Furball bulletin

My mum is really cute about the way she writes things. This is an SMS from her 2 nights ago:

Lina has just eaten a lizard! Earlier she came back with a grasshopper but Pa threw the g over the balcony. FMF and I hope your cat will be ok.

I replied:

i think she'll b fine she ate a baby cicak last week di. thx 4 letting me know.

Later when the parents called mum said that she had gone out AGAIN after eating the gecko and picked up something that made her foam at the mouth. Oh well, as long as she doesn't eat something that's nasty enough to kill her outright she'll learn what's not good to eat. Silly little hunter.

Anyway, I'm now staying in Singapore with my first younger sister (FlowerMoonFish is my second younger sister) and our brother, the youngest, is sponging off us. I'm going to start a new job soon so hopefully I won't be sponging much longer. FMF has left home for a semester abroad at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies (wooooo...). For convenience's sake I'm going to refer to my sis and bro as Grace and Pax, which are partial translations of their Chinese names, 'cos their initials are kind of weird-sounding.

Something I saw in Singapore you probably wouldn't see in Malaysia: A young Malay family with a little girl and a little boy going out in nice clothes for Raya, but dressed all in black, and the parents made up like Goths and heavily tattooed. The father had "tribal" tattoos that extended up to the sides of his face and the mother had tattoos of Buddha and other Buddhist motifs on her upper arms which were visible because her kebaya was see-through. It was very cute in the way that innocent teenagers shopping at Hot Topic are cute, except that the little boy had horrifically rotten front teeth.

I found a job!

Had a phone interview last Wednesday morning, going down to Singapore next Sunday, going to go to the lab on Wednesday. Dunno how long it's going to take to get a Singapore work permit sorted.


The reason I haven't been blogging is that I don't feel inspired enough to do bloody anything when I'm unemployed. Lying around reading novels all day is something I rather enjoy (as my brother said after watching Lina in action, "I want to be a cat when I grow up. Lie around all day and don't do anything."). Any ambitions about doing more writing or drawing or in silico molecular work out the window. It's funny but I work more on my hobbies when I work more at...work, too.


My first younger sister got a job as a social worker - apparently they're in high demand. She's bonded to work in "the little red dot" for three years because she had a scholarship to go to NUS. One of my parents' old friends, a lady who used to teach us how to bake cookies when we were small, was visiting and said:
Aunty: I heard you got a job in Singapore! Very good ah, maybe you can find a Singaporean guy at your workplace. Where are you going to work?
Sis: Woodbridge.

Our brother's gone down to JB and is bumming around, dancing and teaching dance part-time, and learning how to drive.

So it's just FlowerMoonFish and me at home with our parents. She's going to England for a semester, the lucky dog.

The other thing I've been doing is playing travel agent for my soon-to-be-in-laws and their in-laws who are coming to Penang for our wedding in December...

In transit, again

Haven't been blogging for the last few days because I've been preparing to end my life - my life as a grad student in Madison, that is. A move this big, now that I make one as a fully conscious adult, is disorienting... The last book I read in America was EO Wilson's "The Insect Societies" and given the jokes about how students are larval scientists, I cannot shake the image of a young queen eclosing from its pupal skin. I had to throw away so many things that I had hung on to for years, which I thought were part of my life.

Anyway, I'm in the Taipei airport now, last stop before landing in Penang - home for my parents in their childhoods, home for them for the last two years, and now temporarily for me. It's very amusing that I'm taller than most of the women and a fair number of the men here.

The highlight of the trip so far was an electronic blooper by United on the O'Hare-San Francisco leg. The in-flight mag said they were showing The Soloist. So I started reading the dumb SkyMall catalogue. Then suddenly Star Trek came on! We watched till the end of the scene where the Kelvin gets blown up by the Romulans and then a stewardess announced "Ladies and gentlemen, sorry for the mistake. I tlooks like the wrong movie was programmed into the digital video player. I will try to get The Soloist playing, otherwise it looks like you'll have to watch Star Trek."

After a very disappointing 15 minutes of messing around with the video signal and no "Soloist", the voice came back: "All right, Trekkies..." So I got to watch ST twice. And I still think Zachary Quinto as young Spock is hot =)

I shipped the cat by Korean Air Cargo. Her cage had to be labelled "LIVE ANIMAL" and I expect to receive her in the same condition. Fingers crossed the Penang Dept. of Veterinary Services won't quarantine her...she's got all her shots.

Things about America

Bad first good last.

Things I will not miss about the USA (bear in mind that some of these are probably Midwest- or Wisconsin-specific):

• Coffeeshops that close at 7 while bars stay open till 2 (so not fair!) 24/7 mamak stalls are one of the good things about living in a Muslim country.
• White people who can't grasp the concept that another person can be ethnic Chinese and a Malaysian citizen, not "Maylay" despite the fact that their ancestors aren't from here either.
• Winter.
• Exorbitant prices of eating out. I mean, seven bucks for a basic lunch? (Fast food doesn't count.)
• Lack of ceiling fans in most apartments and houses. Sucks in the summer.
• People whining about mortgages, car payments, and credit cards balances. You don't have money don't buy stuff la!
• Can't get good fish cheap.
• Having to "give" away recyclable trash for free instead of getting money from the "sau kau pou chi" (old newspapers) man.
• Bloody expensive farmers' markets.
• The inability of Americans to repair the technologies they invented. If you have an electronic thingy that breaks and it's out of warranty you're screwed.
• The inability to walk into a hospital to get some minor health problem seen to before it turns into a major one, and the lack of private general practitioners.
• People who are allergic to everything.
• Bloody expensive mobile phone plans and the near-impossibility of finding a good and simple prepaid service. (Einstein Wireless National Prepaid...they're not offering it any more but I got grandfathered in.)
• Stupid people who ride motorcycles with no helmets.

Things I will miss about the USA:

• Public libraries that are in the middle of town instead of the middle of nowhere and have books that people actually want to read.
• Being able to bike around shirtless in hot weather (I wear a sports bra OK!).
• Spring, summer, and fall. Hot weather is more interesting when there's contrast.
• The existence of a minimum wage for poor people. It's painful to strike up a conversation with some old aunty and find that she earns RM 300 a month.
• Good Internet connections. You think AT&T sucks, try TMnet.
• Clean toilets. Although I have to admit the ones in malls and highway stops are slightly better every time I go home, restaurants/coffeeshops are still pretty bad.
• Being able to enjoy stuff at a university even if you're not affiliated with it (e.g. members of the public can buy Wisconsin Union memberships).
• Municipal waste recycling.
• Being able to sleep with my cat, at least until I get my own place. Pa banned animals in the house.
• Good cheese and ice cream that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
• Seeing retarded people on the buses. US society is a lot more accepting of handicapped people than Malaysia and does a better job of helping them to live their own lives.
• Drinking fountains. I don't care if you're from Milwaukee, it's not a "bubbler".
• Not being eaten alive by mosquitoes after 6pm.
• Anti-discrimination laws.
• My friends.

Babyproofing

[a while ago]
L: They told me to take like eight ibuprofen and have a friend drive me there. I was like "It can't possibly be that painful!" so I didn't take enough ibuprofen. I drove home in agony.

Mama: You know in Malaysia they banned IUDs for women who haven't been pregnant before?

[some time this afternoon...]
Me: I feel okay actually. That was less painful than I was afraid it would be based on what you told me and my friend's experience.
Gynaecology CPN: Good! We like it when it's not as bad as people expect.
Me: I have one more question. I normally use a menstrual cup for my periods; can I put it back in later or should I use something else? *
CPN: You should use pads for the rest of your period. We don't want to go sticking anything else up there for a while.

Good thing I decided to get this done well ahead of me and Potatoboy's wedding then...

---

* Apparently you're supposed to go for IUD/IUS insertion when you're on your period because the cervix is somewhat open. It's more difficult and occasionally impossible to install them in nulliparas. I was tempted to giggle before the cramps kicked in because the sound of the metal tools clanking reminded me of myself repairing a bicycle [insert bad joke here].

Things I want to do after tomorrow

Things I want to do after my MS defense tomorrow, in no particular order:

• Make chocolate-chip macadamia nut cookies
• Get my primary computer backed up and sent for repair
• Fix my housemate's cat tree which is about to fall down cos it was built for 4 lb kittens not 14 lb cats
• Start looking for air tickets
• Start looking for JOBS, damnit
• Go to the mall and spend half a day walking around aimlessly without spending money
• Work on my secret weapon DNA repair idea
• Run IgA ELISAs on the chicken nasal and tracheal washes to see if it worked
• Build a little table to put my fishtank on
• Finish building Paper-Replika.com's Wall*E and EVE models (fantastic quality but Wall*E has a million parts)
• Give my cat a haircut so she stops vomiting hairballs around my bedroom
• Try to grow loofahs and poppies
• Make a graph of how many people per day notice [censored for experimental purposes], if I don't say anything about it
• Watch Terminator: Salvation
• Read novels every day
• Call my parents
• Write and submit a story to the Writers of the Future contest

My top 15 books

Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you -- list the first 15 you can recall in 15 minutes. Don't take too long to think about it.

1. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Historical murder mystery with lots of debates about the power of reason, the Church, language, literature, etc.
2. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. He always intended it to be one volume but the publisher made him split it. It was finally republished as one volume shortly before the Peter Jackson movies came out, but I still like the watercolours he made for the covers of the 3-volume set my parents have.
3. The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. Sociological and evolutionary evidence for the existence of a hardwired human nature, and why it's necessary to morality whereas the modern and postmodern view of an infinitely malleable tabula rasa is not.
4. Where Monsoons Meet by anonymous. Cartoon history of Malaysia from the Malacca Sultanate, through colonization, to independence and the Emergency. The subtitle "A People's History" should have clued me in to where the author(s) were coming from, but I first read it at about age 12. It totally ruined my education since I never believed anything we were taught in Sejarah class after that.
5. I want to put one Asimov book in this list and can't decide between Foundation's Edge and the Robot Dreams anthology.
6. Mat Som by Lat. Graphic novel about a young guy from the kampung trying to make a living in KL. I have both the original and Adibah Amin's English translation; she seems to have done a decent job.
7. Where There Is No Doctor by David Werner. The bible for rural healthcare workers. I first read it at age 7 or so and that's what got me started on infectious diseases. I have a faint memory of carrying a book as big as my torso into the kitchen to ask "Mama, how do you pronounce T-E-T-A-N-U-S?"
8. Gilbert's Developmental Biology. Best college textbook I've ever owned. Beautiful illustrations and photos.
9. Gods That Failed by Vinoth Ramachandra. An overview of the false gods of this age (including a few movements from within the church itself).
10. The Sandman - well, yes, it's either 75 comic books or 10 paperback, so not technically "a book". But it's arguably a continuous story arc, and definitely by the same author. Maybe I should just get the 4-volume Absolute Sandman eventually.
11. CRC Press' Recombinant Poxviruses. My favourite work-related book, very comprehensive. A lot of new stuff has been done in the 17 (!) years since its publication, but it's a good overview of poxvirus biology and what to do with them.
12. Kine by A.R. Lloyd. Watership Down for predators - valiant English weasels fighting an invasion of the evil American mink (note: Mink are also in the weasel family but they mass about 20 times and measure about three times the length of Least Weasels. They became an invasive species in the UK after being introduced for fur farming, which is another reason Fur Is Bad).
13. Watership Down by Richard Adams. Er...I guess you can tell I like animals.
14. Sejarah Melayu by Tun Sri Lanang ("Sejarah Melayu" means "The History of the Malays"). My Malay sucks so reading this was a struggle but worthwhile. It starts out very fairytaleish and legendary (e.g. descendant of Alexander the Great travels from India to Indonesia in a magic bubble under the ocean) and becomes more historical as you move forward in time. The part near the end that describes the Portuguese slaughter of the Malaccans who had never seen firearms, made me cry.
15. Infinity's Shore by David Brin (and the rest of his Uplift series). I think many physicists who write science fiction tend to be lacking in their understanding of human nature and write wooden, stereotyped characters (Stephen Baxter being a spectacularly bad example), but Brin does great characters of all stripes - both human and non-. Also, he does very funny aliens. One of the few exceptions to my rule that if an author feels the need to put a cast of characters and glossary up front, that means he/she did a crappy job of introducing them in the story. His Civilization of the Five Galaxies is HUGE.

OK...I disobeyed the instruction to "don't take too long" since I just spent 15 minutes writing this.

USCIS

USCIS = United States Confusing International Students.

Just mailed in OPT app so I can work this summer and get all my experiments wrapped up and written up. The fee went up from $130 in 2005 (when I finished undergrad) to $340 this year. Basket. Potatoboy is leaving the country for Singapore on Monday and has yet to submit the Petition for Alien Fiancé(e). That's $455. After that gets approved, then I can file for the fiancee visa, which is another $455.

Moral of the story: don't marry foreigners.

It annoys the hell out of me that we have to provide a lot of proof that we've known each other for at least two years. The exceptions are for International Marriage Broker Agencies, a.k.a. mail-order bride services. In other words, some uneducated bimbo and some male chauvinist pig who thinks you can buy a woman can get married more easily than two MS holders who've known each other for years and have been dating for two and a half.

Tangentially, we watched The Civilization of Maxwell Bright a few weeks ago and it was a surprisingly moving film, but supported my prejudice that men who mail-order brides are losers.

---

Yes, we're engaged, and yes, I've been deliberately not making any big announcements about it. The people who need to know, know (except my grandpa who doesn't have email and whom I keep forgetting to write to), and if I didn't tell you already it's none of your damn business.

I had the brilliant idea of trying to commission an engagment ring through Etsy's Alchemy app. We got two bids, the seller whose bid I accepted took two weeks longer than his stated deadline and the ring looked like crap. We got a refund. Moral of the story: look carefully at an artist's prior work and sales record before doing that kind of thing. We ended up buying an already-made ring that I really liked (and it's argentium silver so it should be pretty tough) and I'm hoping it arrives in the mail today.

---

I have way too much stuff going on. I'm defending on May 26th. My advisor is busy with another round of grant proposals. I have to mow my [landlady's] lawn and I can't figure out how to start the mower. Tomorrow I have to take Lina to the vet for her annual rabies booster. The only thing I'm happy about is that our luciferase virus works in chicks (and they're adorable).

Fixed bed

I have a pretty good collection of hardware for someone who doesn't own a house yet (or possibly ever). Besides the stuff in this picture I also have a Dremel rotary tool with extra accessories (cutter, sanders, grinders, etc.) and a bike bag of cycling essentials.

I think I get this from Pa. Learning from him how to fix/build stuff was really the only way I could still feel like Daddy's girl after my stupid brother came along... Anyway we have the same style of building furniture - not much finesse, just hacking. We never had the money to buy nice workshop tools. As long as it works, stands up straight, and isn't too splintery, okaylah.

I have this crappy bed that I built from an old futon pallet and a bunch of 2x4s ("two-by-fours", i.e. pieces of wood two inches thick and four inches wide). After a year and a half of use, the pathetic thing was breaking in the middle and CREAKED so loudly when I laid down or moved that it was driving me crazy. Never mind having two people sit on it, whether for licit or illicit purposes.

Anyway I finally got around to fixing it today; built a bridge in the middle to stop the wobble. Let me tell you, making holes with a Dremel cutter bit that is NOT intended for drilling is no fun for the user or the poor Dremel. Also, driving screws by hand is exhausting. (picture of me after screwing for an hour with my friend Phillips head.)

Notice how it is, remarkably, NOT sagging in the middle. (Of course this would be more impressive if I'd taken a "before" pic). Look, it can even support a 4 kg cat now!

The funny part was, my mattress was outside leaning against the wall, and the cats tried to climb it. I'm sort of impressed that my Lina and Caitlin's Sarah managed to climb about 6 vertical feet, even considering that a mattress provides good claw-holds. I think Simon and Suzie were too fat.

The funny part is, Sarah is normally scared of Lina, so after much hissing she finally decided to cede the territory.

Curb shopping

• SubZero Under Armour mock turtleneck: $50 at REI (and you can't get pink either at REI or Dick's).
• Nike Shox: can't find specific model but I'm guessing around $80 based on other models.
• Safety 1st Easy-Fit baby gate (for some friends with an incipient first offspring): $25 at Amazon.com.

"Curb shopping" when people move house and throw stuff at the side of the road: priceless.

I'm really going to miss American consumerism and wastage when I go back to Asia and can't get nice stuff free any more, seriously. Also, wondering whether I should just sell the shirt on eBay for a little cash because it looks like it's never been worn and I don't "work out" per se.

20°C today

:looks down:

Guess it's time to shave my armpits.

Also, while I was taking Lina for a walk, we passed a lady wearing binoculars around her neck. I think she gave us the evil eye. Taking a cat for a walk is a great way to learn about birds - that is, their alarm calls and what they look like in flight.

My big mouth

Maybe I SHOULD ride my bike in front of a car next time and hope it hits the part of the brain which handles linguistics. I wouldn't mind being a cobbler or a carpenter or something for th rest of my life.

Sorry to all my family. Last post/note has been deleted.

Last year's resolution

Last year I made a resolution to be a one-man "matching grant" organization: I would calculate how much I spent on nonessentials (e.g. eating out, leisure items, fun events, clothing (unlike most girls, I tend to consider new clothes nonessential) and so on) and give an equivalent amount to charity, including women's organizations, food aid, medical aid, and Christian organizations. Also, I resolved to spend an equal amount on wildlife conservation and animal welfare as I spent on my cat.

(In the end I decided not to include what I spent on bicycles in the calculation, since my bikes are my only vehicles and therefore essential. This includes the price of the Fuji Absolute that was stolen, which I am STILL upset about. Bike accessories and maintenance supplies, however, are included the calculations.)

As you can see, I did a decent job on the first part of the resolution and an absolutely dismal job on the second. These were my mid-year reports if you're interested.

The $25 to the Four Lakes wildlife rehab was actually guilt money to pay for the care of a baby red-winged blackbird that Lina brought home once. Damn cat. (If I donated to Friends of Ferals and the wildlife rehab center, would they cancel each other out?)

Even though it was my resolution for 2008, I'm going to try to keep doing this, although I'm done with publishing my accounts on the Internet.

My resolution for last year was a proof of concept to show that you don't have to have a lot of money (e.g. Bill Gates) and you don't have to be a "real adult" (i.e. not still in formal education) to be a mini-philanthropist. I'm blogging this not to show off but to show that it's possible.

Resolution for 2009: Learn how to use Linux!!! I bought a secondhand HP TC1100 and installed Fedora on it.

Chivalry is dead

There are all kinds of assholes who hate bikers.

On my way home just now I was signaling to get into the left lane (this is on a small road that is 2 lanes either way, and wasn't busy) and the driver behind me HONKED. I was signalling, moron. You should have been grateful, there are lots of bikers who don't even know how to do that.

Then, as I turned onto the sidewalk, I hit a patch of ice and took a spill (roads are safe, it's sidewalks that'll kill ya). A guy who was walking past just said "That sucks!" cheerfully and kept walking. BASTARD. A girl fell down violently and you didn't even stop to make sure she was unhurt?

Well, on the other hand I was wearing a helmet, balaclava, and ski goggles, so it wasn't immediately apparent that I was a girl but still...! Can you imagine a Victorian gentleman failing to render aid to a lady in such distress?

Never mind, imagine a Victorian lady riding a bike in a balaclava.

Chivalry is dead. I'm going to have more frozen pizza.

Showers

I have a hang-up about taking showers. This is why I always end up wasting a lot of time on the Internet until late at night, because I'm procrastinating on showering. (I just spent half an hour browsing Etsy.com and a previous half hour reading everything in my "Comics" and "Funny stuff" bookmarks folders.)

I think it's a combination of hating to be cold, and being paranoid. Sure, the water is heated, but it's cold when you take your clothes off and cold when you come out of the tub. Also, when I was a kid, since all 4 of us shared a bedroom until I was 16, the bathroom was the only place you ever found yourself absolutely alone and shut off from all other human beings. I was an anxious kid with a hyperactive imagination and was always scared something would come out of the tub drain and digest me alive or something.

Of course there was that one time in Seremban when a snake REALLY poked its head out of the floor drain*. I ran out of the bathroom naked and soapy and rinsed off in my parents' bathroom.

Anyway, I'm never going to watch Psycho, otherwise I will be the most unhygienic person on earth.

OK...going to shower for real now.

*Americans: in Malaysian bathrooms the entire floor is tiled and you just stand on the floor to shower. Also, because many houses have septic tanks rather than being connected to a sewer system, "greywater" from sinks and showers is piped to drains that empty into rivers. So you can see how a snake could show up in there.

The new system

I'm a voracious reader and have absolutely no self-control when it comes to clicking on one link after another reading the news on the Internet. "Just a few minutes" on Facebook or the BBC or New York Times or The Malaysian Insider results in me going to work at 9:30 or bed at 2 a.m.

I'm going to institute a new system of using a kitchen timer set to 10 or 15 minutes (or my sports watch, while at work) to delimit my Internet reading time so I can get other stuff done like science, food, reading books, and sleep.

Emo

I feel horrible all day because I think one of my friends is snubbing me on Facebook for accidentally offending her.

I can't stand being disliked by people I like. I wanted to cry all day in lab when my advisor scolded me for not making enough progress on my project. It's very childish, but when I think a friend is angry with me, it doesn't leave my mind for days on end.

Also, I talked to my second sister on the phone last night. Talking to either of my sisters is generally a downer because they're such wonderful girls (FlowerMoonFish especially is a huge overachiever and at the same time projects an aura of "sweet young thing") and I'm always left with the bitter feeling of being the shitty beta version full of bugs.

I wish I wasn't so emo.

Sick unto death

I'm getting damn bloody sick of the racial politcs in both the USA and Malaysia.

I think anybody who brings up skin colour in politics any more should be beaten, stabbed, and drowned in a vat of green paint.

I've lived in the USA for a total of 9 years of my 25. The first time I came here we lived in a Chicago suburb. I entered a 8th grade class with white and black kids and a Chinese teacher. Pretty "muhibbah". Even though I was the only Asian student, nobody made me feel uncomfortable for that.

9 years on I'm bitter, enraged at ignorant hicks calling a churchgoing Christian born and raised in the USA a "Muslim", "Arab", and "terrorist", and increasingly paranoid about closet white supremacists.

No, it's not just paranoia. I sat at dinner with my boyfriend and some of his friends and heard one of them say "Someone needs to kill him" and others agree. I can't stand the thought of breaking bread with that guy ever again.

Racism in Malaysia is alive and kicking too, but it's a more familiar species of demon...I can't explain why but it's easier to deal with psychologically. Maybe because the bulk of the bastards aren't calling themselves Christians. I can't stand the sheer hypocrisy.

I just want to finish my studies and get the hell out of here.

---

NB: Sorry, need to clarify something. I have a number of American friends who support a certain political party and I don't mean that everyone who supports your political party is a closet white supremacist - obviously, in that case I wouldn't be dating a supporter of that party. But some of your fellows have been saying appalling, inexcusable**, hate-filled things, and the leaders of your party have been doing next to nothing to stop it.

** Had to clarify due to a comment someone posted on my Facebook note: The inexcusable thing I am referring to is the calling for the murder of an innocent man.

Of course political campaigns involve plenty of mudslinging and insults that would be unthinkable in any other social situation (except perhaps sports). Advocating murder crosses the line. Murdering someone for political reasons is essentially terrorism, and that's what some of these people would like to see.

Babies are scary

I just found out that another couple of my bible study "kaki-lang" (as Mum would say) are pregnant. They actually knew before the first pair announced it about a month ago but they were keeping quiet so as not to steal their thunder =)

So I'm rather bemused by the explosion of friends who are reproducing this year. The first ones were Tim and Magda who had Kirana in April. She's quite enormous now...I wish they weren't in California! Even my Form Five class monitor from MGSS Melaka recently had a daughter - actually she looked kind of "tomboy" in school but I saw her wedding photos on FB and she looks so pretty and feminine. Another friend I know who's a bit older is trying to have a baby with his wife by artificial reproductive technology so I've got my fingers crossed for them (not tagged in this note).

I guess that's part of growing up: when you see people in your generation starting to have their own children, you realize you REALLY can't call yourself "a kid" or "just a student" any more even if you're still in school, not married, and don't have your own house. I don't mind growing up.

I'm very happy for all of them but the idea of doing it personally...I won't say "disgusts" or "horrifies" me but I really don't ever want to have a baby. I'm not averse to the idea of having children per se, but not children of my own body. It's a finely tuned machine and I hate the idea of having it not running normally for 9+ months, all the nausea, weight, funny movements, limited activities, etc. Also, I work in a lab with viruses and many potentially teratogenic chemicals.

I would rather go and sterilize myself before getting married (or better yet, make my fiance go).

I told Steve, if we stay together and if he wants kids, we would have to adopt. Maybe we can get an Indian baby and confuse everybody...

Hope nobody is offended by these thoughts. Like I said, I'm happy for all of you and enjoying seeing the cute babies (and looking forward to seeing the ones that are still in utero, I just don't want to do it myself. I know at least one other girl who feels this way (Magda: hint: she's another one of your friends also) so I'm not completely weird.

Q2-Q3 report on New Year's resolution

OK so I'm not making very good progress toward hitting my New Year's resolution for the middle 6 months of this year. Also, any strange people reading this please note that I don't have a lot of money so I'm not worth kidnapping or robbing. Any undergraduates reading this, please note that grad students don't make much. =P

The other striking thing about this is that I apparently didn't do anything fun in July. And that's the month of my BIRTHDAY summore. Oh yeah, I was stuck in lab doing RNA preps.

Also, still not sure whether or not to count the price of my new bike that was stolen after one week =( If I don't, that actually puts me quite close to my goal on the humanitarian/religious side.

Regarding the animal-oriented part of my resolution, I at least owe the Four Lakes Wildlife Center some blood money for raising (successfully!) this goofy-looking little bird that Lina brought home unhurt back in July. It turned out to be a Red-Winged Blackbird, strangely enough. Princess Furball's not very expensive except that she had some vaccinations in the spring, plus I bought Heartgard. According to my coworker who's a vet student, heartworm-infected cats, unlike dogs, don't show a lot of symptoms...then suddenly drop dead.

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I got into the Amazon Vine program, which is a program where you get free stuff to preview if other Amazon users have rated a lot of your reviews helpful. (Nyah nyah.) One of the 2 books I ordered this month is Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money. In the first chapter, the authors lay out the incredible things that could be done, both in the religious and secular humanitarian [which obviously can overlap] spheres, if even only people describing themselves as "committed Christians"/regular churchgoers gave 10% of their income to charity. We're talking BILLIONS of dollars here. We could literally change the world.

In the second chapter, they provide detailed statistics from several different sources on the dismal reality: Most people give little to nothing. Significant proportions of people who describe themselves as Christians, regardless of denomination, say they give nothing to their church or charities. Americans Christians do give more than non-religious Americans and people from countries with less religious influence, but still less than Americans of other religions (not that they do so well either).

The 3rd chapter presents nine hypotheses as to why Christians don't give more. The "we can't afford to" excuse is refuted with the billions of dollars spent per year on candy, beverages, entertainment, sport vehicles, cars, fast food, etc. (since the majority of Americans are Christian, it's reasonable to assume that a good chunk of this luxury spending is by them).

Anyway, from doing my accounts and reading this book, I realize I need to buck up. I don't want to be a person who goes through life making stupid excuses. Again, if we don't count the stolen bike, my original target is attainable.

Drat - I just realized that since I use Microsoft Money to keep track of my accounts already, I could have gotten it to generate this spreadsheet automatically...

Epiphany

Papa had TB when he was a small boy. He was sick for a long time. They gave him streptomycin but it made him deaf in one ear.

Pa's secretary Mr. Roberts has a twisted foot that stands on its toes all the time, because that leg is shorter than the other. He had polio when he was small.

I am scared. They're taking us all out of class when there isn't a different class on the timetable. I am in Standard One and still don't feel comfortable in school, in this cage of dark blue pinafore, grey cement floor and wooden desks, trapped by my lack of language.

Teacher is taking us to the hall but instead of lining up two-by-two as we do for assemblies, we're lining up single file. I can hear girls crying.

There are people in all white who look like nurses. There is a needle in my arm that brings sharp, burning pain. I am told to open my mouth and given a drop of bittersweet liquid.

The taste of the liquid triggers a revelation: I know what it is. We have a book at home that has pictures of sick people. It tells you about all kinds of diseases and how to stop them. There is a picture of a boy who has polio with a twisted leg like Mr. Roberts, and a picture of a child taking a drop of liquid in his mouth.

And I think I'm the only kid in this whole class who knows: This needle and this drop are the magic potion of freedom.

---

And that's how I became interested in vaccines at age six. It just took me 17 years to realize.

Leaky pockets

OK I've finally done my accounts again for the first time in more than a month. My credit card and cash accounts are nicely balanced, but according to Microsoft Money, my checking account is $200 less than what sanity and Chase.com say it should be. The virtual money went MIA some time in June - I've traced some of it to MS Money downloading the same transaction twice in several instances, especially for cash, but I'm really baffled. I've looked through my checkbook several times and can't find any checks unaccounted for, so I'm sure it's not some long-forgotten check ready to bite me in the backside (that happened a couple of times during my freshman year of college when I was new to the world of having more than $5 per week pocket money).

Remember my New Year's resolution to match all spending on non-essentials with donations to secular humanitarian and Christian organizations? I'm still trying to decide whether or not to include the $400 I spent on my stolen bicycle in that. =(

If I do, I have no hope of keeping that resolution. If I don't, I'm doing pretty well.

Still have to match spending on the cat with donations to animal welfare and wildlife conservation though...Princess Hairball got some vaccinations and heartworm preventative in May that cost quite a bit.

---

I'm still sad about the bicycle, and I still look at all the bicycles I pass every day to see if one might be mine.

New haircut

Say goodbye...

...say hello!

The flayed rabbit

This is how I feel a lot these days:

Yesterday I came home to find a number of clumps of fur on the carpet. Last summer the cat brought home voles and chipmunks on a regular basis, so I thought I would find either a dead or hiding chipmunk with some chunks torn out of its tail. No big problem. The dead prey always seemed to have been killed cleanly, and the live ones were usually in good enough shape to run away once I caught them and tossed them out the window.

There was something with big eyes hiding under the fridge. I grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and told Steve to shut the cat in the bathroom so I could prod it out with a stick. I still thought it was a squirrel until the edge of an elongated ear appeared, but something still seemed wrong after it was identifiably a bunny, a baby rabbit about five inches long.

Half the skin had been flayed off its back.

I have no idea how many hours it crouched under there, terrified, suffering with every movement of air on its skinless flesh. As it hopped miserably to the wall below the window, I could see that the muscles over its left shoulder were torn. Steve came up behind me. "Should I take it to the vet school or kill it?" I asked, almost more for rhetoric than anything else. "Kill it," he said. "There's no way it can live like that." I sent him outside for a stick while I crouched over the bleeding animal in my designer tights, covering its face to keep it calm.

Steve opened the window from the outside and handed me a short piece of half-inch-thick branch. "Shh, bunny," I whispered, laying the stick down on its neck. It wriggled a bit as I took hold of the hind legs, but didn't struggle too much since I wasn't touching the agonized skinned flesh. Grasping the legs firmly, I pulled straight back while pressing the stick down with my other hand.

You can feel several small things snapping when you do that, the ligaments holding skull to spine. The bunny convulsed, kicking out those big hind feet that hadn't been fast enough to keep it away from Lina. It flopped a few inches across the floor. Worried that I hadn't broken its neck properly, I caught it and pulled with the stick again, and felt more ligaments break. The head flopped freely from the body, and after a few moments, it stopped kicking. And breathing

Of cervical dislocation, the AVMA Guidelines on Euthanasia have this to say on its downsides:

Disadvantages—(1) Cervical dislocation may be aesthetically displeasing to personnel. (2) Cervical dislocation requires mastering technical skills to ensure loss of consciousness is rapidly induced. (3) Its use is limited to poultry, other small birds, mice, and immature rats and rabbits.

By the book, then.

---

It's thrown me into a tailspin, emotionally. At first I was wringing my hands, reconsidering the ethical implications of letting my cat out. I've always held, and still hold, the position that cats and dogs are adults of their own species and it's not only inhumane but ridiculous to treat them like human infants. But owning a cat means that I am responsible for what it does, not only for potential damage to other humans, but also for potential pain inflicted on other animals. I am responsible for the flayed rabbit.

I also still consider that Lina killing chipmunks and voles is not a big problem; all the dead ones I've observed were cleanly killed, as mentioned above. What I think happened this time was that she took on (and actually hauled into my apartment) something that was too big and strong for her, but not enough so to escape.

The best solution I can think of is to not let her outside unsupervised (when I'm not at home) until mid-summer when there are fewer baby rabbits. Although, I'm in agreement with my coworker Willy who said "Cats are vicious animals" and Terry Pratchett, who wrote that if cats looked like frogs we would hate them.

---

Anyway that's resolved now. But I still feel like...the flayed rabbit is a good metaphor for how I've been feeling these last few months, skinless and sensitive to everything, crippled.

Forcing me to think about animal welfare and ecology is forcing me to think about bioethics which is forcing me to think about philosophy...and I hate philosophy. (I got into a fight with a previous boyfriend when I said this once. He majored in math in college and went to grad school for theology, so the clash wasn't surprising.) Back in high school and in the first couple of years of college I used to be a deeper thinker than I am now. But at some point it all got entangled with the Americans' "culture wars" bullshit and my brain started feeling like it was going to explode. The only way I could get any peace was to stop thinking.

It's really strange. I have a fairly cold, abstract response to things that most people would respond emotionally to, and an emotional response to things that other people find abstract. Touching a bleeding wild animal and killing it with my hands didn't bother me as much as the sheer guilt of knowing that it was my fault. It was funny, I could feel myself putting on an act of physical distress for Steve, the grimaces, the stiff posture, the trembling hands - the same way you act interested to a boring person or act polite to a boor. Because, you know, a girl should be frightened and disgusted by finding a half-dead rabbit in her house, and need her boyfriend to comfort her.

But I really wasn't. I'm frightened and disgusted by myself.

It's funny because a few months ago, I would have told you I was a happy person, and I have every reason to be. These past weeks, though...these past days, there's a constant current of rage running through my body, seeking excuses, opportunities to be angry at anything and anybody, to lash out mentally if not in fact.

It's partly low blood sugar, especially near the end of the day, but a full stomach only blunts the anger, not abolishing it completely. Peace comes only from total escapism - in novels, or in total immersion in physical activity - riding, lab work, playing with the cat, woodwork, necking. I don't want to think, it burns.

---

There's an undergraduate student who comes into our lab part-time whom I dislike because he's a loudmouthed little braggart who goes around telling everybody he's found a cure for HIV when he doesn't even have basic lab skills. But what disturbs me is that he's started a student group to invite speakers to give talks on regenerative and anti-aging therapies, including one guy who's regarded as a crackpot by most other scientists who claims that aging is a disease and that with the right treatment, people could live practically forever. A couple of issues ago, WIRED magazine ran an article on another longevity buff that got under my skin.

Again, it's funny though. The thing that I'm disturbed by isn't what you might expect, the religious angle - it doesn't. After all, for those who take the Bible literally, some people might have lived close to a millenium.

I'm irritated by their sheer stupidity in mistaking quantity for quality when it comes to life. Part of the joy of life does come from the things that can hurt you - food and other sensual indulgences, simply relaxing, and even doing things that put you in physical danger. What's the point of living to a hundred and fifty, or two hundred, if you spend those years eating like a beggar, exercising like an Olympian, acting like a monk, and taking fifty pills a day?

The other reason I find it all ridiculous is that, at this point, I can not imagine wanting to not die.

I just want to assure anybody reading this that I'm not suicidal or interested in hurting myself. As described above, life is great in other respects, and certainly I'd rather live to a ripe old age and pass away with a minimum of discomfort. But right now I feel like I'm starting to go crazy, and it's unbearable being angry all the time and afraid of screwing up in front of everybody. I'm like the rabbit with no skin on. Everything hurts. If someone told me I would die tomorrow and there is no God but oblivion after, that would still be fine.

It's so easy to imagine how something like that could happen: the slip from a blowout or an errant pebble; the long, sickening moment of falling sideways; and finally a brutal impact with several tons of metal. Cervical dislocation. Or something.

---

This too shall pass. Someday I'm going to have to stop running away from my mind.

Blood

I have too much of a taste for gore sometimes. I spent all of this afternoon sampling blood from chickens and while I didn't enjoy the heat, the smell, or the ache in my legs, there's something very satisfying about seeing the red stuff flowing smoothly into the syringe, or in garnet drops down the white feathers...

(Somewhere in between last Tuesday's draw and today's, they crossed the line from being baby chicks to young chickens. I had no idea feathers could replace fluffy down so fast, enabling three-foot leaps out of the hands of exasperated scientists. It gives you an appreciation of the progress between Velociraptor to Archaeopteryx.)

Also, I just finished a novel by Natsuo Kirino about a bunch of Japanese housewives who find themselves cutting up a series of dead bodies, stalked by a sadistic murderer, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

And finally, last week I spent some time on eBay and acquired McFarlane Toys' seriously perverted version of Little Red Riding Hood:
Is there anything about this figurine which is not, as the Americans say, Kick Ass? (In case you can't tell, the blobby thing at the bottom of the Big Bad Wolf's entrails is Grandma.)
She occupies the place of pride on my bookshelf, above where another McFarlane figurine, my old friend the xenomorph hangs. (The Alien quadrilogy is a whole another level of gore...)

Hey, at least I don't pretend to be a vampire and write emo poetry!

(almost) 3-month update

It's been nearly 3 months and I'm on track for keeping my weird New Year's resolution so far.

Total amount of money spent on clothing, entertainment, stationery and art supplies, bike supplies, and eating out: $377.54.

Total donated to church, Fistula Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, and World Vision: $403.50.

I'm not trying to brag about being a generous person but I'm trying to make the point that even on a relatively small wage like a grad student stipend (my monthly take-home salary is slightly above $1100), you do not need all of that money. It's entirely possible to spend as much on helping other people as you spend on keeping yourself happy.

When I hear people complaining about being "poor college students", I want to give them "a tight slap", as Malaysians say. Except in a very few cases, if you're in college you are by definition not poor. Even if your family is poor, probably you're getting a scholarship equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars per year. Being able to attend university, and especially graduate school, is a huge privilege that's only available to a small fraction of the world, and if I hear you complaining that it makes you "poor" I WILL SMACK YOU.

(hmm...if you look in the sidebar on the World Vision donation page, the pie chart showing expenditures shows that their overhead is 14% of revenue now. It's gone down since the last time I looked. In a world where Christian organizations are often accused of being profiteering and corrupt - sometimes correctly - it's good to see good stewardship.)

I love Microsoft Money because I tend to be disorganized...before I started keeping accounts, the $ would disappear and I'd wonder where it went because I didn't think I spent frivolously often. Turns out the little things add up.

Also, MS Money revealed that I eat A LOT of food...around $160 a month or so in groceries, that's $40 a week. And it's not like I'm some kind of fancy gourmet...I'm just HUNGRY and I like fresh veg.

Lina's upkeep is really cheap so I'm waiting for it to build up before I find an animal welfare wildlife conservation organization to give "her" share to.

Selamba

Click for full-sized:

2008 New Year's Resolution

I don't normally make New Year's resolutions (e.g. "I will not bite my nails" has been a historical failure since age eight or so) but I've come up with what I think is a viable one this year:

• To match any amount I spend aside from regular groceries, household, and toiletry supplies with donations to NGOs doing food aid, health, education, social justice, or women's issues - both secular and Christian.
• To match ALL spending on my cat with donations to animal welfare (not animal rights) and wildlife conservation organizations.

This way I'll probably spend less money this year on silly stuff and waste less time Internet shopping.

Maybe it sounds a bit extreme to some people but I've found since leaving home and starting to earn my own money at age 18, that the less stuff I buy, the less stuff I want. Materialism is a self-perpetuating lust, and most of the hobbies I really enjoy require very little material.

Other things I'd like to do:

• Write at least 2 short fiction stories and submit at least 1 to Writers of the Future or a science fiction magazine.
• Draw more, and spontaneously.
• Reinstall Creatures 3/Docking Station on my computer and start tinkering with the CAOS (Creatures Agent Object Scripting) language.
• Call parents and sisters and "small" boy more often (sometimes I forget my brother has a phone because he never calls me...)
• Clean my bike more often.
• Cook for my boyfriend and make him take his vitamins regularly.
• Watch more movies.

It's gonna be a personally interesting year...my project is going to get into animal studies...I'll have to write a thesis and hopefully graduate...my parents just got transferred to Penang...two of my London cousins are getting married in the summer so I'll finally have a chance to go to England...a couple of Phases kakis are getting married in Malaysia...another couple is having a baby, which makes them the first friends my age to reproduce...my boyfriend is taking 2/3 of a year off school for an internship...his mum wants to show our respective cats in the summer (TICA lets you show household pets)...

Et cetera. 'Tis life. =)

Psychopathic effect

(title is a horrible pun on "cytopathic effect" - basically the sick cells you see when you infect a tissue culture with virus.)

I'm listening to Jonathan Coulton and it's making me feel a lot better. He achieves that incongruity of "sad songs about happy things and happy songs about sad things" that a friend once attributed to the Barenaked Ladies.

Cause it’s gonna be the future soon
And I won’t always be this way
When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away
It’s gonna be the future soon
I’ve never seen it quite so clear
And when my heart is breaking I can close my eyes and it’s already here

I have a chronic nail-biting/picking problem and it's been a constant source of shame ever since my best friend said "Oh my God, your fingers are disgusting." Today I managed to chew off 7 nails due to a combination of lab meeting in the morning plus being cornered by our most annoying postdoc in the afternoon. He's the type of person who not only talks too much, but can't explain things straight and can't listen to anyone more junior than him.

I think with my hands and my eyes; I stutter when I speak and struggle to retain what other people say (really, I'm trying). I FARKING HATE meetings.

Qiu, one of the other grad students in our lab, was talking to me just before we left work (at 6pm). She's been at our uni for two years longer, but transferred to our lab after I did. She's partly funded from a different prof's project and she got scolded for spending too much time on the other thing...and for not making any progress despite the fact that she had to wait for him to get back from vacation to order some special cells.

In a way it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one who feels like they're floundering a bit...as she said, "I just wanted to know how [our advisor] talks to you guys."

Oh hey, another Coulton song, this one about a giant squid (he writes a LOT about unrequited love for a guy with a family...)

So I can’t do that thing anymore
I can’t be the thing I was before
Maybe I am better off alone
Because I crush everything
And I crush everything
And I crush everything

And everything I want I take
And everything I love I break
And every night I lie awake