Ah, this week was very interesting -- suffice to say it's been quite funny motivating myself to do things with phrases such as, "you wrote 50k words in a month, you can do this stupid assignment!" This weekend I worked on the Stony Brook Press Literary Supplement. Put all of it together by hand...and by hand I mean using Quark Express and Illustrator. Quark, surprisingly, only quit on me one time. Impressive! & Illustrator...what can I say besides it's this immensely powerful program that seems relatively simple. It's deceptive! But I made some really neat linear shapes bend and sway to my will. I'll link to the thing once it's in the issue, but if you feel like waiting for an 80 MB file to download by all means let me know and I will link you to it.

I've recently been converted into a Lady Gaga fan. At first I was obscenely jealous of her because she got to go to the VMA's with Kermit as her date, but I got over it. Then Bad Romance's video came out and it was easily the most interesting music video I'd seen in years -- then I listened to the Fame Monster and I must say I was impressed by her newer songs. I think I just thought she was trashy in the very beginning - or maybe she really was, I don't remember. She's a lot more streamlined now, and "Speechless" is just a gorgeous song, although she sounds a little drunk when she sings it. Charming!

I bought LED Christmas lights and I've hooked them around my headboard. My headboard and sheets are white; the whole effect is very fairy-tale virginal, which is calming when you're there for rest and reading. I think everyone needs a corner in their living area that calms them down, at the very least. Anyway, the LED light is a white so pure and intense that the regular ceiling light in the room now looks disgustingly yellow. Woops! This is, I think, my last post before the 16th. In between I will have sososomuchtodo. I will list it, so that when I come onto livejournal to procrastinate this list can stare me in the face and hiss at me with evil eyes.

• Bio Lab (T) (the last one, aurghg!)
• Bio Lab Debate (T) (about persistent vegetative states -- do you think they'll give me a bye if I tell them I am in one?)
• Honors 401 Presentation (T)
• Honors 401 Final Paper (F)
• ITL Oral Presentation (W)
• EGL Paper (*now moved to day of final, 16th) (going to do it on Paradise Lost & Homer and talk about sex, woooo! *giggle*)
• Finish reading The Prelude (before final on 16th)
• Cancer Biology Ch 12 and 16 (before final on 15th)

Somewhere along there is Winter Beerfest (which is really just Winterfest, says the nondrinker), going out with my suitemates and telling them I'm commuting next semester, and filling out a scholarship application that will send me to Tajikistan. I am not kidding about the last bit. What I am really looking forward to after the 16th is a return to my book. I can't tell you how weird it is not to be writing about my characters every day. Yep, gon' return to my book, read books, and do some illustration. (pssst secret I've been cheating and reading bits and bobs of The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye even though I should be doing work, and practicing my Persian by reading Harry Potter in Persian, hehehe) I leave you with some bits from my horoscope, which I read and with a grain of salt:

( Cut for those who think that hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side (kid) )

Ok, I know I said I wasn't going to update due to 'Wrimo related distractions, but I have to tell you about how utterly ridiculous I am. So I'm sitting here, looking a few things up in my Sufi Path of Knowledge text for the class that I'm sitting in on, and suddenly find myself looking at the syllabus to see how far behind I am in the reading. I'm thinking, 'Oh, that's weird. There are 14 chapters in the syllabus, but only 7 in the text.'

It turns out that I'd been doing double the readings that everyone else had been doing and had been more than keeping along with the class for most of the time leading up until the midterm. Heck, I'd been poring over these incredible and lengthy sections for hours because I didn't even have the syllabus and thought it was just a section a week. Then Chittick added me to the blackboard site and I could get the documents he put up for the rest of the class.

This explains why he once asked me in office hours if I had read ahead.

This explains why I thought it was weird that other students were asking questions from pages I had read weeks and weeks ago.


Most importantly, this makes me feel loads better about not having done the reading for the last two weeks. Because clearly, I did it anyway without knowing :)

Ok, back to writing about crazy old men.

Wait for the cream! We can spend our date speaking in three languages. When we are done, I will carve a swastika onto his forehead and send him home to Nantucket.


OK, while we're at it...him too. Do I even really need a reason? Hells to the No I Don't. Look at those fingers holding that cigarette. Mmmhmm.


I could have said a lot of other folks, but Bio lab was canceled because the lab building lost power, and so I am going back to sleep. Yes, at 11 in the morning. Win.

So this is how summer ends. < / ❤ >

Still nervous about my MCAT. If you have spoken to me in the last month, I've explained the "what happens if I didn't do well" story to you at least five times, and shan't bore you with that tale once more. Today I took a Physical Sciences section and did ok (as in, what I needed). As for the "what happens if I don't get accepted to medical school this year" question, well, the possibilities are endless. My backup plans include trying to get research positions here or possibly at Yale, teaching English abroad, working on being a ~serious illustrator~, getting a PhD in Psychology first, and so on. I'm looking at things in the long run, and know I'll get to med school some day, if not with the class of 2010. I see the long road, for miles and miles.

My apartment will be available for me to access starting Thursday. That leaves me two days to do some sparse packing and errand-running. And I do mean sparse. Bed linens, books, clothes, laptop, bathroom goods - that is all I intend to bring. The rest, kitchen and decorative items included, can come to school little by little, hiding within my things as I come to and fro from home on weekends (ah! such luxuries - may I relish in this, my final year). I'm excited to see who our mystery 6th person will be, as I think one of my flatmates moved somewhere else in the building.

Two weeks ago I purchased and assembled a new bed from ikea. Dad and I = an incredible IKEA BUILDING TASK FORCE, having together built an expedit bookshelf, a desk, and a billy bookshelf. Pros, I tell you. Before I go on with this story, let me ask you, flist, how do you pronounce IKEA? I say "eye-key-uh" but my French family says "ik-eyah". Oh, those marvelous francophones. Comment je vous adore. Anyway, we buy a bed, a mattress, and a foundation box and get home. We get the bed frame and mattress inside, but upon closer inspection notice that the foundation is the wrong size. Not many of you may know this, but when you purchase a box spring or foundation from IKEA, they will wheel it out for you personally and of course help you secure it on your car. The one thing that the employees were meant to do...and so we drove back. Replaced it, brought it home. We began to assemble the bed frame, and what did we find? One of four essential screws was flawed. The teeth wouldn't align with the piece it was paired with, which together are needed to secure the side beams to the front and back. They were surprised at such faulty manufacturing, but they were nice and gave us new screws and a coupon. Needless to say, we were a little furious, having to drive there and back six times in one day. But the bed is comfortable, and to have so much room to roll around in is something I'm more than happy to get used to.

This past week, we had family visit us! My (I'm guessing) second cousin once removed and her daughter (second cousin). I honestly just call them all cousins; I love them as dearly as if they were my siblings or aunts. We showed them around Long Island and New York. I had such an incredible time getting to know Shirin (second cousin) better. We became so close by the end. We'd lay on my bed reading to ourselves, side by side and content, late into the night. I miss them deeply. The house seems empty without them, especially my room.

As for the Great Book Read of August 2009, I'm making progress! I finished Amber Spyglass, Blink, Yiddish Policeman's Union, and Handmaid's Tale (FINALLY got to read Atwood after so many great comments about her). I loved them all, and was pleased to see the references Blink made to John Gottman, whose theories and research I really respect. I want to say it's a shame I don't read more nonfiction, but not really, as I'm still buying textbooks. I also had a crazy period in which I read 9 volumes of Peach Girl. That manga has such a scintillating villainess! Anyway, I'm about 100+ pages into Shadow Magic and Water for Elephants respectively. The latter wasn't on my book list at all, but after buying it at random in June from my fav used book hideout (along with the penguin edition of 1001 Nights that I'd wanted for a while), I decided to pick it up on a whim. They will both be read by the end of the week, mark my words. As for the bigger books like Infinite Jest and Count of Monte Cristo, their fates are yet to be determined.

Remember all that fuss over whether or not to take Myth & Magic in Literature? I saw the book list today and wasn't terribly moved by it. It had a decidedly African spin on the selection, which was not exactly what I was expecting - I thought there would be a broader scope, or at least some hint of direction. I thought, perhaps I was meant to take Shakespeare. But what I thought was one open spot in the Shakespeare: Major Works class is reserved for English majors (oh you wretched ones!). So I switched to a class on The Epic! Which makes me sad, for now I have one Friday class. BUT LISTEN TO WHY THIS IS WORTH IT, DUDES. Not only do we get to read Virgil and Homer, but we get to read PARADISE LOST. And WORDSWORTH. And Peter Manning's focus? BRITISH ROMANTICS. YES WHAT A COOL SOUNDING DUDE. 

AND ALSO I SIGNED UP FOR A 6 CREDIT ITALIAN COURSE. Yes, I am crazy. But I'll always regret not taking a language class if I don't do it.

As you can tell by my increasingly deranged statements, this post must be coming to a close. But before I go, one more thing to note -- MY  PHOTO WEBSITE IS UP! Click it to see the pictures from England and France I've been promising to show you. Hope you enjoy them!

Tonight I double checked the Neuroscience track requirements for my Bio major (see last flocked post) and realized that I don't need 4 classes to finish my Bio major, I only need 3! So silly of me to think about doing the minor (as a comparison, my Psychology major only needs 2 more classes). I'll be twiddling my thumbs by this time next year, so I may as well finish it. It's not like I don't know what my career holds for me after undergrad (for new-ish friends, I'm in an 8 year med program).

So my tentative schedule for Fall '09 is:
BIO 335 - Animal Physiology Lab
BIO 314 - Cancer Bio
ARS 154 - Drawing (Intro? Something?? I'm taking it for lulz)
HON 401 - Global Issues in the 20th Century or something important-sounding

The last class has to be an english (EGL) class. I'm trying to pick between taking Myth & Magic in Literature (EGL 375) with cellowraith and a Shakespeare course with ruchirahni. The credits cap off at 17 until a few days before the Fall semester starts, so I'm gonna have to wait if I want to sign up for both. I'm thinking Myth & Magic though, because it's going to give me more incentive to show up for class on Thursdays, and I'm already familiar with Shakespeare so I may as well try something new. I already finagled it so that I'll have no class on Fridays (which, after 3 years of having just one annoying, agonizing, pre-med class to wake up for on Fridays, is something I believe I deserve, thankyouverymuch).

The reason I didn't realise I only have 3 classes left for the bio major rather than 4? I'd forgotten I'd taken BIO 358 last spring. What makes it worse: I am currently a TA for that class. BRILLIANT WORK, TIA.