*amazed*
I just spent 3.5 hours in a practice room in Thatcher. I NEVER do that, even at home, but then again, I haven't felt this excited about playing in a very very very long time. Yay for Rachmaninoff!
After trying to figure out yet another Rach prelude (not only does he write music for people with big hands, the music that IS written is so condensed it's difficult for even me to decipher), I decided to give an old Beethoven sonata another go. I hadn't played it in at least a year, and I almost forgot how it went. But my hands didn't. There were times were I was staring, literally bewildered, at my fingers as they went along without any help from my mind. Muscle memory is indeed amazing.
And why is something
always better after you've left it for a really really long time, and then go back to it? At least this bodes well for my anticipated self-recording session - I promised Wei, my mentor at the neurobiology lab at Rutgers, that I would send her a tape of my piano playing because she really liked it. (What's with people thinking I'm good at piano? I really could be a lot better..) I'm more than a year overdue. Eep.
Fun with the piggies!
When cleaning the piggies' cage, I have to put them out on the floor (enclosed in a little pen, of course) so I can empty out the bedding and rinse it out and all that jazz. I've been exploiting the patio - trying to get them to pee outside of my room so I don't have to clean up after them. Har.
Just now, some guy opened the hall door and ran through the patio. Startled by the sudden movement, the piggies dove for their blanket, and about half a second later, this all registered into the guy's head and he went, "Whoa!" Heeeeeeeeee. I love that sort of reaction from people.
Channeling a bit of Vicky...
In bio class, we were going over the classic prisoner's dilemma in order to get into how animals might interact with one another. And some people in my class were SO confused over what it was. While the professor was explaining it carefully, all I could think of was,
"What do you MEAN you don't know the prisoner's dilemma????" I don't consider myself that well-read (I'm actually far from it) but...DUDE!
I feel like a tub of lard
So, lately I've been dropping by the pool instead of the ice rink. For now, it's a better way for me to get exercise since a) it's really really really hot and b) the pool is a 30 second walk from my dorm room vs. an hour bus ride to the rink. I hadn't swum in YEARS but was inspired to by watching the Olympics this summer. (I swear I'm not doing it for the cute guys. I SWEAR.)
I've always known I have no endurance. I have a hard enough time running (jogging? Haha) 400m, let alone swimming a lap. At first I couldn't even make a measly 25m lap, but now I'm getting a little better. At least my feet don't cramp up as quickly and I don't run out of steam as fast, even if I still have to stop every time I do a lap so I don't feel like I'm going to drown. I'm actually starting to like doing freestyle. *gasp*
But just now I was in the pool with this guy who was doing freestyle laps with a buoy between his legs. Meaning, he was doing freestyle only using his arms. The entire time I was at the pool (about 30 minutes), he was doing this. Pulling strokes, flipturn, then resuming. Lap after lap after lap. By MY third lap, my arms were
exhausted, and I had been kicking the entire time. Man, I DO feel like a tub of lard.
*cries*
*twitch*
Apparently I have the metabolism of a shrew.
I ate a bowl of Golden Grahams at 10AM, and skipped lunch because I attended my piano teacher Gayle's Friday Noon concert at Scripps (it was very good, btw) and then figured out turning-page-for-our-duet logistics with Kristina, when I was struck by a sudden bout of dizziness at around 2:30PM. Like, stomach and rest of body felt fine but head was going, "Woooooo!" It didn't prevent me from practicing the duet (and muddling through our new page turns), but that probably shows how much too long I've been playing...
It was probably from a combination of low blood sugar and not getting enough sleep last night, but last year I usually got by with less sleep. *sigh*
This is why I'm such a sugarfiend! It keeps me functional!
Ultimate Guy Survey!
From Cathy's xanga site - need me some entertainment before this crazy afternoon. The answers in italic are hers since I figure I can't put it better...
Hair color: As long as it's mussable, it's fine by me.
Eye color: Don't care, but +10 points if they're inquisitive. (I realize that's subjective, but
tough for you!)
Height: Anywhere between Paul Hamm and Michael Phelps is fine by me. (5'6" - 6'4", so you lost out, short dudes!)
Six pack: WHAT? And no TUMMY????
Long or short hair: Longer hair is much more mussable, but certainly NOT as long as mine... but fuzzy headed dudes can be cute too...
Glasses: Hmm, in terms of my own personal preference, I love geeks. In thinking ahead to the genetics of our future children, at the level of my eyesight disintegration, it's probably better if he had perfect vision. Even though I'd hate him for it.
Piercings: Not more than me. Meaning, none. Har.
Tattoo: See "piercings"
Eyebrows: Seriously? Um....as long as he has some?
Big butt or little: "I like big butts!" (half-explains why I so love figure skating..)
Buff or skinny: Certainly not as skinny as me. Snuggling would hurt.
Straight teeth, gap, or braces: Straight, I suppose..
Funny or serious: Seriously funny. Ooh, har, har. I'm so clever.
Party or stay at home: Stay at home and snuggly type. :)
Should he cook or bake: Hehehe. Both
Should he have a best friend: Yes, ME
Should he have a lotta girl friends: Groupies, no. But if he's popular with girls cause he's a nice guy, bonus points!
Outgoing or shy: Shy guys are SO cute...but that means neither of us would make the first move. Hmmm....*ponders*
Sarcastic or sincere: Oh oh oh it's coming...wait for it...sincerely sarcastic!
Would he be a smoker?: If he's on fire, I guess it's ok
Would he drink?: Water?
Would he swear?: Shit, I don't know.
Would he play with your hair?: The ones on my head, thanks.
Where would you go to dinner?: In the kitchen. After he cooks. For me. ME!
Would he write you notes?: Yes! Just for the cuteness factor.
Would he bring you flowers?: No, unless he does the whole plant thing along with it. (Flowers in bouquets die, ya know..)
Would he lay under the stars with you?: If we have a really warm blanket and some hot chocolate, why not?
Would he call you muffin, pumpkin, or apple?: Errrrr...none of the above?
Would he call you hunny, sweetie, or baby?: If he spells "honey" right, he can. Otherwise he needs to go back to second-grade spelling.
Would he hang out with you and YOUR friends?: ME JUST ME ALL THE TIME ME ME ME....heh, heh.
Would you hang out with him and HIS friends?: What friends? jk jk
Would she kiss you goodnight at the door?: She?! that's news to me.
Will he walk you to the door at the end?: "The end"? sounds like he's gonna kill me....
Holding hands?: Of course! :)
Soccer: So, walking me to the door while holding hands and playing soccer? Sounds talented.
Volleyball: And plyaing volleyball, too! Wow....
Tennis: Um, enough sports.
Baseball: I said enough sports!
Basketball: I envision an NBA player wannabe. Meaning, NO.
Football: Those guys are scary! NO.
Water polo: If that means I get to see him in a Speedo, YES.
Surf: see "water polo"
Skateboard: If he wants to call himself a "skater," no. (btw, +100 points if the guy figure skates)
Ski/snowboard: If he skis and is willing to teach me more of it, why not?
Play guitar: Too cliche. Meh.
Play piano: OH GOD YES.
Neat or messy?: Messy-ish but not to the point of having week-old food or last semester's papers sprawled all over the floor...
Writes his own music: If it's good...
Use the word dude: Toooootally.
Use the word tight: Ass?
Would he watch the sun rise with you: Once. And then I'd smack him for waking me up so early.
What kind of car does he drive: As long as it isn't a gas-guzzling SUV, don't care.
How old is he: Um, within 5 years of my age? Is that considered cradle-robbing?
What would his name be: Alas, I'm afraid he doesn't exist.
And you all realize I'm being tongue in cheek with the possessive stuff, right? At least, I'll try to be less possessive next time...*ahem*
How manufacturers of scientific instruments go door to door
The sand dollars had arrived via Fedex and were sitting on the table, still in their foam box. Visiting professor Joyce Stamm, lab tech Kat, and I were all staring down into the box, wondering how we were going to get gametes out of them. Professor Stamm had never seen a sand dollar, much less experimented with one. Kat had forgotten exactly what they had done in developmental biology last year. And I was plenty fascinated just looking at their hairs moving.
There was a cheerful voice at the door. "Hello there!"
All three of us turned around to see a well-dressed Asian man holding a large picnic basket and a redheaded woman in a sundress standing by a small metal cart covered by a yellow patterned sheet and a catalog. They looked en route to a picnic. Seriously. The man smiled. "We're from VWR! Are you guys busy? We can come back later.."
Joyce and I peered back into the sand dollar box. "Er....kinda?"
"Well, do you want some muffins and cookies then?" He motioned towards the basket.
"Sure!" Kat apparently likes free food more than I do, and leaves to wash her hands. Joyce follows her out to do the same. Gosh knows what those sand dollars might have brought in...
The man turned to me and asked me my name, then what kind of research this lab did. By this time I had recalled from my neurobiology stint at Rutgers that
VWR was a company that made "scientific products," ie the stuff we use once and throw away. (The environmentalist in me cringed everytime I had to throw away a
Millipore filter system after using it once) Or the bigger, more badass, more expensive instruments.
"This particular lab is for developmental biology, but we have some research going on..." I wasn't sure if he was expecting something more fancy. He offered me his card and the chance to enter in a drawing for gift certificates.
I was a bit confused. "Um, for your products?" For a moment I wondered what I would do with a massive centrifuge in my room. Whatever that thought was, it DIDN'T involve collecting
post-synaptic densities from Squee and Dot brains. Wouldn't get much out of only two guinea pigs, anyway. (I distinctly recall Wei holding up a centrifuge tube with 0.1 micrograms - if that - of purified post-synaptic density and declaring in her broken English, "Eighty-two rats!")
"No, for Target, Starbucks...that kind of thing."
"Oh."
By this time I was thinking,
Ah, so this is how they go door to door...but I'm only a student. Even if I was doing something more akin to cutting up rats like at Rutgers, I'm not in the position to order anything for the lab. Sorry, can't help you, dude.
Joyce and Kat returned to grab some cookies and to make relevant chitchat about scientific products and the like. After the two salespeople left and Kat had entered the drawing for nonscience-related gift certificates, we resumed poking our sand dollars.
After 15 minutes of failing to get three of the sand dollars to release any gametes, I forced myself away in order to get to class on time. As I walked down the hall, I passed the two salespeople again, who had gotten Prof. Martinez to browse through their catalog. For those who haven't had Prof. Martinez, here's a sample quote from intro genetics:
So, what the phage prefers to do is to lyse the bacterial cell. Kill the motherfucker! Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that...
In classic Martinez fashion, he was pointing at something in the catalog saying, "What is this pathetic little thing?"
The woman tried to be pleasant and informative. "It's a freezer.."
"Well, do you have one that doesn't have that...thing?"
I chuckled as I made my way up the stairs. You wouldn't pay me enough to be a door-to-door salesperson, no matter what the heck I was selling.
And more piano!
Kristina and I are planning to choreograph some bobbing head moves during our Debussy duet. It will be the greatest/funniest/most ridiculous thing in the world when we perform it during a student recital. Mwahahaha!
I've determined that I would die happy if I could play
Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 23, no. 2 in B-flat major. Then I decided, why wait? (I'm already working on two other Rachmaninoff preludes...but who cares?) Even though I swear he must have thought, "I have big hands and you don't! Nya nya nya!" when writing most of his piano pieces. Grargh.
Oo! Oo! Oo!
*stifles scream*
I WANT!!
Yes it's true, in addition to being a sugarfiend and a fuzzyfiend (don't get any ideas), I'm a Matrixfiend. Liked the two sequels better after I was properly informed of the religious (and otherwise) symbolism contained therein, although I prefer the noir feel of the first one.
I almost never ask my parents for anything specific for Christmas or my birthday (the only things I remember specifically asking for were a telescope and my skates), but I think I will now. Hehehehe...And at this pre-order price, it's about $6 a disc!
*dances*
A good weekend
I've had a fantastic weekend. First came Friday, where I had mint chocolate chip ice cream
twice, and a tiny little terrier running around in Marston Quad came up to me. And then College Night at the Village where I got free stuff! I'm so low-maintenance - I only need mint chocolate chip ice cream or cute fuzzies or free stuff to make me happy. Matt might disagree with that, but I admit I do need some more maintenance in a romantic relationship other than ice cream and cute fuzzy animals. (It depends what kind of free stuff I get.) Like, snuggling. Lots of it. Har.
And then Saturday! I had MORE mint chocolate chip ice cream! Kristina and Ranor noted how fast the mint chocolate chip ice cream is consumed relative to the other flavors, even though outside of the Pomona bubble, there are much less mint chocolate chip eaters. (Kristina, Ranor, and I are the only ones in our respective families who like this particular flavor.)
Kristina and Ranor's conclusion: Pomona has a disproportionate number of mint chocolate chip eaters than the rest of the population. Obviously, admission committee purposely admit those who like mint choclate chip ice cream, even if it isn't stated in our application. Somehow, they can determine who are mint chocolate chip lovers by looking at GPAs, SAT scores, extracurriculars, and the essay. But to make your life easier, you can just say somewhere on the app, "I really really really really like mint chocolate chip ice cream" and you're in.
Recalling my little dude
Last semester, I found an injured pigeon sitting in front of Hahn after an AAMP workshop. At first I thought it was sick, since I didn't see any blood. (It was 10PM) People surrounded it while it sat there, obviously feeling pity for the poor animal but not sure what to do. Wracked with my overpowering mothering instinct, I went back to the dorm and sought Laurel for advice. Afterwards, intent on doing
something, I returned to Hahn with a cardboard box and a towel. It didn't struggle when I picked it up with the towel and put it into the box. Laurel came by to check it out (being the pre-vet extraordinaire that she is) and that was when we discovered a large gash on its underside. After some deliberation, I decided that I would call the nearby vet's office and ask them what I could do.
And so I had an injured pigeon sitting in a box in my room overnight. I didn't name it; I don't have a talent for naming things. I named my guinea pigs Squee and Dot for gosh sakes. But I called my new feathery companion "little dude" when I lifted up the towel covering the box to check on it. Matt scolded me for keeping it, saying that I would become upset if it died during the night. That certainly looked possible. In talking to several people who saw it earlier, I found that it had been sitting there in front of Hahn, bleeding from a large gash in its belly, since about 3PM that day.
Seven hours. At least. That's a long time to be standing outside, bleeding.
But it didn't die. In the morning it was still there, standing and peering up at me with its good eye. That was another thing I found: the pigeon's left eye looked like it was always closed. I'm not sure if it even had a left eye to begin with.
The receptionist at the vet's office told me that I could donate the pigeon to them and that they could take care of it until it got well. Despite being a little skeptical, I decided that it was the only thing I could do, since I didn't know how to take care of a hurt pigeon. They took the box into the back and that was the last I saw of my little dude.
I don't know how my little dude is doing. Maybe it died, or maybe it's currently flying free, taking advantage of the one ability us humans wish we had.
But, I will never forget the wonder I felt every time I looked at it sitting in the box. Here was a bird, a creature who normally shunned humans, living a life we can only dream of. So separate from us, yet I felt a connection when I saw it in the box. It was like keeping a little piece of freedom safe - freedom that was cut down that day and left to die. It never panicked when I put my hand into the box to give it water and food. My little dude just sat meekly in the corner, seeming to be a little unsure of the goodwill it was receiving. Animals are like that. They can't speak on human terms and seem to live on a different plane than we do. But I'm always fascinated by them, by the life that they contain. Life itself is amazing. I wonder how many people think about that every day. I most certainly do.
Or maybe it's my overpowering mothering instinct again. Funny how I feel it most with animals instead of human children. I'm usually not sure how human children will react in any situation. Hopefully when I have my own I'll have this figured out.
Thoughts (of the rare political kind)
Just got back from a semi-showing of Fahrenheit 911 at Rose Hills. I say semi-showing because the light in the projector burned out with about 10 minutes of the movie to go. And no refunds. Ah wells.
I'll be honest. I don't follow politics. It frustrates me, which is why I much prefer science. Even though there are still some politics in that, it's at least much less so.
My major concern with Bush is that no other country in the world can take us seriously if he's president. If anything can change with a different guy in the Oval Office, it will definitely be that. I don't believe anything else can be guaranteed to change significantly. Maybe Kerry can kind of guide things along for the better, but who really knows.
I'm rarely cynical, but I definitely am jaded when it comes to politics. Reason: in order to be elected these days, you need money. Lots and lots of money, usually from rich guys/corporations. But before these rich guys/corporations give a candidate shitloads of money, they have to be assured that their wants will be fulfilled when/if the candidate is actually elected. It is not surprising that the wants of a rich dude doesn't usually mirror the wants (or even needs) of your regular Joe. Yes, it sucks, but that is how America works, and I doubt that can be altered even in the slightest.
Therefore, I don't believe that Kerry will fix America on his own. Nobody can do that. But if he can bring integrity back to the country in the eyes of the rest of the world, at least that will be something.
I end with an acknowledgement of this particular day:
The air recoils with the tense sound of nothing as freedom is ripped from my fingertips
~ a little poem I wrote at Julian's urging on 09-12-01
Three years ago in San Jose, I went outside, looked up, and thought how it was horribly unfair and wrong that the sky was so beautiful.
Sigh of exasperation
So I received a book I ordered online. The first one I have received, in fact. Unfortunately, it's the only book I
don't need for class. Grargh!
Quote of the day
"What the HELL is this?!"
Uttered by a fellow student leaving the biology building only to be met by....big, fat raindrops. I shit you not. Water is coming down from the sky, in a weak excuse of a sun shower. But STILL! This is the most clouds I've seen ever since I got here. Preposterous.
Choir!
We have
so many basses! I am happy. The sound of many basses singing a low note is like snuggling a warm blanket. Eeeee. Good stuff. *sigh* I love basses.
Doesn't mean I don't like tenors though. I am saddened because of the lack of a particular one. If anyone knows Jon Lee well, beg and plead with him to come back to choir. (I think it would be a little bit too weird if I personally did it..) If you heard him sing at last semester's concert, you'll know why. If you didn't hear him sing...shame on you! I've never heard a voice like that in my entire life. I weep.
Piano (and why I go to Pomona)
Last night I received an email from my piano teacher here at Pomona:
"Earth to Anita!!! You haven't signed up for piano lessons yet!"
I can't escape...
But it's kinda nice that she cares if I continue piano-ing or not. Heh.
On a related note, Ghyrn asked me if I was still playing "that sonata." I thought he was talking about the piece I had to copy out of his Beethoven sonata book freshman year cause I'm a pathetic student of piano and don't have random books lying in my room. Apparently he meant the Mozart concerto which, incidentally, I hated to play.
I actually stopped practicing that after I took the piano placement exam about a week into freshman year at Pomona. That was
two years ago. He'd only heard me play parts of it once, as far as I know.
And I thought only
I had a memory that good/scary.
On another related note, I just looked at Matt's blog. Apparently it's his birthday this weekend. And I forgot. Which, as you my dear readers know, is quite unusual because I have a really good memory. (Matt can vouch for the accuracy of that statement, heh.) That's progress...
