bananas

.:Wax

Originally hand-woven muslin, but now mere cellulose. I'm switching to loose-leaf.

Another heat-wave is approaching, currently surging across the desert due to reach around Saturday. The heat provides a good opportunity to melt and re-mould the remnants of the Christmas candles.

A forty degree peak will probably force more of the natives into the night, to assemble in dense familial clusters on the scorched benches strung along coastal promenades. Tomes of gossip, memories, rumours, tall tales, and dreams will be expounded into the small hours while gaggles of children play games that burst into existence and die by morning. It's always surprising how this repeats itself every night with the same volume of exchange.

The wallpaper in the old, grand houses is likely to start peeling and falling to the moths. It's just a bit ridiculous really, but keeps the mills busy and a smile on the face of many a tree-top home-owner in Papua Irian Jaya.

.:Summertime

Summertime has flooded the island with tourists, heat-waves, freak cloud-bursts, and a healthy dose of change. Happens every year really (save the rain and change), but I can't seem to get used to it.

Graduation has brought a tangible and sustained sense of inertia with it. Unlike high-school, this hasn't spawned the semi-dormant mindscape I faced before entering the undergrad programme. I have great expectations for grad school (hopefully not too unfounded) which are motivating me to do some serious, albeit unusual, background preparation. The world-ocean better be ready.

I have the pronounced concern that I'm identifying too strongly with what amounts to my career at the expense of the wonderfully occult facets of humanity that idle moments used to reveal. A prolonged camping trip in some mountain range is definitely in order to prevent the seeds of a mid-mid-life crisis germinating. Paranoia.

What ARE teabags made out of?

ANALYSIS-Somalia burns - but does anyone care?

NAIROBI, April 24 (Reuters) - The carnage and suffering in Somalia may
be the worst in more than a decade -- but you'd hardly know it from
your nightly news...more

.:Spring Break!

Spring break may be only a week here, but the collective sigh of this little university on its arrival  can size up to pretty much anything. It's the last month before graduation and a hushed sort of sentimentality is rife. Third years can often be glimpsed casting sombre gazes here and there whenever their lab or thesis work lets them escape. I'll be grad-schooling in marine microbiology here in Bremen and partially immune, but the IUB bubble is still about to burst. Anyway, let's see what the next few days will bring; starting tomorrow, I've got some culture (microbial) junkies to check out.   

.:The night eases in

A lone owl hoots contentedly, enjoying the breeze coursing through its feathers in the trees outside. Just the thing after another Wing Tsun practice session. The style is very counter-intuitive to me; the other martial arts I've practiced had similar philosophy, but very different kinesthetic composition. Well, I needed to shed some habit energy - I've been too settled in pre-buffered perception to appreciate my owlish friend unfiltered. Diligence, diligence...when will effortless meditation appear?

Back with style

Haha! just when you thought I'd given up! Well, to tell you the truth (don't I always?) I've been somewhat busy and generally low on motivation, thus the change in wardrobe. Even my camera's circuits are neglected, and I have no evidence of the creepy (and utterly frozen) Bremish industrial carnival.


.:
Anyhow, I'm finally done with my lab rotation and grad school applications but not the endless stream of lab reports that slide under my door for grading. I think I'm feeling generous today, but I'm subject to mood swings lately thanks to a fiery bottle of Chilean Rosé I encountered a few days ago.
:.
Today is dedicated to viral homologues of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 proteins and ozone production by antibodies (the vicious little sneaks that they are). Wing Tsun sessions I began attending 2 weeks back have taken there physical toll and hopefully the brain-work will let the body repair itself before Thursday. Sigh, even freedom brings routine.

Innervision

The semester has begun and looks to be rather challenging despite having only 5 courses and 1 audit. The great life lesson I've learned so far is that desk diaries aren't just another way to kill the earth while advertising. It's not about memory, but perspective; temporal correspondences become clearer and the framework of a year grows before you. Makes one feel very mortal indeed. Ok, I'm sure there's something a bit more profound that I've learned so far, but let's just say it's ineffable to explain the void.

Only 1.3 kg of 1st year lab reports left to grade. This gives me a chance to sharpen my claws for the 2nd year installment due in a week or two. Science is thrilling, is it not?

I'm planning to start the Buddhism club meetings this weekend - hopefully the leylines haven't shifted around too much and soon my conquest of the middle astral planes can begin. Just need more sacrifices...members...

Aliens

Apparently there's a rather stout, North Indian looking, unidentified individual in our floor kitchen eating dinner. As floor representative I should probably "get the bug-spray" as my suite-mate suggested and remove him "exorcism style". He seems to have his own food, so hey, I won't.

I have another mammoth stack of lab reports to grade (~450 pages) and 2 days to do it in with breaks to stare at the laser scanning microscope screen for my guided research. It's not that I don't enjoy it, but there's a limit. As it happens, the first round of grades and comments I gave out struck mortal fear into the 1st years. The results for this round are quite positive - I haven't seen a learning curve so steep in a while. I will always remember the tone of one of the students as she handed me her report saying "You're the one who grades our reports?" It warped her words into "You're the one who killed my family!"

Writer

What is it about these writing tools that seems so ineffably awesome? The neat little icons of notes stuck with shiny pins, minimalist stationery screaming fun and class,  illusions of having a writer's studio to massage the ego...who knows.  Despite it all, my productivity in the writing domain has been far too limited to let the afterglow of the virtual studio be anything but bitter. Damn marketing. 

There will be reprisals...

How to care for Giant African Land-snails

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