identity
known: Rem
age: 19
dob: Aug.3, '82
where: Toronto
Uni: Yes
Fav. Study: Bio.
And Least: Eng.
ST: TNG, VOY.
anime: Escaflowne; Trigun; CCS; SKU
manga: X; TB
amour: Subaru; Folken; Hotohori; Sethos
contact: e-mail

Collective

[[ echelon ]]

read
Laine
Lyn
Rubie
Shikari

visit
anipike
feffi.com
sakurazukamori.net
aoiryuu.com

Why am I wearing a stupid hat *inside* the house?!

Linked a new blog! Is soooo pretty & I had a lot of fun reading it. Ach...I'm a sucker when it comes to pastels + attitude.

Hmm...I was just mailing Kus and then I suddenly found myself really riled up against all the internet elitism that's snobbing around, bah, I hate pomposity. I'm not like that, right? >_< And *then* I picked up an issue of Varsity the UofT paper and just reading all those semi-commnunist columns pushed me even further left. Mwahaha...I used to shake my head whenever my best friend flamed governments/humans for destroying the environment (and other such Green Peace ideals) but now, increasingly, I'm beginning to share her POV. This is so weird 'cause people always thought that I was a strict conservative! @_@

I'm going to be 20 next August! That's already a 1/4 of my life gone...*hyperventilates*. Ach, I think my mid-life crisis is coming on waaay to pre-mature.

I. Will. Stop. Blogging. And. Mail. You. Promise. Uhh...tomorrow. >_<;;;;

How come they have classes @ 8 PM?

Heya Laine! So there ya are! ...how's uni going for ya? *sigh* I know what you mean about lectures. Distractions, distractions + the profs are usually carrying on when no one knows exactly what they've been saying for the past one or two chapters^_^. Know what's kind of weird @ UofT? I have a tuturial section in nearly every class. And practicals in Bio & Chem (hahaha...I dropped physics and took up french -.-;;) How's res? Hope the guys in your unit are nice! Wah...I want to join the Uni newspaper, but I'm...uh...kinda intimidited (sp?). It's like, each successive year of highschool one gains a rung until one's at the pinnacle of the triangle: highschool senior! And then one hops off to Uni and *plunk* one's back to square one again >_<. Am I the only one who sees a disturbing parallel to the Prometheus story...? Ach, c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas mon amie?

Oh...earth to Saluria--when are ya coming back to Tor? We gotta do something. Umm...lemonade at 1 AM again? *sweatdrop* BTW, I saw your friend Adri. at Convocation Hall the other day. I don't actually think she remembered me. How's your math class? Mine's suprisingly not too shabby. The prof is aggrivating, and I'm weeks behind, mais c'est pas mal.

Wow. Grandmother's cooking is as sublime as I remember it to be. I'm in dumpling heaven^_^;;

Eye O_O candy

Well, as I was saying at 3 AM in the morning >_< today, Legato could be Cpt. Sagara's lost twin! Legato's like the posterboy of Trigun. I'm not sure how well you can see his eyes (too many artlessly arranged bangs!) but they're gold. Umm...like movie Kamui's and Hotohori's. Gold eyes are really neat; very fantastical.

Now, allow me to draw your attention to the second picture of the right-->it's Souzou Sagara, Cpt. of the Sekihoutai--a kickass (but ultimately doomed) militia group--featured in Rurouni Kenshin. Ack! I know that pic doesn't do him justice, but it does give ya a visual idea of how much he and Legato resemble reach other physically. I've only seen the first 20 something odd eps of RK (so far) so I know very little about Sagara's character. Anyway, from Sanosuke's (sp?) flashbacks, his captain seemed like a strong-willed and a pretty honourable guy. His heart seems to be in the right place, though he obviously isn't into the whole cuddle-huggle thing^_^. However, all the flashbacks are in Sano's POV, which is very subjective (he was only, what, 10 when he joined the Sekihoutai?). At any rate, Sagara's hot, his red bandana is, yes, surprisingly hot too. And Legato? Weeeell...for a guy who appears contantly after the middle of the series, we know pathetically little about his character. He's deranged, that part's quite clear (eeew...he also seems to have a strong fetish for Vash's arm @_@;;). His Gung-ho guns are a silly bunch...those goons are a bit too flat to take seriously. Hmm...Dominique was slightly interesting, or is that just 'cause she's the only chick on Trigun who shows cleavage? >_<;

Grrr...and now I have to head down to the campus to, grrr, breathe in nasty arificial air; sit in cramped uncomfortable chairs, get crushed by 30 kg books...(i.e.) to study at the library. Fun, fun.

What? It's already 3 AM?

I shouldn't be up this late...I shouldn't be. I'm listening to Mediaval Baebes' Undrentide right now and just finished answering some e-mails and a few updates for the sites. Put in an application to DA but I highly doubt I'll get in. Ah well! Who knows until you try it right?

Hey you @ down-the-street-soon-to-be-heading-back-to UofG! Yes, you :P. Are ya reading my blog? Umm...could you give me the addy to AC and R's blogs? *cackle* I want to see just what those guys are saying. Hmmm...I haven't seen AC since graduation, and RA since...well...since SOMA? *shrug* Have a great return to the Tower on Monday! Good luck on the big test this week! I've already resigned myself to fail the upcoming Chem quiz. Damn that subject, it's always been my weakest one^^; luv ya, CU later!

Hey! I just got you're msg! *glomp* I did see Raise the Red Lantern a while back...but I don't remember it being as sardonically humourous as Live!. "The red army'll even give you a ticket back to your village; they're very good to POWs!" Hahaha...that movie's like a hundred times better than Sitting on the hunches tiger, and cached dragon ^_^; I saw that movie on tape last week, and I was unpleasantly surprised that instead of the original mandarin dialogue, they dubbed it! Huh? Weird.

Lyn:your posted spoof/parodies are hilarious! Bless you for being able to mock your own (highly, highly popular series)--and Escaflowne...yeah...lots of pokes were at Escaflowne. Ohh...your two new Touya vignettes are wonderful. I really like Sakura's older bro. Hmm...Touya looks like Subaru. Doesn't Legato look SO much like Cpt. Sagara from Kenshin?? The later is *gorgeous*--the whole Sekihoutai (sp?) uniform is damned sexy--and the former is...uhh...ice-cold (but cute).

Umm...I need to sleep now, it's an insane hour.

Uhhhh...where is everyone.

*scratches head* It's so quiet nowadays online, seems to me...where is everyone, eh? ...I know you're busy getting settled in to uni-life: tell me all about, 'k?^_^....and you're busy working on your novel, and you're moving to a different city.

Rubie--you're not getting killed under a dump of homework are you? Homework is evil. Tests are even more so ^_^;;

I didn't hear Bush's speech on Friday night (was studying)--but I understand there's some sort of stirring of resentment in some of the newspapers in Canada because of all the countries that Bush thanked so sincerely in his speech, he left out Canada. Myself, I've developed a sort of immunity to whatever the US president says, so though I guess the "slight" rankled me a bit, I've got more important things to do than to be fuming about it ^_~. It's not a big deal, really. No biggie at all. A mere speck of dust in the global perspective. Indeed.

Bush is making it adequately clear to his fellow Americans, to the world, to Canada, that he has a dissapointingly low opinion of the Canadian government and its weak response to the American crisis (which many Canadian would easily be able to refute, but it just seems rather pointless to argue over "why couldn't you have: how come: your country's pathetic" when 6, 333 people lie dead in NY, not to mention the 300 from the other attack sites).

"You're either with us or against us". Interesting ultimatum: what if Canada is neither 100% "with" you nor "against" you? Just like China, and many other countries in the world? Is it possible to categorize sovereign nations in such unerring black and white? *sigh* I dunno. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Found a great editorial/entry

WriterGirl has written an excellent and eloquent entry about her thoughts on the reports that some muslims and muslim communities have been experiencing various forms of pressure. If you have 2-3 minutes, I think it would an interesting link to check out.

My grandmother's arrived, finally, in Toronto--it was great to see her again!

Grandmother, where are you?

Well...after having a terrible day at school where the idiot prof said that I wasn't eligible to take his physics course ('cause I'd already taken a similar course in high school), I'm basically now, not only 1 credit short of being a full time student, but I'm trying to find a replacement course. At least half of the science majors say I have to have a physics credit, like human biology, genetics, etc. Hmm...actually, now that I think about it some, physics isn't all THAT essential for students like me, who are studying biology, etc. Still, this...umm...added to the headache--I only got 4 hours of sleep last night! x.o

And then upon arriving home, my mother tells me that my grandmother, who was supposed to have stayed over night at a hotel, never even checked in. The hotel says that no one of her name is registered. The Vancouver airport is totally closed by now. We basically have no clue where she could be. Am I worried? Well, yeah. She has a history of heart-attacks, know? *And*, she doesn't speak English. *And*, she's travelling by herself. Ach, this whole timming was wrong. Then again, who knew that terrorists were going to crash 4 planes into the heart of America?

Gades; thank you so very much for your concerned e-mail. It was utterly unexpected, which just made it even more special *glomp*.

The thing with Canada is that, yes, we're the biggest country in the world when it comes to land-mass, yes, we're considered (with what kind of accuracy, I'm not certain) a "developed country", but when it comes to international "pouvoir", powers, we're weaker than...than...errr...like everyone else in the world >_<. Certainly, we can't even claim to be on the same stage as England, US, China, France, Germany, etc. And our dollar is really becoming a global embarrassment. Our whole country's doctrine is not a "pro-active" one, but more about compromise. You push Canada a little, and we'll cede, a little. You push Canada a lot, we'll grumble and send out a delegation, but in the end, we'll just cave in. Afterall, for a country that is struggling with a declining population (we only *have* 30+ mil. people to begin with, while Paris, and its vincinity alone has, what, 20 mil?) we've got no effective army to speak of, our helicopters (all five of them^_^;;;; j/k...maybe) are at least half a century old...everyone already thinks we're wimps, and reputations always manage to have a strain of truth to it, you know?

And to make it even more ridiculous, we're the "little brother" of the US. If the US says "jump", we'll respond, "how high?". If the US closes all domestic flights, we close ours too. If the US goes into a recession (which from what I've heard from the Canadian news--oh...btw, interestingly, several of the economic experts were proffs from my uni!), Canada will plunge into one too. Heck, not just Canada, the entire world. I read somewhere that Tokyo stocks plummeted to the lowest since 1985, or something like it.

Don't get me wrong, I think Canada on the whole is a great nation. And what few, few military personnels we have, they're truly a brave and unselfish lot (my best friend's b.f. is in the reserve, he's a really lovely young man). We've even garnered a little rep. for being the "nice" UN peace-keepers. It's just that because we're so small--politically, economically, internationally--we're helpless. And I don't like feeling helpless (esp. since I'm also chinese, and China is quickly becoming a super-power on its own). *sigh*

Canadians have been lined up to give blood all day, the manulife center was packed with people who were waiting some 6 hours to give blood, and they would've gladly waited days, from the looks of it. Our airports have been hosting American planes which has caused a gigantic backlog of flights. My mom, my father, and myself, we all desperately want to get on a plane straight to Vancouver, and search for my grandmother, but of course, that's out of the question. I'm probably being very selfish by being so concerned over a single old lady (chances are, she's resting somewhere in a hotel lobby, chances are, she may not be) while an unconfirmed number of people have lost their lives. But...but "blood is thicker than water", and right now, I just want to be able to rest tonight knowing that my grandma's being taken care of, and that I'll see her soon.

Heeeey...Bush was very gracious in thanking the world leaders for their support: Putin, Chirac, Ziang Zhe Ming (er..yeah, I think that's how you spell it. my uncle would be so mortified to hear me say that--he works for the guy >_<), Blair....uurrrggg....don't you think it would be sort of nice of him to acknowledge Canada's Prime Minister for his unwavering support too? Urgg...no pressure or anything, I realize he's under an incredible amount of stress right now...but...umm...how many Chinese, Russians, English and French have given blood to the red-cross just like that, and let American planes land wherever they want, for whatever time they'll need to sort things out? *rhetorical* I'll shut up now; politics is *definitely* not my field >_<.

Once again, my love and support go out to my American friends. Take care of yourselves.

I hope grandma's ok.

...

L., dear, how *could* you to have led me on to think that this was all a joke. Man, you have one twisted sense of humour. They said that you were an insensitive jerk, did you know that? The next time I see you, I'm going to slap you.

Never thought this could happen, never.

Seeing the planes crash into the world trade center on TV was a surreal experience; shocking. Cocky 19-year-olds tend to think "oh yeah, we're a desentized bunch, we grew up in the 90s, violence's a part of our every day life" but when you actually *watch* that footage, you suddenly realize that you've seen nothing yet and that the world you live is very well and capable of such horror.

*sigh* my grandmother was supposed to have arrived in Toronto by now, but she's grounded somewhere in Vancouver. Canadian flights have been canceled indefinitely. Even though I'm very worried about her, I realize that our little family is going to be ok, but so many other families are not going to be ok.

I have to get back to studying now, can't possibly concentrate on that stuff, but university will still be running tomorrow, despite what its students might be feeling.

Love and support goes out to all the friends that I exchange e-mails with, and to all my friends who have moved to America for university.

...And life's back on track

Happy news! My bird is doing fine now, in fact, it's attitude towards eating, sleeping, flying and bugging me to play with him ALL DAY indicates that he's just peachy^^. Yay!

And other news, Anime related, I just did the finishing touches to my newest site, just a little jump-page to ALL of my shrines and stuff. I got really sick and tired with typing in the URL to all my junk (errr...sites) so I whipped up a collective of a sort. Anyway, find it through the button on the info-bar or here.

Oh my dear lord, less than a week to University. I. Am. Not. Amused. Okay...so I'm panicking here. *dies*

Long weekend + diseased bird=blood! [This is a GRAPHIC entry, bewarned]

I think I've under-estimated myself when it comes to blood and gore. I used to want to be an acheologist, or a historian, or just someone who only had to work with old books, pottary shards and a laptop. No mess, no stress. Whenever I saw one of those live-surgery shows, when the camera zoomed in on latex-covered hands touching and rubbing a bloody, beating heart, I got this funny feeling in my stomach...you know, butterfly wings, I think it's called.

But I'm finding that as time passes and I learn more about the biology behind blood, the stuff that used to sicken me doesn't have such a powerful effect on me afterall.

Like that time during my volunteer placement, when my nurse co-ordinator Sue (who had kept up her generosity even when Harris is slashing and gashing government funding to medicare left and right...good GOD, why does that man keep getting elected? It's ridiculous--the "educated" class; the "blue-collar" class; the "welfare" class; journalists; contractors; doctors; nurses; me; my friends; my teachers--we all have complaints against our First Premier..and yet? What happens when election times rolls around? He gets elected. Again. And Again. Hahaha...if I didn't live in Ontario, I'd find it funny^^) Anyway. Where was I? Ah yes, Sue...so she arranged for me to watch first hand a triple A surgery. A man in his early fifties (can't say any names, I'd get sued for sure) had an aneurysm that was blocking up his heart. I was particularly interested in the case because that's what my grandfather died from. This guy was luckier than my grandad 'cause his aneurysm (a sort of blood-clog, extremely extremely serious stuff) was detected almost right away. So, of course, he went under the knife pronto.

Anyway, the day before the surgery was set to take place, I got really scared. What if I made a fool of myself by fainting or something? I've never fainted in my ENTIRE life, and I was afraid that seeing all the blood was going to do it for me. Looking back now, it was pretty stupid how I made a mountain out of a mole hill (I wasn't even the one operating! Sheesh!)--but that's what happened.

So, there I was, knees shaking, throat drying, looking anonymous in my green surgical suit, hair net and mask. The mask didn't fit properly--it kept covering up the upper-half of my face, so everytime I exhaled, the air would fog up my glasses^^.

The room wasn't a small sort of room (resembling the morgue more than a place to bring back life), but there were 10 people in it, including myself, so that it seemed like everything was cramped and stressed. My first view of the patient wasn't all that flattering. He lay on his back, naked, completely out. He had flab. Gosh, there was so much flab. Hair too. Further views of the guy didn't improve his looks. Especially since, wasting no time, the doctors sliced him open with a laser blade. It it weren't for large, multiple clamps, his guts would've spilled to the floor. There were wifts of filmy smoke drifting up from his body from the laser burns--which were astoundingly cleanly cut. And it was fast too! The doctor-guy just slowly brought his hand down the guy's chest and belly, and, voila, he was perfectly opened up.

I could see...his insides. I'd never seen an opened human thoracic cavity before...and instead of the sight grossing the innard out of me, I was unbelievably fascinated. I wasn't feeling queesy, or faint, or scared. It think it was because everyone there behaved as if this was the norm (which it was) the attitude also rubbed off on me.

And so began my desensitization with blood and gore. After that experience, removing the brain (liquid mush by that time) of my fetal pig for biology class was easily done (my partner KOJ and I got a perfect score, I think I recall.) Dissecting a cat-fish--and some other fishes--that my parents had bought from China town to be cooked was easily done too. Don't think me psychotic, but I did that during boxing day 'cause, you know boxing day--nothing to do. Well, c'mon, the fishes were doomed to be eaten by dusk anyway, so why should I not have taken the oportunity to learn about their anatomy? Boyo, I remember hunting through all my encylopedia, then the internet for any pertinent information about a) how to do the dissection and b) how to identify the parts.

So, this all brings me to what happened today. We have a young cockatiel named *grins* Chu Chu. Guess who got the honour of naming the bird? We've only had him for two weeks now, and he's proven to be d-e-l-i-g-h-t-f-u-l. But clumsy. Excessively clumsy. This afternoon, my mother noticed that the bird was bleeding heavily from the anus (vent, whatever the bird-term is). Clumps of dark red, dried and fresh blood saturated its feathered rump. So, of course, we dug up all the phone numbers to emergency vet clinics. But you know why, in the end, we didn't take him anywhere? It's the long weekend here in Canada, clinics that are supposedly "24/7" are closed. Avian clinics are few to begin with, but during a long weekend, on a Sunday afternoon? Ha! Suck it up soldier, and deal with it yourself.

So I did. I ran to the neighbourhood pharmacy (Shoppers Drug Mart)--clearing the block in two minutes in fact--and grabbed a bottle of H2O2 (we already had the styptic powder for bleeds), and vrrooom, ran back again (ummm...maybe you're wondering why I didn't just drive? 'Cause, at 19, I still don't have my liscence yet, my mom--the only other person in the house--does, but we don't have the car since my Dad took it with him when he left for the East coast to research/teach. Blech.^^)

When I got back, my mother and I worked together to catch poor little Chu Chu securely, so he didn't struggle too much. Then, I diluted the H2O2 with one-part water and two-parts of the stuff--God...I sincerely hope that was alright--and began to clean the blood from his mess with a cotton swab saturated with the solution. People, please believe me that, though it may sound easy, cleaning it was really hard, for me at least. I had to go slowly and gently, because I didn't want to disturb the vent and cause even more bleeding. And then, everytime the bird struggled in my mother's hands, I was shaken. The blood didn't bother me (I'd had a bit of experience with blood, right?), but I've grown rather emotionally attached to Mr. Chu, so I hated to see the little guy hurting like that.

That done, and the powder applied, the bleeding slowed down and eventually the blood congealed. Chu Chu even managed to regain his appetite and he ate 7 cheerios; some greens; sipped water; and a bit of seeds too. His dropping, I was immensely relieved to note, was a healthy hue and consistency.

Well, Chu is sleeping now, back in his cage. I still don't know why he suddenly had that hemorrage scare--it's so mysterious, one moment he was fine, and we leave the room for five minutes to come back to a bleeding bird--if ANYONE is acquainted with cockatiels and know what the problem, I implore you to contact me asap. Soooo...soon as the clinics open up again, I'm taking him there first thing in the morning--last minute university preparations be damned.

Why do we pet-owners do this to ourselves? Why do we get so attached to our pets that when they get hurt, you feel like you'll be willing to go any distance, and pay any price to keep them safe?

They're cute; they're cuddly; and they are able to love you back. Maybe that's the reason.

Hopefully, Chu Chu will be okay until the clinics open again. If not, then...c'est la vie.

*whew!* I'm like so pooped for the night. Hmm...I was just thinking maybe I should make a collective for all my sites and stuff.

'Night.

Ch.1 of my little Kakyou story is finito

I have no idea how I was able to write it so fast, since I haven't been able to write more than a single paragraph on any of my unfinished series, but anyway. Here's a new one. It's about Kakyou, but told from an "outsider's" perspective. The narrator may throw some readers off...at first. Hopefully you'll warm up to her by the end though.

Anyway, I'm tired so I can't really commment anymore on the story except to provide the url to it.

http://www.envy.nu/asturia/kakyou.html

Since this is my first time writing X, feedback would be most helpful. Mail me, or something, 'k?

Bonjour!

Added a blog-link; Lyn's a superb story-teller and such a nice person, knows like Anime & manga inside and out--and not to mention that she's really witty too--hey-- didn't know that you liked Sorata *happily trips along*.

I've also added another little section to the info bar at the left, and I'm feeling very narcissistic for it. But isn't that kind of the whole point for blogs? They're supposed to be about what you're up to from any given day, ne? Hmmm...I still need to get into the "blog" mode of things.

Sites News: My Princess Marlene shrine (Esca) was moved late, late last night to envy! The colour scheme is a little strange--retro blue roses (which the really observant might note was edited from the video-cover pic of Allen (I forget which volume it was), blue-linkies; blue-everything. And black. I'm not sure if having a black background is such a good idea. I sort of associate black for the dragonslayers, or Folken or Dilandau...but delicate, wishy-washy, romantically-tragic Marlene? Hmmm. However, it's done, and "what's done is done".

The change of look for the shrine is just that, a change of look. None of the old information is absent--but nor has it been added to (I think there's only *so* much one can say about a character who gets literally 2 min. of screen time). The links section has some new changes (mostly 'cause some of the sites I linked to the last have combusted or something.) The shrine took from 9:45PM last night to 2:30AM this morning to move/complete. I know it should not have taken so long, my only excuse is that I toyed with the idea of doing some in-line framing, but decided that good old tables was best for such as small site. Weell, what else is there left to say except to check it out and tell me what you think of it!

I think I'm finished

Well! It took a day to do, and I'm still agonizing whether I should have gone with a Sora-layout or a Aoki-layout, but I guess I've decided on the former. It's pretty industrial, the colours and such, hmm? Gosh, it's weird; I'm talking to myself since no one's been here yet. Anyway, I think I'm going to go do some work on the Folkie-site now, and if I still have the energy (a commodity), maybe the CCD-one too. Err, not "Clamp Campus Detectives" but "Crown/Court Duel". Hmm...Yeah. -_-; Ta ta.

Testing Testing 1,2,3

*wonders if anything's going to work*