saturday, may 27

•••    sometimes. . . all I need is the air that I breathe.
11:07 PM +

•••    first the flyers lost, now the avalanche choke in the last eight seconds. come on. who am I supposed to care about in a cup final between new jersey and dallas? new jersey and dallas! ugh!
10:12 PM +

•••    arrgyarlkgnlarg.
::deep breath::
9:41 PM +

•••    I have psychotic relatives to chat with. catch you later. ;)
6:34 PM +

•••    this is the best personality test on the web. I'm a loving white ant. you need to read them all, though, because they're worth it:
red ant, brown ant, purple ant, yellow ant, blue ant, green ant, and my favorite, pink ant. whee!
5:30 PM +

•••    this test took an unnecessarily long time, but I guess it was trying to be thorough. I liked it though - it doesn't produce a profile, but it explains what it measures very well.

compared to other college-age females...
I'm introverted: distant, private, unassertive (socially), energetic, cheerful, and an excitement-seeker.
I'm agreeable: trusting, sincere, altruistic, cooperative (a pushover?), no more or less modest than most people, and tender-minded.
I'm moderately conscientous (somehow this is related to organization): average in every way.
I'm neurotic (can't we be nice and call it sensitive?): anxious, immoderate, vulnerable, but not angry or self-conscious.
I'm open to new experiences: imaginative, artistic, emotional, adventurous, and liberal.

ha. this is fun. ;)
4:55 PM +

•••    I can type 108 words per minute, but I almost never get through a sentence without making a mistake.
4:07 PM +

•••    quickie: same as always. this one, then this one.
3:46 PM +

•••    okay, yesterday was substance day (oh, the irony.. heh) and today is going to be personality test day. :)

the profiler is interesting because it automatically compares your score to the average. me:
thorough - 3.70. how boringly normal! ;)
extroversion - 0.40. surprise, surprise. :P
agreeable - 4.65. do I have a need to be liked by others? hm.
emotionality - 4.80. yeah, I'm a basketcase.
openness - 5.00. I was worried about this until I figured out it means open to experience, not other people. I was about to have some sort of introverted identity crisis. ;)
3:40 PM +

•••    just to compile (because I feel like it): I'm a rational-architect, idealist-healer. yay.

(you know what? I bet my family would laugh at that healer stuff. but my hallmates wouldn't.)
3:18 PM +

•••    this one says I'm an intp. 10/10 introverted again, but 8/10 introspective and 6/9 thinking.

according to the statistics, istp is the rarest personality type. I can't think of any that I know. are you one?
3:10 PM +

•••    this character sorter says I'm infp (nf by one point over nt), 10/10 reserved, 6/9 prober.

I find the percentages a lot more interesting than the actual letters or the profiles. what does that say about my personality? ;)
2:59 PM +

•••    here's a new way to determine your myers-briggs personality type. you have to be decisive about your learning style - not especially easy.

I'm intp by a single letter over infp. the rest of the letters were all completely one way or the other. the part where I'm my own companion is definitely accurate. ;) this is pretty much the same result I get from the normal test - yeah xies. :)
2:27 PM +

•••    well, I screwed up yet another personality test. it took me three tries, but I finally got it to decide I'm a thinker. apparently we like controlled environments so much they decided to tell us twice. ;)
(use a junk mail address for this one, by the way.)
1:47 PM +

•••    apparently britney spears set some record by selling 1.3 million copies of oops... in its first week of release. I don't understand this. I understand the catchiness of the title song, but come on - doesn't anyone listen to the rest of the cd before buying it? I have nothing against top-40 pop-rock in general, but this album is boring. come on guys. this is what singles are for.

while I'm talking about things that are completely ridiculous, check out britney in japan. oy.
10:06 AM +

•••    ooohhh. :)

first thing I thought when I woke up and saw all the blue and green outside? I miss swat.
9:24 AM +

•••    remember what I said before about not being a mutant? maybe I was wrong. :P
(via loony)
2:51 AM +

•••    more bits and pieces. metrocake. I like it.
2:36 AM +

•••    from the list of little things that make me happy: sometimes, just as a cd is ending, I hear a piece of another one. usually I don't even realize what it is until I stop and think about it, but then I know what to listen to next. :) (this time it was guster.)
2:22 AM +

•••    I should just shut up and go watch star trek, huh. ;)
12:58 AM +

•••    okay, I have a question: what's up with dividing up your link lists? I don't mean categorizing like rick or faith, I mean things like "daily blogs" and "once-in-a-while blogs" or "favorite blogs" and "other blogs." I don't really get it. maybe I don't really get the point of link lists in the first place. mine is there because they're all blogs I like to visit at least once a day, if not more, and having them there makes them easy to get to. plus I think they all deserve links (there are more that deserve links, and I need to update my template.) I know which ones are my favorites; I see no reason to tell anyone else because it seems like that would mostly serve to hurt the people who aren't my favorites. maybe I am assuming people are thinner-skinned than they actually are. maybe this is a really dumb question - but I am curious. why?

note: this is not in any way directed at any particular person. I don't even have any particular site in mind. this is just something I was randomly thinking about.
12:57 AM +

friday, may 26

•••    also, I think the volume thing is exponential. it sure seems like it. so 7 is really quiet, given it's just a boom box and it can go up to 33 without damaging the speakers (it hurts my ears, though. ;)
11:43 PM +

•••    my through-the-wall-neighbor is complaining about my music. it is NOT loud. the volume is set on 7, out of 33. (I know, it's random.) the dishwasher makes five times as much noise as my radio. plus there's a whole wall in between us! jeez.
11:39 PM +

•••    
tina rocks today.
9:46 PM +

•••    both of my little siblings are having sleepovers tonight. whee.
8:50 PM +

•••    oh, this is just all I need right now. must... resist... websurfing... urge... (the sad thing is I can think of websites for five of the seven off the top of my head.)
(hunt link via the true power blogger)
8:26 PM +

•••    jeez, I need to get OFFLINE.
8:11 PM +

•••    hey! want to see some pretty rugby pictures? (I'm not completely finished with the rest of the site - but I'm getting closer!) check out the action shots especially. :)
7:57 PM +

•••    these photos don't do the glass flowers justice. I used to work at the harvard museums, so I tend to forget how cool they are - but they're a great place to bring visitors, because most people have never heard of them and would never have thought to visit on their own. visiting the mfa doesn't show off your insider's knowledge of the boston area. ;)
7:53 PM +

•••    poppycock's introduction starts like this: "OK, I'm Dean Loh, I'm a Chinese, I can speak English... ( what a cool opening? )". doesn't that just make you want to read more? and may I say I love the way this guys speaks english? seriously.
7:14 PM +

•••    I just discovered that meme is pronounced "meem." I always thought it was like mimi. I'm disappointed... this makes memepool a lot less fun to say. :P meempool. mimipool. no contest.
6:34 PM +

•••    www.interesting.com doesn't even look interesting!
6:01 PM +

•••    oh yay, I'm a power blogger. (I think I have reached the height of banality with this post.) and look, the little diamond means my site was updated within the last thirty three and a half minutes... the half minute is very important!
5:56 PM +

•••    you know, that wasn't what I had in mind either when I said I needed to blog something of substance. ;) but I got inspired... if you can call it that... and then I got carried away. it was fun. bwahaha. :D
5:30 PM +

•••    I have a lot of other prescriptions, too.
my behavioral psychiatrist told me that celebrex costs four dollars per tablet. that means I eat fifty-six dollars worth of just that one prescription every week! I don't even want to know about the others. ;P
5:26 PM +

•••    folate is a controlled substance too, in high enough doses. I have a prescription for one milligram a day, which has always seemed somewhat ridiculous to me.
4:42 PM +

•••    amitriptyline is a controlled substance used to treat ocd, depression, anxiety, and similar disorders. we give it to my psychotic cat... it turns her into a space cadet. it doesn't make her any nicer, though. :P
4:29 PM +

•••    the most hazardous substance I used regularly in the lab was ethidium bromide. I had to watch a video about the evil things that could happen if you ingested it, and how easy that was since it was always all over your hands. I changed my gloves a lot - but I didn't wear a lab coat except when I did radioactive stuff, and I didn't bother putting my pipette tips in the biohazardous sharps disposal container. my lab safety technique left a lot to be desired... but see, I haven't mutated or anything yet. ;)
4:23 PM +

•••    hazardous substance fact sheets - when you work in a lab, you get to memorize these. (or at least pretend to.) not nearly as much fun as radiation training. radiation training is a trip. ;P
4:02 PM +

•••    casa: center on addiction and substance abuse. more than just a think tank.
3:50 PM +

•••    I don't know how I missed this: a weblog named bits&pieces. different from my bits and pieces, which desperately need to be updated anyway.
I think I need to blog something of substance, and soon.
3:15 PM +

•••    tj's dark chocolate espresso beans - really really good, but not the best thing to eat when you're trying to get unsick. I'm pretty dumb sometimes. :P
2:35 PM +

•••    first the digital destiny machine told me my thumb wasn't giving off any vibes, and then it told me my monitor wasn't clean enough to get a good reading! so apparently my destiny is not to have a destiny . . . which suits me fine, actually. ;)
(via firda)
12:00 PM +

•••    hey! you can escape a black hole... if you can windsurf at a million miles an hour!
(have I mentioned lately that chandra is my favorite telescope?)
10:46 AM +

•••    I can sit up today, woo. :) I feel so out of touch with the whole internet now though. hmmph.
9:24 AM +

thursday, may 25

•••    this has been an interesting day, in the ancient-chinese-curse-interesting sense. I'm paler than elliott was at the end of e.t. blech.
3:31 PM +

•••    the ocean is exploding! this is better than a whale watch. :)
10:35 AM +

wednesday, may 24

•••    after reading brenda's rant about peta, I feel like babbling about veganism.

I'm an almost-vegan. (the almost part is because I eat honey and I still wear my old leather shoes.) I decided to give up animal products for many reasons: the entire world would be much better off if so many resources did not go towards the production of beef and pork; lots and lots of animals are mistreated every year; I had never liked milk in the first place and I was sick of having people look at me funny when I said I didn't want any pizza; I thought eliminating dairy and eating healthier foods in general might help alleviate some of my arthritis symptoms. besides, I really really really like vegetables.

in fact, my arthritis has gotten better over the past few years (though I can't say for certain that's because of my diet, since there has been lots of experimenting with my medication as well). my asthma has gotten steadily worse, but maybe it's better than it would have been if I hadn't adjusted my eating habits. I feel good that I'm helping, albeit in a tiny way, to prevent the mistreatment of animals. I feel good knowing that fewer cows making milk and beef means the water that would be used in raising them can be used much more economically in growing grains, and that less land will be clearcut and turned into grazing pastures.

surprisingly, though, none of those things are as rewarding for me as the feeling that I have stuck to being vegan and I have come to enjoy it much more than I thought I would. it was really hard at first. I missed things like cheesecake and codfish and scrambled eggs. I didn't like always reading ingredient labels to see if there was some hidden whey halfway down the list. It was a real struggle overcoming my shyness so that I could tell people I didn't eat anything involving animals. I always felt like I was somehow insulting people by rejecting the food they offered me. but I sucked it up, stuck it out, and made veganism an important part of who I am. it feels like an accomplishment. it's become something I'm proud of, in a way. that feels much better than any health benefit ever could.
11:53 PM +

•••    I just took the weirdest personality test ever. I still don't really know whether I ever do the right thing, but apparently I've reached the sixth stage of moral development. hm. (take the test first, by the way. it will probably wreck it if you know what its basis is for scoring you.)
11:12 PM +

•••    at the dinner table tonight:
mom: my sister -
my eight year old brother: you could just call her bobbie.
mom: but then everyone might think I'm talking about my husband.
brother: but he's bob... or, as I call him, blubber-belly.
mom: (pause) you call him lover boy?
me: (choking on my salad)
moral of the story: comedy begins at home.
8:28 PM +

•••    beautiful pictures, rick! :) yay!
6:56 PM +

•••    while I was walking in the south end today, I saw a man with no arms. he was sitting on a ledge outside the hard rock cafe, wearing nothing but a pair of shiny peach-colored pants, with a smoking cigarette between his toes.
6:38 PM +

•••    I've been going through my old books and re-reading some of my favorites. this morning I read "paddington on top," and I discovered something wonderful: paddington plays rugby! I know I've read this book before, several times at least, but I never really understood what rugby was, so that whole chapter was pretty much meaningless to me. now I get all the jokes... and it's just so much fun to read about rugby in a children's book. :)
10:15 AM +

tuesday, may 23

•••    if I'm half as interesting as raza when I graduate from college, I'll be happy.
10:23 PM +

•••    cybering looks like it will turn into something interesting, if enough people get involved. the observations art nixie made about communication through instant messages were spot on.
10:09 PM +

•••    rick is back from europe! I want pictures! :)
9:50 PM +

•••    no one conducts stravinsky better than stravinsky. :)
9:27 PM +

•••    hanson's music isn't generic pop crap. it's pop, but it's not especially generic, and it certainly isn't crap considering where it comes from. two thirds of those kids are younger than I am, and I couldn't write hooks like that.

on the subject of guilty pleasures (since I actually don't listen to hanson)... Loveline. not that I ever intentionally listen or watch, but when I come across it station or channel surfing, I'll stop. it's embarassing, but adam carolla almost always cracks me up, and dr. drew is just so endearingly nice. plus the fact that he's classically trained in opera is so weird that it's cool.
2:46 PM +

•••    for once I'm surprised by one of these random test results. I am a balanced believer, not a total skeptic. woo!
2:13 PM +

•••    this is one of the reason why I love astronomy: even something like io, which is in our solar system and can be seen from earth with just a simple refractor, is still full of surprises - not to mention pretty pictures. :)
1:56 PM +

•••    I've been perusing the new blogs, and there are two that I really enjoyed reading.
ill-repute is one of the funniest blogs I've seen so far - check out the description of her dream on saturday.
the author of toxicflux has a really good writing voice. she seems very spirited. and unlike a lot of blogs (including this one), there's other content that's worth some exploration.
10:13 AM +

monday, may 22

•••    I think I need to spend more time with my best friend.
11:16 PM +

•••    I am confused about the hullabaloo about this non-negative blogging thing. granted, some of the wording may be a little strong (pledge in particular), but I can't figure out why so many people are comparing it to brainwashing and censorship. for one thing, no one is actually telling anyone else what they can or can't say. people are making public statements about what they themselves want to do with their blogs. the only censorship going on is self-censorship, which everyone does all the time! or am I the only person who has a filter between my brain and my mouth (and fingers)?

I think faith made a really good comment when she said "I will not pledge not to 'negative' blog because I really do not know what that means." from my perspective, that's sort of the point. you decide what it means for you, and I'll decide what it means for me.

if this was turning into a case of people blindly signing up just so they could slap a button on their websites, that would be bad. but I don't see that happening at all. I think everyone is considering the meaning behind their comments before they make them. so in that sense, the non-negative blogging page has completely served its purpose. thinking is good.
3:32 PM +

•••    the ups people just delivered my rugby ball. I made the air pump all hot and burning-rubber-smelling because I pumped it so fast. it's amazing how nice it feels to have a rugby ball in my hands again - finger familiarity is a comforting thing. the ball is sitting in my lap now. I've always been an athlete, but I never thought I would be in love with a sport. now I am... rugby really is a disease you catch.
2:41 PM +

•••    it's always nice when someone you admire gives you a compliment. I'm blushing (really).
2:13 PM +

•••    I played with the pets all morning. we have a lot - including one drugged-up space cadet of a cat - but I have a special bond with my lovebird. I hand-trained him when he was a hatchling, and even though we haven't really seen each other much lately, he will still stick his head inside my mouth and kiss my tongue. (it's not gross, really.) we beak-wrestled for a while, too. I tried to get him to dance, but that didn't really work. so I danced with my dog instead. :)
1:42 PM +

•••    look at that sidebar - yet another webring. I am resisting joining blog girls, because I feel weird about the whole gender thing, but at this rate that might not last. soon I'll have more new neighbors... :)
1:35 AM +

sunday, may 21

•••    I just burned a perfect little circle into my thumb (by accident). the way it's blistering makes it look like my thumb is crying.
10:40 PM +

•••    I hate mensa, but I took the test on a dare. I got them all right, but I don't think that means much more other than I have learned how to take these dumb tests. thank you, college board. :P

while I'm on the mensa website - how does being elitist and labeling people as "bright" benefit humanity as a whole? I think giving anyone a reason to say "my iq is higher than yours!" is a detriment to society. and if you're so damn smart, why do you need a society to help you find intellectual stimulation? I know I don't.
8:52 PM +

•••    two long posts in a row, eek.
8:43 PM +

•••    when I was little (and when I was bigger, too), cricket was my favorite magazine. I read it cover to cover and back again every month. we had all these old copies, from as early as 1978 - three years before I was born - and I read those over and over, too. in fact, my favorite cricket story ever is from june, 1979. it's about space exploration. :)

zoot was my favorite "bug" for years. I loved the way the cricket and ladybug (and friends) strips were done in black and white, so they were little more than sillhouettes. I saved all the magazines on my bookshelf, and when I ran out of room I put them in empty cheerios boxes.

when I was nine I drew a picture for the monthly art contest and sent it in. it was a picture of "special treasures" - it had a teddy bear with one eye, a sea urchin, my heart locket, a smooth spotted rock, and little ceramic shoes that my grandmother brought back from holland. it won first prize - I don't think I have ever been so shocked in my life as when I got the letter of congratulations - and it was published in the february 1991 issue of cricket. I remember the day it came... I was home sick from school, and my mother was about to go out and leave me alone for a few hours. she was on her way out the door when the mail came. I remember she had this big grin on her face when she handed me the magazine. I still have it on my shelf. it has dinosaurs on the cover.

I sort of stopped reading cricket in high school (I was too busy with harper's and the new yorker and astronomy, I guess :P) , and the few times I did pick it up, it felt a lot less sophisticated than I remembered. cricket's adventures were all in color. zoot was less neurotic and had become just sort of weird. there were all these new bugs I had never heard of before. ugly bird was nice sometimes. just like sesame street, cricket was becoming more and more bland... the stories were still good, sometimes, but I missed the cricket I used to take to bed with me and read by flashlight under the covers.

today I picked up the latest issue (my family still subscribes; in fact, it's still my name on the address label). it still wasn't the way I remember it from my elementary school days... but it was a good read, and it made me want to find those old tattered copies that I saved in cereal boxes.

it's summer vacation. what better things do I have to do?
8:31 PM +

•••    so ben brown says that no one is creating content anymore, and that we should all be writing more. (writing, not linking, apparently.)

I think that's silly. I create content, lots of it. all the time. I have this fat little blue notebook that I write in with my turquoise pen. I write lists of things I'm thinking about; I write bits of poems or things that might eventually be poems; I write observations about the rest of the world; I write to try and sort out the mess inside my head; I write down my plans for the next two hours and the next twenty years; I write long angsty things about being lonely and long happy things about being alone.

I write emails that I know I won't send. I write my dreams down. even when I don't write, I talk to myself. I relate my life to myself, over and over as I walk down the street - and sometimes I tell stories, the stories I want to tell but I can't. sometimes I tell them to people who aren't there. sometimes I tell them to my stuffed penguin. sometimes I tell them to no one at all except the air around me.

I am a master at personal narrative. sometimes some of it slips out at other places on the web. sometimes I find ways to make it vague enough that I can post it without feeling funny about it. but for the most part, I am really, really shy. I'm all i and no e.

my point? weblogging is not doing anything to my content output. if anything, it's made it easier for me to come out of my shell, in little ways.

I still don't think this is meaningless.

4:54 PM +

•••    I spent most of today on geroge's island, running around fort warren. it was cold, especially on the boat across the harbor, but that was good because it meant there weren't a lot of people on the island. fort warren is fun - it has all sorts of pitch-black tunnels and winding stairways. from the top of the parapet you can see downtown boston on one side and the ocean on the other. and you can throw a frisbee really, really far. ;)
2:59 PM +

•••    you know what's freaky? when you click on your "edit your blog" page, which had been sitting there unattended for a good five minutes, and you find it relentlessly and silently transferring file(s). over and over and over and over.
help, my blog is haunted!
7:26 AM +

•••    okay - I got up early so I could take a shower and get myself out of here by eight o'clock, not so I could go websurfing! ::thwapthwap::
7:19 AM +