Weird Things About Me

Firefly's tag

Rule:

• "Each player of this game starts with the “6 weird things about you”. People who get tagged need to write a blog post of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names."

I'm so normal it's sad. I'm really racking my brain here to think of something weird. I'm just boring.

1. I like food, but rarely feel motivated to eat. I mean hunger is not physically unpleasant for me, and often I don't notice that I haven't eaten all day until I move suddenly and feel a rush of dizziness. I've started working out to kick-start my appetite, but all it does is make me feel thirsty, so I drink lots of water and feel even less hungry. According to some, I need a keeper.

2. I'm happy alone. Not happiest, just content. I will go for a couple of days without talking to anyone or taking calls. It used to freak friends and family out, but I've trained them to get used to it. During my alone time I'm not doing any soul-searching or anything, I'm just recuperating from the little socializing I do the rest of the time.

3. I have these moments of complete shock at my existence, and a niggling suspicion that everything (me, the world, other people) is a dream in someone else's head. I can bring them on, but most often they take me by surprise. The first time I had this feeling I was about 9, and running away from home (which consisted of running away to my aunt's at the other end of town). I was on the bus, and this lady came on the bus with four little kids; they were crying and screaming and the lady was so overwhelmed I decided to entertain the little brats. Soon they were laughing and sitting still and the lady was so grateful. My stop approached and I decided to stay on the bus because one of the little ones was sleeping in my lap. That's when I had this surreal feeling that I wasn't real. It was freaky, to say the least. Since then it comes on maybe once or twice a year. I just sit still for a bit until I've convinced myself that it doesn't matter anyway.

4. That's it, that's all I can think of, except...

5. I don't know 6 people to tag!

To Autumn

Another poem written by John Keats, one of my favorite Romantic poets. The third stanza is just incredibly beautiful, from the rhetorical question to the pensive answer.

1.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Communication and Commitment

Are the two most dangerous words in the English language. They mean nothing and everything.

It's all fungi to me

I love taking pictures of insects and flowers and stuff that I can zoom in on :) Mushrooms I like because of the textures, and because the scale can be mind-bending.

A Day at the Beach

A fisher man threw this fish away, and kids ran over to watch it flop about. Apparently, it's got botulism, so the fisherman wouldn't let me toss back in the water. Kinda sad.

Bus Stop Companions

Mike and The Mechanics - "The Living Years"

I heard this song on the radio today and loved the lyrics.

I posted the music video from Youtube but it's been pulled. I found a live version which I actually like more. Hope it sticks around.

How You Live Your Life

You are honest and direct. You tell it like it is. You tend to avoid confrontation and stay away from sticky situations. Your friends tend to be a as quirky as you are - which is saying a lot! You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Slow and Steady

Your friends see you as painstaking and fussy. They see you as very cautious, extremely careful, a slow and steady plodder. It'd really surprise them if you ever did something impulsively or on the spur of the moment. They expect you to examine everything carefully from every angle and then usually decide against it.

How Do People See You?

It's the little details that kill me, like the garter belt with the folded bills.

I'm self-absorbed and uncaring

This is no epiphany, and nothing new to me. I've always known that I'm not moved by passions and emotions in the same way that most other people are. I just can't get worked up over things. Whether it's anger, joy, jealousy, or despair, nothing people do really gets to me. I also can't read people's emotions very well, and when they tell me how they do feel (having given up on hinting), I'm surprised and baffled. Family and friends have been pointing all this out for years, so I've come to accept it, and mostly shrug it off. The problem is that lately I feel embattled, forced to concede that there's something wrong with me, rather than with all these irrational people who keep wallowing in hormone-induced emotions. And I sometimes resent the stereotyping and occasional snide comments. My ex used to drive me crazy (I lie, it was only mildly annoying) by going on about how I should be more spontaneous, I should express how I feel (ie, be clingy), and I could be more considerate. I wasn't demanding enough, would you believe? So I've developed a complex about this, and the only time I do get irrationally frustrated is when someone demands that I talk to them about how I feel. My heart starts pounding, palms get sweaty, mouth gets dry, the whole nine yards. I frantically search for something, anything, to throw out and appease the questioner. I've learned that it doesn't even matter if what I say makes sense, and in fact the less sensible the better! By hearing something neurotic and unjustified, people feel as if they've been given insight into the core of my being. They go away satisfied, I go away relieved.

The problem is my current boyfriend. I love him, I really do (yes yes, ceeb calayk nayaa). And I know he loves me in return. But there's already this tension that arises when he asks me to tell him what I'm really feeling. Or he says that I get lost in my own head, or that my responses are a little cooler or slower than his. So I feel a little tense, unable to be fake with him because he makes me want to be myself, and yet worried that I lack depth of feeling and my shallowness is off-puting. What I like about him is that occasionally he'll take a step back and admit that maybe, just maybe, he's not being entirely reasonable. We haven't known each other that long, I'm still getting over the ex, and we don't even see enough of each other anyway. But we don't see enough of each other. Surely I could be a little more open and honest to make the best of the time we are together. I try, I really do, but there's this niggling feeling that I'm going to lose him because I'm self-absorbed and uncaring.

Living in Sin

Adrienne Rich

She had thought the studio would keep itself; no dust upon the furniture of love. Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal, the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears, a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat stalking the picturesque amusing mouse had risen at his urging. Not that at five each separate stair would writhe under the milkman's tramp; that morning light so coldly would delineate the scraps of last night's cheese and three sepulchral bottles; that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own--- envoy from some village in the moldings . . . Meanwhile, he, with a yawn, sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard, declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror, rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes; while she, jeered by the minor demons, pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found a towel to dust the table-top, and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove. By evening she was back in love again, though not so wholly but throughout the night she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming like a relentless milkman up the stairs.

Steve Irwin (1962-2006)

Steve Irwin, the Aussie zoologist better known as "The Crocodile Hunter" died today. He was filming stingrays off the coast of Queensland and one stung him through the heart. The loss of such a sincere, exuberant person is a real blow. I've often watched his show with bemused affection and assumed, like most people, that he'd never actually be killed while while whispering passionately about one dangerous creature or another. His family must be devastated.

Flower Redux

It rained. Again I got bit by something. That, or the flower is poisonous or something.

Isn't It Pretty?

What's not pretty is the goose-egg I got from some insect that bit me while taking the picture. A quarter-sized bump over my left eyebrow, and painful too. I should take a picture in case it turns out to be the first recorded contact between giant alien insects and mankind.

India.Arie and Akon "I'm Not My Hair"

Wicked good.


Upload music at Bolt.

The Gate to Women's Country

Sheri S. Tepper is an American science fiction author who explores gender, conflict and the environment in her often excellent novels (though they do have definite flaws). I was introduced to her by a friend who loaned me The Gate to Women's Country when I was a freshman in college. It's a sort of utopian tale: after a terrible war, society in America becomes matriarchal, with the women living in towns and essentially running things while men live outside in military installations and make war on the men of other towns. That may sound terrible rather than utopian, but really mostly the men play at war to appease their basic confrontational nature, while the women manage the economy and society with careful attention to preserving the environment. I don't really remember the plot, except that it seemed kind of depressing to me at 18. I was the kind of feminist who believed that men were really reasonable creatures who could actually see the inherent appeal of making society fairer for all involved (given proper encouragement and training of course). Our job as feminists was to loosen the death grip of patriarchy so that an egalitarian future would be the natural heritage of our children. Truth be told I thought American women had little to complain about, compared to what Somali women have to suffer. But I figured even Somali society could be changed without resorting to segregation of the sexes. We already have that, thank you very much, and it's no utopia. Now a more jaded and older me wonders if Tepper's idea doesn't have some merit. However, it's idle speculation only;, I'd get martial on anyone who actually tried to remove the lovely men in my life.

Anyway, I was helping my friend (not the same one) move today and found the book among her collection and I think I will re-read it. It's been sufficiently long enough to forget most of it, so it should be enjoyable. I'll give a second review if anything else strikes me (which I promised for The Years of Salt and Rice but honestly, I lost that book on a trip).

Little Britain

My friends and I discovered this awesomely hilarious show a few weeks ago. Yesterday, I dropped a pipette in the lab, then yelped for some reason. A post doc came running up and asked me why I yelled out, and I said "Because I am a lady!", then started laughing hysterically. Unfortunately it's a British show and the second season is not available on US DVDs yet. Argh.

"I'm the only gay in the village."

And about time too

I finally watched Serenity. I was frightfully busy while it was in theatres, plus I don't like watching amazingly choreographed flight sequences on a giant screen (sarcasm), but I finally saw it last night in the comfort of my cramped apartment. Like millions of others, I didn't even know about Firefly while it was airing on Fox, and only found out about it after I saw my friend's DVD collection. I thought it was a little much to buy several DVDs for a show that was so bad it had to be cancelled! Then I watched said DVDs and was blown away. I won't try to explain the appeal, but it's the best scifi series ever. Unlike many other fans of the series, I actually hate scifi tv shows. I love novels, and I can enjoy some movies, but shows just bore me to tears, not to mention making me cringe a little. The skimpy outfits, the anachronistic pop culture-speak, the humanoid aliens. Trekkie I am not. So Firefly was quite an experience for me, and I'm devoutly hoping it gets "uncancelled" (the exact lingo used in the industry, ya know). Serenity was quite, quite good, and I plan to buy the DVD after a while so I can watch it again and again. By "after a while", I'm delicately saying that I'm so broke I couldn't fork over the $20 bucks if I wanted to eat in the next week. Gorram student stipend.

I love Rob Thomas, I love Rob Thomas, I love Rob Thomas

"Ever the Same"

We were drawn from the weeds
We were brave like soldiers
Falling down under the pale moonlight
You were holding to me
Like a someone broken
And I couldn't tell you but I'm telling you now

Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you so we both fall down

Fall on me
Tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you forever in me
Ever the same

We would stand in the wind
We were free like water
Flowing down
Under the warmth of the sun
Now it's cold and we're scared
And we've both been shaken
Look at us
Man, this doesn't need to be the end

Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you so we both fall down

Fall on me tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same
Call on me
I'll be there for you and you'll be there for me
Forever it's you
Forever in me
Ever the same

You may need me there
To carry all your weight
But you're no burden I assure
You tide me over
With a warmth I'll not forget
But I can only give you love

Talib at Yale

I read a really fantastic article in the New York Times Magazine on Rahmatullah Hashemi, better known as the Taliban's "roving diplomat" before their demise (he even appears on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911). Hashemi is a freshman at Yale, studying polsci; the article is both sympathetic and comprehensive. A great read and currently available online (click on title).

Speaking of food...

I know the famine in East Africa is old news, but we keep getting ever more grim news about the number of people at risk (now estimated at 11 M), the delay in rain, and the puny nature of donations so far. How can people die of starvation in the 21st century?

Browsing...

Eating the Somali Way is a short page on Somali foods, with an intriguing recipe for a crabmeat stew! I've got to give it a try soon, I didn't even know Somalis ate crustaceans.

Public speaking

I had to give a PowerPoint presentation yesterday morning. About 200 people in the audience, mostly graduate students, faculty, and applicants to the graduate program being recruited by the school. I hate hate hate public speaking. Fortunately, there's a pretty rigid formula for these things: give background of project, some theories, research design and protocols, and preliminary results. Then field questions, which is the hardest part since it's not scripted. I was okay for the most part, except when this nasty nasty nasty researcher--whose lab is in "competition" with ours--needled me about some small insignificant point. I was very firm and polite at first, but covert hostility freaks me out, and I ended up just staring at him after he wouldn't let it go. Fortunately the dean is a really nice person and jumped to my (or rather my project's) defense.

I've resolved never to answer questions from that man. If he raises his hand and someone else also has a question, I will ignore him. If he's the only one with a question, I will ignore him.

And to think I nearly went to the b@stard's lab.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sarah McLachlan gets all conscientious

World On Fire


View more video clips at Yashi

The Years of Rice and Salt

I've read a few more chapters. Remember the little African boy I mentioned before? I thought he was going to be a bit player but he turns out to be a major character. Kyu ends up wreaking havoc in vengeance for being made into a eunuch. First, after much planning and thought, he kills his "owner", steals money from him and sets fire to the city to facilitate his escape (when his fellow slave Bold is shocked at the fire, Kyu replies rather callously that "They are Chinese, there's more than enough to take their place"). With forged papers and his friend Bold acting as his owner, Kyu decides to travel to the Chinese capital to kill the Emperor because,

They'll conquer the whole world, cut all the boys, and all the children will be theirs, and the whole world will end up Chinese.

It made me laugh. Next, after arriving at the capital he causes all kinds of problems for the emperor and his heir, which ends with the death of both Kyu and Bold. But no fear. Apparently there's an afterlife and Kyu is confronting the Lord of Death for judgement in the current chapter. Knowing Kyu, it's the Lord of Death who'll have to justify his actions.

The novel is written in a sort of Asian style. There are impromptu little poems when plain prose won't do justice to the descriptions. Chapters end with personal invitations to continue:

We are as shocked as you are by this development, and don't know what happened next, but no doubt the next chapter will tell us.

It was a little jarring the first time, but one gets used to it. Plus it's a little entertaining and occasionally foreshadows nicely.

The Prodigal

Shot
My back itches to kiss the wall
But my feet stay rooted
Out of my hands the raw rice drifts down
Like leaves on a dead tree
Like blood
Shout
A stranger waves
A demon strapped to his back
He laughs and embraces me
Little sister how you’ve grown
I hold still
Sweat and gunpowder surround me

This, according to "plant collector" Frank Horwood, is a Spiny-tailed Uromastyx, found in northeastern Somalia (from Mudug to Bari, maybe?). Uromastyx macfadyeni, the likely species of this example, is, according to a reptile shop in Temecula, California, a sexually dimorphic species with the males being bright sky blue to turquoise green with yellow and tan spotting on their backs. Females are duller, with more tan and brown and indigo blue coloring on their faces and forelegs. They tend to be shy at first but warm up after awhile. Their movements are quick and they are very alert and curious.
They are being sold at a few pet stores, and appear to fetch a nice price because of their rarity. I think they are pretty and interesting (the previous link provides some gorgeous pictures). Growing up in the Mudug region, I recall being in mortal terror of giant lizards (abeeso), big enough to swallow a recalcitrant child--much like their carnivorous cousins the crocodiles. Uromastyx seems to be no bigger than a gerbil, but I was a lot smaller then.

He really posed for it!

 

What I am reading right now...

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's an alternate history type of novel, describing what would happen if the Great Plague had wiped out virtually all Europeans instead of 1/3 or so that actually died. The blurb describes,

...[A] universe where the first ship to reach the New World travels across the Pacific Ocean from China and colonization spreads from west to east. This is a universe where the Industrial Revolution is triggered by the world's greatest scientific minds--in India. This is a universe where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions and Christianity is merely a historical footnote.

All very intriguing, and I'm certainly enjoying the first few chapters. I was excited to see Mogadishu on a map provided at the beginning of the first section, but so far it is only mentioned in passing. And then only as an "Arab trading post". Oh well, maybe later on we will get a loving description of Hawl Wadaag and Jidka Sodonka...

Scifi.com has a review, which I haven't read since I hate reading reviews before I read the book (or watch the movie). I got the book from a friend, who though I might enjoy it.

I'll write a few notes here later, as I'm reading the book. So far the most hair-raising thing I've read in a while details the castration of a skinny African boy by Chinese slavetraders. *Shudders* I actually gasped out loud at a key scene. You know, the FGM practiced in Somalia and other parts of Africa has always struck me as a particularly mean-spirited act carried out by women who had to undergo the same procedure themselves, so they take it out on the younger generation (if it had to happen to me, why not her?). In Robinson's book, the eunuch who purchases the slaves is said to have the same mentality, hating men who are "intact". When people explain evil, they don't give enough credit to simple xaasidnimo.

Well, back to the novel for me.

First, the Keats poem that inspired my blog name. It contains the famous line--

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

It's a fine, quotable poem and rolls off the tongue without too much difficulty. Enjoy.

muahaha.