above all things, to thine own self be true

Harsh yellow sunlight, dappled tree tops, bright bright blue skies and no crowds to polluate the shades of NUS. I like the campus when it's like this. Bought the cheapest Subway meal and sat under the shade of huge umbrellas and just... flopped. It felt good, doing nothing but eating crumbling cookies and drinking iced lemon tea.

Also borrowed Gen's copy of Anansi Boys. I read till the dedication page before I had to laugh and remember why I love the Gaiman Boy so. (And then I had to close the book to do nothing.)

Not exactly doing the crrrazy meme which is whipping people into a mighty fine frenzy now, but hey!

( One anonymous statement about people on my flist )

Took the backpath from Medicine and was wandering about in KEVII's carpark when I spotted the nest. It belongs to the olive-backed sunbird. I think I scared off the mother bird whilst trying to snap a picture with her in the nest. oO; There was also a male Changeable Lizard in its mating colours, resting on branch somewhere near but I was not about to tromp about in knee high undergrowth to snap a picture of it.

However, I did try to be a Sneaky!Ninja! and snapped scenes of the NUS engine canteen since if you will not go to it, it must come to you.

Because HORRIBLY NAMED DRINKS + TACKY FOREVER FRIENDS BEAR HATS = VATINE'S DAY* THEME! = AWESOME



( I FAIL AT BEING NINJA )

*A columnist remarked that locals pronounce it as "Vatine's Day". He suspected their subconscious tells them that today is akin to the monstrosity that Frankenstein was. XD

Yes, it's all about you. A little pysch experiment. Not seeking to prove anything, just doing it for curiosity's sake.

Okay. Here is the question:

A man's wife is near death from a special kind of cancer. There is one drug that the doctors think might save her. It is a drug a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug is expensive to make, but the druggist is charging ten times what the drug costs him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charges $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1000 which is half of what it costs. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it."

Should husband break into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

You might have seen/read it before somewhere, but I am still interested as to what your answer might be. And no, there will be no judgment made.

It would be helpful if the guys reading this LJ respond too. XD; [/AHEMNOTSUBTLEATALL]

**EDITED

( here be the reason for this activity )

Spent yesterday's night wandering about in the Raffles Museum, even in the restricted area, which was all sorts of cool. There were jars of preserved animals with cloudy eyes staring back at you, a black marlin over three metres long with its wrinkled skin stretched, dead birds nestled next to each other, a badly preserved kodomo dragon in a box, a baby pink dolphin with its mouth agape in death and moths with outstretched wings pinned next to packets of moth balls. Grotesquely beautiful, all.

Then there was the depressed museum director who committed suicide and the peeping tom of KEVII who fell to his death just behind the museum. I was a little disturbed by that one. If there's a likely candidate to haunt the place, he's the one.

.

petronia, apologies about yesterday.

As I was saying, I figured Schu might be more of a trance listener more than anything. It's the genre where one ceases to think (or at least blank out pleasantly, depending on one's taste), which might be the reason why I can see his attraction. I suspect the the dance factor and enhanced experience via pill popping don't hurt.

Then again, I'm the person who links Schu to the Russians even if he has a German name. Don't think I can help you out with this one since the Schu in my head is one who will fiddle between stations, stopping momentarily to listen to the one which seems to have the most obnoxious music of the lot. Because it's amusing to him on some strange level, the same way his green hair and tears-inducing yellow headband are. Or to attempt to get a rise out of Crawford if nothing else. Because, BMW and Morning Musume.

The good news is that our research proposal has finally been approved. Got an email from the man himself today. What that means is that we get to play Mozart muzak to some lab rats psych students and then make them to silly tasks later like "Which one of these cubes is not the cube shown above" and things like that. It would be boring, except it it so happens we're all curious about the Mozart Effect.

The not so good news is that psych databases are insane. (Especially one Hong Kong university's. Hello? 107MB for a 22-page PDF file? oO) And trawling through them, you sometimes encounter strange strange things. I present you with le find of le day.

The illusion of parental celibacy: A necessary stage in adolescent development.

XDXDXD Wait, wait. There's more!

ABSTRACT: (from the journal abstract) The paper begins by reviewing Freud's case history of Dora and emphasizing her involvement in and overstimulation by her parents' sexual behavior. This markedly interfered with her ability to desexualize her relationship with them. As a result she was unable to develop the illusion of parental celibacy, which I postulate is an important and necessary defensive stage in normal adolescence. This illusion facilitates the desexualization of the adolescent's relationship to the parents and so contributes to separation from them and the seeking of non-incestuous sexual outlets. The disruption of this illusion of parental celibacy by parental sex education, or by the complications of parental divorce may contribute significantly to the development of adolescent psychopathology. Clinical vignettes are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)

...actually, you know what? I think the illusion is really necessary for all stages of development. Our minds can only handle so much. XD;;;

That's it. Off to bed.

PS: I finally realised why my luo han guo drink tastes different from the one sold outside. Instead of 2 cups of water to a fruit, I put 2 cups of water to 2 fruits. Eh. Well, I don't know if it's twice as effective though.

PPS: Have also discovered why every bread shop now has some "coffee bun" concoction. RotiBoy. And it is teh Whoo, my friends. When served freshly baked, it's quite heavenly. Crispy outer shell but so soft, so so soft. I just don't get the deal with the salted butter filling thing. 咸咸甜甜, like wth?

Okay. Really going off to bed now.

There was some band playing at the central forum. Some holy rolling rock 'n' roll band playing. I think there were quite a few bands that were supposed to play, but I only caught one band which had an albino lead singer and DAMN HIS BAND WAS GOOD. Not that the vocalist sucked (Personally thought he was cool as fark/Dante XD and man! He sounded a little like Axel Rose, but whether that's a good thing or not depends on you.) but with all the guitars and the drums and WHEEEE! vibrations from the speakers, one just couldn't make out wtf he was singing. I did make out that he was singing "BLAH BLAH BLAH" at one point though. XD;;;; However, turns out the bit I saw was only the sound check (hence the "BLAH BLAH BLAH"? XD) and the actual thing was to start at 730pm, way too late for me to still muck around in school.

So. Questions. Does anyone know what the hell was going on? Or the names of the bands? Or was it some hall combo-band thing? (KR? I saw one dude wearing a KR shirt, but he wasn't in the band I saw but part of some other band to be playing later?) esesiined, would you know anyone who knows? ^^;;;

**LATER: Word is that the band mentioned is not of any hall and so aptly named "Ronin". Ah.

Still up. And spamming LJs. XD I have to finish the structuralism bit before I can conk out. Still verri jittery now (I'm blaming my prof. After seeing his dummy exam paper, it was PANIC!ATTACK! again. Can no one write in simple english these days?), but I've found out what kills ciggarette cravings. Sprite Ice. Erm. Not that I have been smoking recently.

Rereading Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies and am suddenly faced with too many things I didn't see the first time round. Whereas I was thought the running theme was about letting go, now I think I don't know anything afterall. (Quote Socrates and die. I mean it.) The thing is that Lahiri never comes out straight to tell you exactly what it is that she wants to say. Which is the problem with Ondaatje's The English Patient as well. Well. At least for Lahiri, there are certain issues that are bloody obvious. But there're the other things that are subtle and niggle away at your brain. Why does she use the viewpoint of a child in so many of her short stories? And then why the sudden change to the "We"?

Eh. Never mind.

PS: ANYONE UP FOR FISHIES, DAMNIT?! youknowiwubyou~

PPS: Mother thinks I shouldn't keep neon tetras when I move out. "They're BITE-SIZED!!!" Damn. She knows me too well. XD