A log of a science student (v.6) About myself: Name: Stephen
Congly Alignment: True Neutral, Good
Tendancies Current Readings Journals followed Science Books Wish List To be revised.
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Useless tests to allow me to archive Just as the subject indicates:
What's *your* true alignment? This quiz was made by  Which fandom archetype are you? brought to you by Quizilla Reported: Sunday, November 3, 2002, 05:52 p.m.. Throw away entry Ah yes...All Hallow's Eve. Hope everyone is having fun this night (I'll probably consider going to buy discount candy tomorrow...as I also need to pick up some cough syrup [and you know how I feel about the taste ;_;]) Anyhow...take a look at this lovable, cute costume we have here (not to say that the individual isn't lovable and/or cute here ;D)...one of those very inspired costumes (the idea came at midnight on Tuesday actually)...[shrugs] Sorry Venkarel...it was either this or the mad scientist look....and that's not quite right ^^;;; Look look...I can be seme, really I can :D. [yes indeed, getting paid to referee is so wrong, since it's so fun XD] One entry after this one before I archive...^^ If I find time, I might write a non throwaway entry as there are perhaps a few comments I could make on various matters perhaps. I had thought of an alternative title for this entry considering a thought that popped into my mind...but since it might give away information that I don't want to give away (for those that might pick up on it)...I'll use this alternative title (there actually was another alternative title...but for different reasons I'm scrapping it) Tomorrow is my first interview with a standarised patient (actor[ess])...should be very interesting...so that necessitates dressing up tomorrow...[ironically, the CBC will be coming in to film our class since they're doing a profile on someone there (sports)...so XD [might make people think I/we dress up like that all the time...remember those cough syrup commercials were all the students are dressed up in white coats...so not the case in reality ^^;;;]. Will go out to look at buying dress shirts in the afternoon after the interview (since I was told that they were dirt cheap at Tip Top...$10/shirt [regular, a lot more....but the selection isn't that great as the clearance sale has been on for a while (heard about it Saturday....). Also will have to go to Future shop to get the discount on the CDs I bought [price went down....]....note, "Cicero" is synonamous with crap...of 5 CDs I tried to use....I have two useable ones >_< [it's the Future Shop generic brand.....makes me wonder about the quality of their computers under that brand?!!!] The topic of this entry relates to the idea of how the interference strategy works @_@....i.e. I was telling my minion about this technique [although it's probably against the male ethics/ethos] and she was aware of it....basically, the interference idea is that if a male is trying to pick up/talk to a girl at a bar and she is with friends (female), another male will try and distract the friends so the target of interest is a lot easier to access.....so my question is that if this tactic is common knowledge, why does it still work?!!. [No, I have not tried this technique out nor have I run interference =P] Not much time today to make a big knowledge note...but suffice it to say "Hepatitis B is a real bad rap" [jingle my brother got from his days in school when he was immunised.] Also, Hep A is transferred via poor hygeine [i.e. fecal-oral contamination] Will this blog get a new design before the next archive (just two posts away....stay tuned XD [looks at Seimei XD XD XD ]) Went out to the Halloween event last night...had fun ^^. The DJ actually was able to link the songs together pretty well (although I hadn't heard most of the songs before...no real trashy Europop there ^^; )...no cheap talk to link the songs either... Umm...some highlights of costumes...well, best group costume was the Sailor Senshi (not bad generally, but cosplay wise would beat them)...[although likely the reason they got fan support was by flaunting themselves...(shrugs...if it works...also, with the OH present...it makes sense)...pair prize was the Sasquatch and the Kokanee beer guy [if you're not Canadian, you'll likely not know what I'm talking about] and the best costume was this guy dressed as a wine bottle opener (lots of tin foil)...ummm...a few other comments I could make on the event in general...but won't ^^;;;;;;; Ah...I dressed up as a soccer referee...with the whistle and cards and everything XD XD...I can probably dig up a photo from the event...but I'm not sure if I want to put it here ^^;;;;;. Umm...let's see...didn't win a door prize unfortunately (and a lot of prizes were given out by tossing into the crowd [shrugs])...had a bit of an adventure with getting to the event...in that two of my party had forgotten their ID so we went back to get them (from the north end to the university...about 20 odd minutes away...but we had left early so it was okay)...yeah...about all I want to say about this. Found a lovely immunology book...only wish I had found it about a week ago...ah well... Somewhat linked...I was kicking myself for getting so very little done on Friday...I also went to bed early (since I was near exhaustion)...felt a lot better yesterday and also feel good today as well... Oh...congrats S-san on one year no da. ^_^ Quote overheard (or some slight variation)..."A girl won't ditch a boyfriend unless she thinks she'll have a better one soon."...(female said it)...I know that's false...because if were true, we have a sorry state of affairs... Importance of the spleen Venkarel...it's involved with the immune response...it a) cleans up non-functional blood cells and [looks at notes] b) produces immunoglobulins (IgG, IgE, etc. etc.) and immune modulating chemicals [also filters out bacteria]. It's not a vital organ...you can survive without it...but you run an increased risk of bacterial sepsis and perhaps overwhelming sepsis syndrome (OSS) (which can be fatal). Risk of having overwhelming sepsis syndrome is 1%/year without your spleen (with the highest risk in the very young). Most common pathogens causing OSS are Streptococcus pneumoniae, N. meningitidis (causes meningitis) and H. influenzae (influenza). Let's see...what else...spleens are usually damaged irreversably in sickle cell anemia and are removed as treatment for warm hemolytic anemia (an autoimmune disease where erythrocytes (red blood cells) are lysed due to an autoimmune response. Hmm...Seimei's package arrived today (wow...that's rather fast!!)...[opens the package and grins upon quick skimming of the letter...I'll read it after making this entry and before dinner]...this should be fun no da...yet...^^;; I conclude with today's interesting point of note (well, the one I can remember right now). There are four types of autoimmune reponse...Type I involves IgE binding to mast cells (standard allergic response). [example: mosquito bite]Type II involves binding of an auto antibody to a membrane bound antigen [example: hemolytic anemia]. Type III involves the formation of an antibody complex (which can settle into tissue) [example: lupus] and Type IV is a delayed type hypersensitivity (T cells, no antibody involvement) [example tuberculosus]. Oh yes...remember that T cells can kill in two different ways...directly and via recruitment. Carved pumpkins for the first time today...lots of fun :D [though the pumpkin I was working on with my partner (for the carving contest)] didn't turn out super well ^^;; Ah well...[at least I know what tools to buy to make it super easy...had I known it was that easy, I might have carved pumpkins once upon a time]...got some amusing pumpkin related photos in my e-mail today...quite snerkable XD. One other thing...but I had forgot what it was...oh yeah...two other things. The name of the Dentists' Halloween event has amused me muchly..."Smack Diablo"...which originated from "Smac/DIABLO" XD XD XD XD [Smac/DIABLO is a regulatory protein in apoptosis, or programmed cell death]. Next up...I've got my ticket now for the med Halloween event (making an obligatory social appearance :D)...yes, I do have a costume...and no, it's not the crappy ninja from last year nor a mad scientist :P...[I was offered someone's skating costumes (female) as a costume...but I decided to decline...don't want the photos to haunt me...:P] You manage to get a seat for a significant lecture session...and you dose off...(during a Gairdner award winner's talk...~and~ a Nobel Laureate's talk) [incidentally, on reading the news release on revision, they all have won the Gairdner award...top award in Canada for science]. It wasn't as if the talks weren't interesting...one was on computers and genomics and the second one was on RNA silencing...which are topics in my field of interest...but it felt so good to close my eyes...dark theatre ;_;. I did catch a little over half of the first talk (was standing all the way in the back). I forget his name, but the speaker was the 2002 Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology...he was talking about the challenges of people 'owning' the genome and related issues. He was GOOD!! I only wish I could have heard the full talk (I was delayed)...I shouldn't feel super bad though...since the audience thinned out greatly after the first speaker...Dr. John Sulston [think he's also a Knight as well]. His talk was very entertaining... Didn't get much done yesterday...did a little reading, but that's about it :/...called home too, but other than that... Two notes that people might want to keep in mind...a) spleens are important {also, the hematologists' fetish, but that's another story [not my words!]}...b) don't vaccinate anyone that's immune deficient. A little bit of politics here to start off...I had mentioned that doctor being fired by the health board (not sure of the right term here)...well, the development is that he was offered his job back after about a week or so...he turned it down is going to Iraq to do some humanitarian work.
Amusing quote from one of the profs [a pathologist] (who I think is cool...but that's just me):
Recently [like Thursday]...in Calgary I think...during the hockey game, a fan decided it'd be cool to streak on the ice...so he strips, is climbing over the plexiglass and falls down so he can't move...until he is removed from the ice by security...I sort of was a bit amused at the irony of the situation...I suppose he ~did~ get his attention that he was seeking...^^; Gah...thought I had a few other things to say...oh yeah...was a bit irritated last week with the promise of free food to attend a seminar (I think ample amounts was promised)...alas alas...I made the fatal mistake of going to wash my hands @_@. When I got back...there was a huge line...~and~ people snuck in the back way [which I probably should have done]...and so when I got to the food...there was nothing. Alas alas...didn't have time to grab anything to eat [just a Coke]...however, I did get pizza later (for a different seminar)...and I filled up then ^^; Ah...the choir (I'm part of it) performed at the Teacher Awards...it went...all right I think...although the fact that I started on a coughing spell just before the song was about to start really meant that I couldn't give my best effort :( Topics of learning this past week...a bit of inflammation, a little bit of hematopoeisis (formation of blood components) and a whole lot of immunology...wow...immunology is really interesting (I have to...thank...(is that the word here?) Priya for putting the seed of immunology lust in my mind)...but it's quite complex...working on getting a handle on it...this Monday upcoming...one of the lab sessions is phlebotomy...which means it's blood drawing time (practicing on each other...should be interesting) ^^;; Fighting off a minor bug (not sure if it's the same one...or a new one)...trying to clear my air passages of phlegm...after I can clear the bug, I'll go and get my flu shot...hopefully that will help this winter. That's about all I can think of here...just to note that Jackie's recent entry about being adult seems to be an interesting read (on a skim @_@...) Grrrrrrr...browser crashed on me so I lost my entry to date...>_< Let's try again... I haven't really done anything productive since Friday evening...and don't really intend to do anything until...oh...about Monday or so...[this fit in better in the original entry, but as for where it was...I can't tell you @_@] TV watching...I came across She Spies...well...it's rather campy...but it's so campy, that it's rather hillarious. I laughed throughout (with the random popup windows with exposition about the scene, the editing style and the breaking of the fourth wall several times)...heh...well worth watching for a smile. Unfortunately, I likely won't be able to watch it much anymore from here on in...as it's Saturday at 5 PM on...ABC I think...it was amusing. Yay yay yay!! I managed to tape this afternoon the one Monty Python movie I haven't seen (of the three)..."And now for something completely different"...:D. Pity that I missed Dogma last night...while I played Baldur's Gate (I decided to restart with a new character as my current party was getting punished badly) and using the FAQ this time allowing me to find all the secrets ^^;;;;; After beating the game, I might try again with my old character Seida (my friend said that because I dual-classed her...she'll forever be weak...which is kind of bad :(...although my new character--human paladin isn't elfish...so [shrugs]...might make the game easier to play now though as I can use the better weapons and armour that my old character couldn't (no spells...but then again, I only really used Seida's clerical spells...since I put armour on her...she didn't really have access to her mage spells) I have a few episodes of Kevin Spencer to watch now that I started taping them off the Comedy Network ^^;; I admit...rather disturbing, but I really enjoy the series ^^;;;...sort of a guilty pleasure of sorts. 2002 Ig Nobels Awarded XD XD XD XD XD XD...as normal, quite amusing. I'm required by the corruption of #y to make specific mention of the Ig Nobel in Medicine: Chris McManus of University College London, for "Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture." [Nature 259: 426.]. I also enjoyed the Periodic Table table...but I'm not that far gone that I need to have one for my room XD. The follies of online CD track listing Heh heh ^^;; I'm reminded...I'm in the hunt for a football officials hat. I want the black one with white stripes (that is the one worn by non-referee officials in US football, and worn by referees of Canadian football)...I do note that this is probably a bit late for me to start looking...in that it snowed yesterday...yes, I would actually wear the hat...I think it's cool. Ironically, this links into the next point I wanted to mention...might even be the last point too for this entry (actually, scratch that, I do have two more points to mention ^^;)...they had an article today about this researcher who makes the claim that 50% of us think that we are more attractive than we actually are...based on the idea that we try and shield our psyches by making the claim in our minds that we are 'average at least (appearance, intelligence, etc.)'...^^;;; I wonder where that puts me then...since I think I'm certainly not good looking...but not bad looking...wonder if I'm trying to shield my ego from the harsh harsh view of reality then ^^;;;;;;; Penultimately...as for the new layout for this blog (yes, one is actually coming)...I've been told by the designer WMC that it's being held up by Seimei...so you know who to pressure ;D [side note...wow...I typed in that last part with coding rather quickly] Lastly...I'll work on actually contributing to the Medblog some time...and actually writing...well, better entries [I might scrap the last few entries and work on either re-writing them...or just one large comprehensive one to cover that part of the program...as for when Priya will contribute...I don't know ^^;;; I'm not going to torment her this weekend about her lack of entries to date since I know she's really busy...but after the weekend XD XD. (which reminds me that we still need to work out some of the technical details about making it a community LJ, etc....hmm.) When writing the abbreviation euk. (for eukaryote), the thought of "uke" comes to my mind. Damn you #y, damn you to hell!!! XD Somewhat fitting then that I add this test result: 
Reported: Saturday, October 12, 2002, 02:22 a.m.. Disjointed thoughts... Sorry Sarah...I respectfully have to disagree a bit with your commentary. I suppose it might just be me, but the term "pre-emptive strike" really implies a "shoot first, ask questions later" idiology...[don't have time to dig up the actual quote...but that's the phrase that led to my commentary]. As well...yes...health care reform in Canada would be appreciated...and might in fact allow for your takeover...but I'm not sure how it is with Washington...but...I'm not very confident that that you have a viable plan/system yet...linked to that is a quote I found: "US health care is a disaster and embarassment"...from Joe Martin, Dean of Harvard Medical School. I missed the talk that he presented...had another commitment that I had to attend (lunch out at a Japanese restaurant...very nice).
Linked to this is a solid "Booourns" to the provincial government here...who decided to fire a leader of the health board for making pro-Kyoto comments...indirectly mind you, but the interference [by the Minister of the Environment] seems obvious...I wonder when the minister will step down (although since it's pretty much a one party province...the odds of the minister doing the honourable thing and resigning are...not very good). Blame Kourin for this thing I unleash...Word Shark...have fun XD. Thought of the day (and being somewhat of a devil's advocate)...US and Iraq...yes, Saddam is a bad person...but...has the thing been thought through? If you remove him...who takes over? His son is supposed to be worse...okay...so put an opposition party in...(the debate of 'interfering with domestic politics' {cf. US and Nigurwaga} is an entirely separate matter and should be ignored right now for the purposes of this discussion)...but...the lead opposition party the US is talking to, if I'm not mistaken, is the Islamic Revolutionary Party...[not entirely sure]...as a colleague said...putting a religion and the term 'revolutionary' beside each other may not be a good thing...one last note...didn't the US help put Saddam in power during the US conflict with Iran in the early 1980s? [again, not entirely sure on this one] In the signs of corruption...damn #y, damn damn damn #y XD...I actually like Gravitation ^^;; ...from my last entry. Just a few sniffles and suffering from a bit of mucous reflux (no, I've never heard the term used before...so I'm coining it as my own)...if you know what reflux is (chemists most likely)...then I think you can picture my symptoms...NB: heart burn = acid reflux...so...I figure my term is just as appropriate. I had wrote a moderately long free-talk entry for the Medici blog (since no one reads it anyhow...and my posts haven't been very good either)...where I was much more open than I normally am...dropping the mask so to speak a crack [indeed, as I think I've said it before, this log is rather filtered...I leave out a lot of stuff...stuff that might be cathargic to talk about]...the entry died though (mainly because the program I was trying to use died)...but that's...well, probably for the better...had to do a lot with issues of my life and a few other things that I don't want to get into here...for reasons that I'm sure you can guess. A long conversation that evening (Monday I believe) really helped me a lot...[although it did mess up my sleep patterns a bit...almost recovered now]...in perhaps linked issues...I was reminded of the complexity of...matters... with various advice I received on Saturday... Exam is next Friday...will be studying hard-core from here on in...I had been reviewing throughout, but the intensity has to increase...(since at times, it hasn't been to my desired specifications)...lots of material to work with...so my work is certainly cut out for me. Lastly...does it say something about me when my finding an Epindorf pen was a big thing for me?? [yes, I finally have an Epindorf pen :)] Saturday...throat started aching quite a bit...so I decided to take some extra strength Neo Citran...dosed off early and then woke up in a panic Sunday as I thought I had slept in (that it was Monday) leading me to scramble to get ready and run for the bus...only to realise that it was Sunday -_-...I went back to bed. It turned out thought that my throat wasn't sore due to illness (at least not at that point) but rather that I had cut my uvula (I could see the scratch mark). [Please note, don't mistake uvula for vulva...entirely different things...uvula is the thing at the back of your throat, vulva men don't have]. That leads into today...where my nose started to run...and then it degenerated from there...leading to my current state of runny nose and eadache ;_;...I'm not particularly surprised that I've become sick as a lot of people around have become sick as well... Ah Sarah, so that's what you're getting at...I wonder on its success though...since a big part of the Canadian identity is that "We're not American" [I think]...might get one of those not very common incidents where Canadians unite...I'm reminded of that White House burning down [which reminds me, the Arrogant Worms song 1812 is required listening for all Canadians...]. Manifest Destiny manifesting its ugly head eh? =P. If the three states were willing to join Canada though, it might be a different story ;) Wow...I can summarise current US foreign policy in 5 words. "Shoot first, ask questions later" >_<. I only wish that I was making more of a stretch. Updated the LJ again...and I'll try to catch up with more recent events and what not, time dependent [may be even get a more interesting entry written]. Typical update time for the LJ is Saturday night/Sunday morning... Last thing...I'm looking for LJ editing help. I want to have the design so that the icon (what ever one is chosen for each entry) display on the "Last 20 Entry" page...help is greatly appreciated. Points in brief:
Reported: Wednesday, September 18, 2002, 07:54 a.m.. Back up... I got the new modem yesterday...and the connection is now live... Interesting article that came into my inbox... |
A stunning image of Jubei-chan, from Jubei-chan, The Ninja Girl a short
13 episode OAV. The first episodes are hysterical; it dies down towards the end, but over all, I liked it. It's a good series for marathoning (did so last year XD)
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