I suppose certain things that are salient currently make me feel that I am doing the same thing. The thing is, sometimes I don't know who I am, and what I want. I suppose one also needs to know oneself, and there are things about myself that I do not know.

Perhaps the reason why I ended up in this lot is because I simply followed what everybody else was doing. It reminds me of the first album by the Cranberries. Released back in 1993, it was entitled Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? It produced the successful songs Linger and Dreams.

My bubble burst. I suppose I had too much cognitive dissonance in my system that there came a point that I felt that my head was overheating and about to explode. There was one time in which sometime late in the evening, I was leaving my office and heading home, I started walking, and lost my bearings somehow. I later realized that I was aimlessly walking around campus for almost half an hour.

Anyway, I suppose I need to discover what I really am, and which things I am comfortable with. Because otherwise, I would just feel robotic, being swept around by social forces. I suppose I should take up Pascal with his challenge, instead of simply accepting his wager.

(Rocks on the Side, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Discovering Trance

Monday, September 22, 2008

I've recently discovered trance music. It is electronic, but it is not the one that would make you jump up and down in a dimly-lit club, but rather, it is the one that would want to just sit down in a couch and chill out, say, after a very long and tiresome day. Music that would perfectly accompany a cold beer and a relaxing moment on the couch.

The funny thing with this music genre is that I could totally block it out of my attention, while I am doing something else. I can read a book and this music will just play in the background.

Anyway, it is Week 5. Things are busy. Experiments are being run in the lab. Papers are being read. Hypotheses are being formed. Theories are being tested.

I am still waiting for my two professors to give me comments on my qualifying paper. By the way, when they say that it takes 4 weeks to read a qualifying paper, trash that. That doesn't happen. I suppose it takes about two months. One of my readers already read half of it, and therefore gave me comments on the first half, but the other reader still hasn't touched it. And I am here, giving subtle and slight hints that I would want that read by now, so that I can file it soon and move on.

(River Valley, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Ants

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Have you ever had time to crash an anthill and see what's happening inside? I suppose one could characterize what I am doing at the moment as that of an ant.

I cannot believe that it is already the fourth week of class, and things are really busy. Even though I am only taking two classes, there are things that need to be done and so my schedule is rather full.

Anyway, I suppose I could write about them all here, but the fact that most of those are rather academic and not of interest to the general public is quite a deterrent.

So I suppose I would just randomly pull things from my head, and the significance of each is not really correlated to whether I mentioned them or not.

First, I watched the dissection of a real human brain. Did I ever mention this before? If yes, then I apologize. But if not, then yeah, there you go. I watched the dissection last Wednesday, a week earlier. It was extremely fascinating, how the brain was one huge network of cells where each cortex does one's job.

A friend's wife is having a baby soon. That would be a good thing.

The weather has started to become cold here. It used to be that the sun would be shining real bright, but now, it gets cold in the evenings. It's already sweater weather. My roommate, who is from Kansas City, is in for a real winter.

The professor who I am assigned as a research assistant is coming to town this weekend. I am excited now, since that would mean working with him in research, and not just grading papers. Not that I mind grading papers, I do enjoy seeing people's drawings of where the tongue position is whenever one is pronouncing a certain word, but I would rather do research than grade papers if I had the choice. Of course, I am not complaining, since academics usually teach in conjunction with research, so I might as well get used to it.

(Blurry Ascent, from my Letchworth Park Series)

N400 Addiction

Saturday, September 13, 2008

I remember back in the days, when I took my Psych 101 class back in college. There was the time in which we discussed the different types of chemicals that induce different types of moods and emotions. Of course, related to this was the subject of drugs, and why people get high. I learned about endorphins, GABA, and all those other technical stuff.

Anyway, it reminded me of that, when a thought occurred to me regarding my personal behavior. It had something to do with the N400. Now, I suppose I should give a tutorial as to what N400 signifies.

N400 is the electrophysiological response that the human brain gets whenever there is an aspect of surprise in the semantic integration of thoughts. For example, say you are reading a passage. The passage begins with the following.

The cat was chased by the...

Now, upon stumbling at the word cat, one would expect similar entities to be present as well. And when one sees the word chased, then one would expect the next word to be dog, because we all know that dogs are the prototypical chasers of cats. However, if the final word turned out to be cheese, then we somehow think that it is such a weird sentence. It does not make sense, since cheese is an inanimate object, and therefore it does not have the ability to chase cats. This weirdness is then exhibited by the electrophysiological activity that happens in the brain, approximately 400 milliseconds after the stimulus. The current is negatively polarized, therefore it is deemed N400. This is measured by attaching nodes to the scalp of someone, similar to an EEG.

Now why did I bring that up? I suppose because I think I am addicted to N400s, in fact, to a point that I induce them to occur. Unlike my sister, I have a great sense of humor. Humor and jokes rest on violations of linguistic expectations, therefore, it causes plenty of surprisal, and thus, N400s. And here, I am the same. I twist my discourse a lot, so that people would find it humorous.

For me, it is just natural. But perhaps, I am just addicted to N400s that I myself am inducing it upon me.

(Beautiful Stagnation, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Phases

Friday, September 12, 2008

It occurred to me that life occurs in stages. Duh. Yes, obviously that is true. Most of the time, there is a big life-changing event that triggers the next phase. There's the usual graduation, moving to a new house, moving overseas, death, marriage, having children. However, there are also phases that are less subtle than that.

The other day I was just curious and asked my roommate why he always wears dark clothes. He then told me that it always came out black, whenever he went shopping for clothes. Not that he is a Goth or anything, but he currently is in a black phase I specifically asked because a few years before, I myself was in a black phase. Yeah, it was when I was in sophomore and junior year in undergrad, when everything I wore was black.

My previous post also has something to do with phases. When I was in high school, all the things I have read were classical literature. I only read books by Penguin or Signet Classics. Then, I entered college and started reading mass market fiction, where I got introduced to Stephen King. This coincided with me discovering the used-book stall in the mall. And now, I am in the contemporary literature phase, where I go to the library and borrow the books that just came in. So most of the books that I read at the moment are published within the last ten years, and I read them in hardcover.

Anyway, speaking of phases, I suppose that is a way the brain organizes one's body. They say that the pineal gland, in the very middle of the brain, is responsible for this. I suppose from a processing point of view, this is indeed the best system, since this way, the information does not get cluttered and convoluted, and the body functions well.

(Green Trees, from my Letchworth Park Series)

The Big Read

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I suppose this is a post that is 5 years late. Back in 2003, the BBC conducted a survey about the most favorite books in Britain. Here are the top 200 books that made it to the list. I am listing them all, and the ones I have read are in boldface.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
7. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
18. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
20. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
25. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
26. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
31. The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion by Jane Austen
39. Dune by Frank Herbert
40. Emma by Jane Austen
41. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
42. Watership Down by Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm by George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
48. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
53. The Stand by Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56. The BFG by Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
60. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
61. Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
63. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
65. Mort by Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
67. The Magus by John Fowles
68. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
69. Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Perfume by Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda by Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
77. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses by James Joyce
79. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
80. Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits by Roald Dahl
82. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
83. Holes by Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
85. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
89. Magician by Raymond E. Feist
90. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
93. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine by Anya Seton
96. Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach by Alex Garland
104. Dracula by Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc by Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
109. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game by Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls by Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
119. Shōgun by James Clavell
120. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose by Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
124. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
128. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt
130. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
132. Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
133. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
137. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan
139. Girls in Tears by Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers by Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
144. It by Stephen King
145. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile by Stephen King
147. Papillon by Henri Charrière
148. Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
149. Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
152. Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement by Ian McEwan
155. Secrets by Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
158. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
159. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
162. River God by Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
165. The World According to Garp by John Irving
166. Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late by Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches by Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
171. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
172. They Used to Play on Grass by Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby by Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
178. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
181. The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
183. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner by George Eliot
185. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
186. Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps by R. L. Stine
189. Heidi by Johanna Spyri
190. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
192. Man and Boy by Tony Parsons
193. The Truth by Terry Pratchett
194. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
198. The Once and Future King by T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
200. Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews

17 titles. Not bad.

(Forest Path, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Physical Change

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Funny, but I saw three different people today, people who I haven't seen in quite a while, and in all three people, I saw a change in them.

Person Number 1: I suppose the last time I saw this person was back in April. We were chatting back then, about a certain academic possibility for me, and now he was in town, and so he decided to check on me again. Not much of a change, his clothing style was still the same, preferring checkered shirts and jeans, but he shows up with a beard this time. I saw a bearded look of his a few years ago, so I have an idea how he looks like with one, but I suppose it still doesn't sink well in the head, especially if one is used to seeing that person clean-shaven.

Person Number 2: The last time I saw this person was again, last semester. The semester before that (Fall 2007) I saw this person at least 3 times per week. She shows up in my office again this time around, with the intent of saying hello. She asks about my summer, which I narrated, and we exchanged stories about our summer travels. She asked me how Peru and Denmark was like, and she apparently went to Guatemala for a vacation as well. And she enjoyed it. The biggest change I saw was the tan. She wasn't tanned like that before.

Person Number 3: I saw this person last semester as well, and I thought this person already graduated. But apparently this person is still here. We talked about things, and this person also traveled in the summer, to Germany. I thought the destination was the Ukraine, because we talked about that before, but it looks like Ukraine is a little complicated, and so that wasn't the destination this summer. The biggest change I saw in this person was the weight loss. The person's face just seemed flattened at the sides. I suppose the Ukraine had something to do with that.

Anyway, to change the topic, I have received some very good news recently. It seems that the professor that I am supposed to work with as a research assistant finally got all of his papers. So I suppose once he gets here, I will cease to be a TA in the class that I am a TA, and will then work with this professor and do research together. Yehey!

Speaking of research, I should get back to my adviser, even though he is on sabbatical right now. The professor who runs the lab that I am working in already asked me if I have plans of running subjects in the lab. I wanted to say yes, but as of now, I still have no concrete method that I am thinking of using in there. I still am exploring what methods are useful if I would want to extend my research in temporal interpretation. The lab has equipment that would be able to run reaction time, reading time, and eye-tracking experiments. Eye-tracking sounds good, but I need to reformulate my hypothesis and see whether things are actually doable in this method.

(Leaves and Branches, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Pattern Wreck

Monday, September 08, 2008

Recently, I seem to have a distortion in my rhythmic functions. It mainly concerns my sleep and eating habits, and although I don't think this is something serious, I suppose it is something that I need to put in the back of my head for further reference should I need to.

Recently I seem to wake up at different times at night, and instead of having a full night's sleep, I get less. The other night I somehow woke up at 2:00 AM and tossed around my bed for about an hour. I knew it because I heard the 2:00 AM chime from the church bell and I also have a memory for hearing the 3:00 AM chime as well. A few nights ago, I couldn't fall asleep, because I seem to be wide awake, as if my brain was on overdrive. Not that I had caffeine or any other stimulants before heading to bed, but yeah, it was bizarre.

The same thing goes to eating. I seem to not have the appetite that I used to have. I do realize that I am trying to lose weight, but I am not trying to lose weight by starving myself. That would just be idiotic. I do it by changing my diet and doing exercise instead. However, I still keep regular eating times. But recently, it is as if I do not feel hungry when I am supposed to be hungry. And trying to force myself into eating my usual amount just feels like I am stuffing my system.

Aside from that, I feel fine. So I suppose that is just a random anomaly, and I have nothing to worry about. It's just that I find it a little disconcerting when an established pattern is broken.

(Red Leaves, from my Letchworth Park Series)

216 Digits

Sunday, September 07, 2008

I have watched a rather disturbing movie the other day. It was entitled Pi, directed by Darren Aronofsky. It's not a movie that one would see to be entertained, but rather, it is a movie that one sees in order to be mentally stimulated.

I suppose the fact that I decided to watch this movie was influenced by the fact that I watched The Fountain a while back and actually liked it. So I did a little research on the director and found that he didn't make a lot of movies. But Pi was one of the first ones that he made, so when movie night came around, and I was the one who had the choice of movies, then I picked that as a selection.

It tells the story of a mathematician who strives to find order in everything, such as alluding to the Fibonacci sequence, and the golden spiral. It is a psychological thriller, and I suppose it is not a movie that one watches when one wants to be happy.

The movie has a point though, that one should always keep oneself in check, because we might not know that the thing we are occupying ourselves with might drive us to obsession and insanity.

Aside from the content, I like the fact that the movie featured a rather atypical cinematography. The black-and-white film had a lot of repetitive shots, and those were amazing. I also liked the distortion of reality that the director did, such as when the character was trying to puncture a human brain in the New York City metro. The viewer is constantly challenged in deciding whether the events that were shown were happening in real life, or whether it was something in the character's brain.

Anyway, if one wants to watch a rather philosophical and psychological movie, then I suppose this is one good movie to watch. The sound track was rather interesting too, very techno.

(Colored Trees, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Octopus

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Something is different this year. Unlike the previous years I had being in graduate school, something is different this year, and it is different for the better I suppose.

The thing is, it seems that there are a lot of things that are going on this year, academically speaking. There are plenty of projects that I seem to be involved in. And it is a good thing. If there are plenty of academic projects that I am involved in, then I would have plenty of things to put in my CV, and that would end up looking good.

Like I said, I have this project going on with 5 other people around the world. This came out of the workshop that I attended in Denmark last July. It is a little bit slow to move, given the fact that I am working with 5 other people, and manipulating their schedules around the project is a big feat, but it is moving.

I also have my qualifying paper near completion. I used the first half of it as material for the poster presentation that I did, which is co-authored with my adviser. The second half on the other hand is the basis for the abstract that I submitted to a conference that if accepted, I would be heading to France in the summer of next year.

I am also trying to work with another graduate student here in the department, in order for the two of us to write a paper in a theoretical topic. If we do this, we could submit an abstract for another conference, happening in August of next year, and present it if accepted. It would be a co-authored paper between the two of us.

I am also thinking of writing a paper for my seminar, which, if I craft it correctly, I could also turn into a paper that I can submit at the same August conference, for a solo paper this time.

And I just received a message from another friend of mine in Malaysia, that she is thinking of submitting a co-authored paper with me for the same France conference in June 2009. I told her that I don't know of a topic that we could work on together, but if she has ideas, then I am willing to work on it. So if that happens, then who knows, I might have two gigs in one event.

I suppose it is about time. Graduate students need to go out and be visible. Looking at my CV, I definitely think it needs improvement. I suppose this is one such thing.

(Splash Close-Up, from my Letchworth Park Series)

It's So Puerile It's Not Funny

Friday, September 05, 2008

I am amazed that sometimes, people who are supposed to be mature and adult-like do not act like one. It's as if people are still in high school.

There have been events in the department lately that made me think that way. The thing is, I have a close-knit set of friends. We do things together from time to time. Apparently, the fact that it is a large group makes it look like we are exclusive, elitist, and snobs. Apparently that is because some people are not part of this group.

But then, don't we have the freedom to choose who we hang out with? Don't we have the freedom to choose who are friends are? I would not bend over backwards just to gain a new friend. I would not go out of my way just to satisfy some people, who I may not be on good terms. I do not have the obligation to invite everybody I know, just to pretend that we are all warm and fuzzy with each other.

I have my friends, and I have the freedom to spend my time just with them. If people feel excluded, then sorry, but I suppose they are not as close to me as I am with other people.

Friendship is a delicate thing. A good friendship I suppose is one that can be sustained even if one don't have a chance to talk to the other person for months. I went overseas for quite some time this past summer, and so was my other friend, and we didn't mind not talking to each other for quite a while. That didn't mean that I am not friends with her anymore.

I went to some nature location this past weekend with a bunch of friends. I didn't invite one of my other friends, because we already went there last year, and so I didn't figure that the person would be interested. Now the funny thing is that other people observing us thought that it was weird that I did not invite this person to this gig.

Oh jeez, people are reading too much into this. I just am amazed that people have the time in their hands to gossip and murmur about other people. Humans are supposedly rational beings, but this is totally in the opposite direction.

(Splash and Mist, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Enduring Love

Thursday, September 04, 2008

There are a few times in which one would feel warm and fuzzy after undertaking a certain activity. I suppose reading a romantic book would be one of them.

So I finished reading Beginner's Greek by James Collins. This is, according to the imprint page, a novel about married people, adultery, and New York City. Basically, it is about a guy who falls in love with the woman he sat with on a plane from New York to Los Angeles. He gets the phone number, but he loses it. Idiot, I know. Years later, he sees the woman again, but is unfortunately married to his best friend.

Now, I know what you are thinking. No, they do not commit adultery. But their partners do. See, Peter, upon seeing that Holly (the girl from the plane) is already not available, decided to get married to Charlotte. However, it turns out that Peter doesn't really love Charlotte, and Charlotte doesn't really love Peter. Sometime in the book, Charlotte runs away with another guy. And Jonathan, who is Holly's husband, haves different affairs with different women, but gets struck by lightning and dies.

I do not want to say exactly what happens to Peter and Holly in the end, but I ended up smiling and happy. It can be a good romantic comedy. I suppose it is a perfect illustration as to how the human heart can be lacking in reason.

I have read some people complaining about this book, saying that it is soap opera material, but I have to say, the way it is written, it has full of wit and I believe totally describes how romance in our society is handled out.

So I returned that to the library, and then picked up this other book that has been sitting on my shelf. Entitled In the Hand of Dante, this has a different tone to it. According to the imprint page, it is about Dante Alighieri, manuscripts, collectors, New York, Sicily, criminals, and theft. Looks like a historical suspense novel. I will of course review it after I am done.

(Gorge and Mist, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Leave My Medulla Oblongata Alone

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

I never expected to learn a lot about the human brain functions when I decided to major in linguistics. But apparently I am learning a lot about it right now, since I am taking a course on neurolinguistics, and this week's topic was about neuroanatomy. So today I learned about the different parts of the brain, including the four different lobes, the fissures, the gyri, the sulci, the pons, different types of cortex, and tons of other things. And I find it so fascinating, that I didn't imagine I would actually be doing this in a linguistics class.

And guess what? I could actually dissect a real human brain next week! I am so excited.

I suppose fascination on the human brain runs in the family. I remember my sister, who majored in psychology in undergrad, took pictures of her handling real human brains a few years ago. And now, I get to dissect one! It also reminded me of a popular scolding tactic my parents used, when they told us children to use our brains. That was when we were being naughty.

Anyway, aside from that, nothing else is quite interesting as that event. It is already the half of the second week, and I am already full-speed in working. I have my projects moving, and I already have possible paper topics for both of my seminars. I will start working in the psycholinguistics lab next week as well, so that should be fun too. I wonder how the new students of Psych 101 are when doing our experiments.

Anyway, it is getting late, and I have an abstract to finish, so I suppose I will end this post here.

(Splash Version 2.0, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Lollipops

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

I have a weird task. I need to buy lollipops for the class that I am a teaching assistant for. The professor asked me to buy for her lollipops for the class. Apparently this is so that we could understand how phonetics works.

Now this could be interesting. I suppose this pertains to what the oral positions are whenever people pronounce specific sounds in a language. I just didn't experiment with lollipops, since I don't like them myself. Somehow, the idea of sucking on something with a handle doesn't appeal to me too much.

In other areas, I have already talked to a professor of mine about possible paper topics for the seminar that I am taking. There are a couple of ideas that I can pursue, so I am happy that at least I have an idea I can work on.

I need to finish coloring my brain. I worked on that quite a lot yesterday, and so I need to finish it by next week.

So there, the second week is here, and there are thirteen weeks to go. It's not that I am counting since I am so ready for Winter Break, but rather, it is amazing how things immediately get busy and now I have plenty of things to do on my plate.

(Splash, from my Letchworth Park Series)

Hot Flashes

Monday, September 01, 2008

Why is it that the university tries to have centralized air-conditioning, and then turns off the whole thing when there is a holiday? They obviously realize that not everyone celebrates Labor Day, and thus come to the office to work. Like me.

Now I am sweating. Hot flashes, enveloping my body. I feel like a woman having menopause. I want a cold bath. A pool. A water splash on my face.

I already had a frappuccino from the coffee place, but still it doesn't help.

I wish there were a switch, that I could turn on the air-conditioning. And the fact that the libraries are closed, also doesn't help, because if they were open, I would just go there and work.

Anyway, the good thing is that I am done with my cold turkey reading, and I am done halfway with my brain coloring assignment.

(Nature View, from my Letchworth Park Series)