Hitting the wall

Haven't been blogging much. Haven't been working much. Haven't been drawing much. Haven't been doing much of anything except reading a lot of escapist fiction (Terry Pratchett and Frank Herbert if you want to know).

I'm hitting a wall. Will update when I feel more like a human and less like a slug.

The fate of tattoos

I'm taking Immunology this sem with labmate Angela and boyfriend Steve (and my poor engineer is going to die of acronym bombardment, he's not used to us biologists). So far we're going over the basics...classes of immune cells, the difference between adaptive and innate immunity and whatnot.

If you're a layperson reading this and want to know a bit about immunology I recommend Lennart Nilsson's dramatically beautiful The Body Victorious - you can see some pics from it here. He's most famous for A Child Is Born, which is the one that has all those neat pictures of fetuses.

Anyway, the prof today was talking about macrophages, which are big cells that eat things (you can basically figure it out from the name if you know Greek). One slide was about tattoos, and it finally answered the question I've been wondering about, which is why don't the macrophages eat up the tattoo ink and carry it away?
(Slide copyright Gary A. Splitter)

Actually, I like Sgt. Colon's explanation better (from Terry Pratchett's Jingo, which I think should be recommended reading for all citizens of any nation with a military):

"Sarge," said Nobby, as they looked out at the wonders of the deep.
"Yes, Nobby?"
"You know they say every tiny part of your body is replaced every seven years?"
"A well-known fact," said Sergeant Colon.
"Right. So...I've got a tattoo on my arm, right? Had it done eight years ago. So...how come it's still there?"
Giant seaweeds winnowed the gloom.
"Interesting point," quavered Colon. "Er..."
"I mean, okay, new tiny bits of skin float in, but that means it ought to be all new and pink by now."
A fish with a nose like a saw swam past.
In the middle of all of his other fears, Sergeant Colon tried to think fast.
"What happens," he said, "is that all the blue skin bits are replaced by other blue skin bits. Off'f other peoople's tattoos."
"So...I've got other people's tattoos now?"
"Er...yes."
"Amazing. 'cos it still looks like mine. 's got the crossed daggers and 'WUM.'"
"Wum?"
"It was gonna be 'Mum' but I passed out and Needle Ned didn't notice I was upside down."

MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA! 1 day late

FlowerMoonFish brought me a miniature flag which is now pinned to my backpack. I'm waiting for the first jackass to ask me why it looks so much like the US flag, and the answer is going to be "It's a symbol of how good we are at pirating Hollywood movies."

My coworkers are Colombian...they're nearly 200...it makes me feel like we're such a little baby country.

My [maternal] grandfather's birthday was also yesterday (obviously he's older than Malaysia). So was Steve's. We're in Milwaukee at his parents' home now.

I brought along some nitrocellulose scraps from lab to blow up (molecular biology labs have big rolls of nitrocellulose for DNA and protein analysis). We tried a small bit first, about 2cm square, and it barely went poof. Then we wrapped a bigger piece around a squib and that was MUCH more satisfying. ^_^

Steve's dad got all enthu about the explosives (did I mention they're a gun culture family?) and brought out three Roman candles. We stood around in the backyard eating ice cream cake and yelling "HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEVE!" "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALAYSIA!" and "HAPPY BIRTHDAY HWA'S GRANDPA!"

theSun (a free ad-supported newspaper, the only mainstream English paper that's not owned by a political party) had this really funny headline: Zam accuses theSun of promoting 'Malaysian Malaysia':

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 28, 2007): Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin said today Gerakan adviser Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik's assumption that the Malay and Chinese newspapers favour certain parties and are not fair to all the races was inaccurate.

On the contrary, in many issues, "the Chinese and Malay newspapers are fairer to Malaysia than certain English newspapers.

"To say that theSun newspaper is a champion of Bangsa Malaysia shows that Dr Lim Keng Yaik sympathises with the newspaper which has all this while fought more for (the DAP's) 'Malaysian Malaysia'. "In many issues, theSun newspaper has touched on matters that offend the Malays, including the special rights of the Malays, the New Economic Policy (NEP), the social contract among the races that was agreed upon before Merdeka and also the question of unity in the society," he told a news conference after attending an "Anak-anak Merdeka and Malaysia" gathering in Angkasapuri here today.

(Anak-anak Merdeka are those born on Aug 31, 1957, when the country achieved independence and the Anak Malaysia are those born when Malaysia was formed on Sept 16, 1963.)

Lim, who is Energy, Water and Telecommunications Minister, was quoted as saying in Penang on Sunday (Aug 26) that theSun had used the Malaysian approach compared with the other newspapers, which according to him, were biased towards certain parties.

I suspect theSun's reporters of using a very fine sense of irony to say things that you can't say out loud...like "DS Zam is a moron."

btw, check out FMF's Merdeka blog entry - it's the lyrics of a hymn about Malaysia in the Malay language (Bahasa Melayu or BM for short). For readers from the US, given how flag-waving so often goes along with professions of love for "Jaysus Chr'ahst!" it might be hard to understand why it's important for Malaysian Christians, as racial and religious minorities, to be patriotic...take my word for it, a lot of people find it hard. The song translates roughly (sorry my Malay sucks):

Jesus is the king who is worthy to be lifted up
Worthy to be worshiped by all the nations
With Your blood, You've redeemed my nation
Fulfil, God, Your word on to country

My heart longs to see Your glory
My heart longs to see Your power poured out
In the beloved land, Malaysia my glory
I pray Malaysia will be full of Your glory
Malaysia for your glory

Happy 50th Malaysia!