accidents all

You and me both, we’re fragile.

I’m with you.

Biology notes II: safe and sound

-I listen to ‘Jessie’s Girl’ by Rick Springfield, and I sympathise to a point. This makes me feel a bit worthless at times.

-Today I had a confrontation with the receptionist at the employment agency, only to discover that she is actually really helpful. She must have seen through my phone-stammer to the astonishingly qualified individual underneath! Thankyou Pam.

-I used to think that Christmas was okay, if tedious. My main argument was that you get to eat nice food and the family generally gets along. I take back what I said after the last two Christmas seasons involved way too much ricotta cheese and heartbreak. If I ever write an autobiography, perhaps I will call it ‘ricotta cheese and heartbreak’ because that’s life.

 

 

-So, without further ado, I have decided not to talk about Christmas anymore (unless something REALLY interesting happens).

 

-Snails are molluscs. Molluscs are fabulous. I think they are more appealing than cats and dogs. I like things that are kind of cute and gross at the same time. The bit of the snail that pokes out from the bottom of the shell is called the foot. Don’t you wish you had one huge, slithery foot with a mouth on it instead of two legs? Perhaps?

 

Trans: Yes it is indeed alcohol that taught me my moral code

 

-Lastly, I have been using some sophisticated software (well, MS paint is only like 15 years old) to add colour to my scanned drawings. I would like your feedback- Do you like the bright, blocky colour? Do you prefer it when I draw the colours myself with pencils or texta? Do you prefer them without colour? You be commenting, yes?

Biology is nowhere near finished, eek. After that, chemistry, which is quite dark in places.

Biology Notes I: In madness and in health

When I finish the exam for a topic, I like to look through the notes for that semester and scan in all the drawings. I like doing so, it’s like a symbolic reward for completing a subject.

I’ve finished my exams now. As such, over the coming days, a few of these drawings will appear, loosely grouped according to academic subject and overarching theme.

Sometimes, I feel a bit funny.

Often, the line between the TV drama my family watches and real life seems indistinct, or nonexistent. This is funny, a lot of the time. However, sad things happen on TV dramas as well.

I don’t watch a lot of TV. If your everyday life comes to emulate the media we spend most of our time observing, my life should be a lot like a science lecture, an internet message board, a crass humour blog and a fantasy novel. I think that would be a pretty cool life. I guess my life is a bit like that.

My computer is broken, at the moment.One day, in a lecture on population dynamics, watching animal populations drive themselves to extinction on graphs, I thought about Thomas Malthus. I thought a good idea for a very intense deranged robot would be one designed to talk like a caricature of Malthus. Hence, Malthus here.

Look at me

Raaar! How about some pictures today?

This one’s for Clare:

and Mason:

and finally, no-one at all:

Goodness me

Oh, I’ve been so angsty. It’s just evaporated, and I feel relaxed and happy. I don’t know how it happened; so I don’t quite trust it yet, but it’s nice to have a relaxed evening doing a bit of reading, listening to records. Tonight, Emuir Deodato, Preludes. Some day I will play that album for someone I like very much; around sundown. <3

Maybe I feel happy because I’ve finished my prac courses for the year, or because of the lovely people that I love, or because of the stroganoff we had for dinner.

Today I had a lecture in which the lecturer told us about what an amino acid is. Really? Sigh.

It’s hot upstairs, the fan clanks like all hell as it spins fast enough to lop off someone’s head. If I were a few centimetres taller, it would indeed be low enough to put a dent in my head. Someone once told me that fan blades actually spin quite gently, and it’s possible to stop them with your hand. But I can’t remember who it was, and they might have been a total idiot. Also, it looks frightening enough that I’m not going to try to grab it mid-spin.

Today, I saw two almost identical men, sitting together, who weren’t actually connected in any way. A bus came and one simply got up and walked away, never having spoken to the other.

I kid on a scooter rode up to me and I almost did a double-take, because he had a man’s face, only smaller.

Is it only me that notices these weird things, or are they actually not that weird in the first place?

Nonsense and remembrances

I can speak clearly but when I act it’s all gibberish. Twitch and shout.

I can’t escape the feeling that everything I do is wrong, or at least done for the wrong reasons. This is a burden on my mind.

Exams are rushing at me like a runaway freight train and I’m staggering on and off the tracks, disoriented. As though I had been struck by a gentle bolt of lightning, or someone had slipped spirits into my water bottle.

I might soon have a new job. If that were to happen I would be really pleased, mostly as a result of receiving a wage. If it turns out that it is as difficult as Subway, I think I will scream, and resign myself to never being able to pass for a productive earthling. And then I will scream some more, but obviously this will all take place in private. Then I will keep showing up for work and serving customers with a smile, because that’s what I want to do. Customer service is fun when you ham it up. HELLO! HOW MAY I HELP YOU!?

I feel cheery.

I like my new shirt and my aviator jacket.

To me, every chair I sit in is a cockpit chair for the spaceship I pilot through my life. When I sit with my arms on the armrest and both feet symmetrical on the floor, that’s what I am doing.

Have a peaceful week, mah readerz

A tangled web

I’m not sure what I was intending to type as comment to this picture. It doesn’t need it.

Oh look, I have a nosebleed. I’m going to bed, then.

What have you been up to lately?

Being Banal (Banana)

I feel like writing today, but I don’t really have anything burning on my mind. I’m a real airhead. However, what might be enjoyable would be to write a list of points about things that are enjoyable and interesting. Maybe even intruiging. Hamm.

1. Video games that I like
First and foremost, wing commander. Observe:

Breaking Free from sprite imaging. Wing Commander: ARMADA (featuring me about to roast a kitty)

Angel, your awesome belgian pal from WC1 (by WC3 you're dating her)

WING COMMANDER 3 HAD FULL MOTION VIDEO (nothing suss)

I love these games to tears because they’re so very immersive. The whole point of them was to take you along on a white-knuckle ride through a distant future, where giant spacefaring cats (the empire of Kilrah) insist on trying to destroy us all (hence the object of the game is to fly around destroying them, how delightfully black and white).

I freely acknowledge that the premise is harebrained and borrows heavily from most sci-fi TV series and movies of the time, but that’s beside the point. In these games, you get to fly around dispatching the enemy yourself, then come back to the carrier and listen to the barman giving you tactics advice while you’re trying to flirt with the mechanic. It’s vicarious living at it’s lighthearted best.

The only problem is, when you’re not busy with onboard intruigue, the game itself, that is the flying and lasering bit, is really quite hard. I’m slowly getting better at it but it’s a lot of rough and tumble. One of the great things about the wing commander games is that you always fly in pairs. Your wingman is usually better at attacking enemies and saving your skin than you are!

Also, in Wing commander 3, you play as Mark Hamill! And the hot ship’s mechanic is played by Ginger Allen. Fans are still compulsively re-arranging the game’s cutscenes into a feature film. Awesome.

I haven’t played WC4 yet- Strange that WC3 should be so easy to find anywhere secondhand games are sold but WC4 almosr unheard of. Someone promised me they’d give it to me for my nineteenth birthday, but I think it turned out to be too much bother. If anyone wants to give me a gift at some point, that’d be cool!

As a review, this had been a bit confused, but anyway. These games are really enjoyable, and I’m sad the company that made them has gone bust.

Oh and, Katamari is a great console game. A lot of fun to play with a pal. I played it last night on a friend’s PS2 and it was cool.

2. Blah Blah Housework

It’s almost time for me to vacuum the floors and mop them. Two days ago I was visiting a friend and we cleaned up the kitchen together after dinner and I realised it was quite enjoyable in company. I get annoyed having to clean the floors here though, by myself with the stupid loud vacuum. It’s boring. It’s also almost time to do the dishes.

3. Reading

I just finished reading all the stories in burning chrome, a collection of William Gibson’s short stories. Not being much of a literary critic, I struggle to explain why I like them, and the way they are written, but here goes.
I hate to use tags like ‘cyberpunk’ because once you put SF or anything really in a narrow slot like that there’s no escape. Copycats flock to pigeonholes like ‘cyberpunk’ and ’steampunk’, producing a work that conforms to a bizzarely rigid style for a genre as imaginative as Science Fiction.

you very pretty, yes

But I digress. I liked Burning Chrome because the stories somehow tread the line between adventure stories and examinations of characters and setting. It works, somehow. I can’t enjoy most of the ‘wow, postapocalypse/dystopia/war’ novels I find in the library, because they’re so damn overwrought, or dull. What can I say, I’m a picky reader. Anyway, I like Gibson’s style because it’s the future as told by the people of the future. It doesn’t stop to whinge over teenagers having thier eyes surgically replaced with cameras and computer programs that roast people trying to hack into them because that’s part of the everyday. It’s nice to read about people getting on with thier lives, I guess.

okay forget what I said about being a picky reader

I also just finished reading ‘take it like a man, an autobiography’ by Boy George and Spencer Bright. It was quite an enjoyable read. I read it with a curious mixture of envy and releif- I wish I’d been able to sneak into a Bowie concert when I was 11, I wouldn’t mind becoming famous for singing and dressing strangely, but I’m glad I haven’t been addicted to heroin, and involved in a  long term relationship where my lover and I have punch-ups on a regular basis. Being rich would be cool though.

Next I shall read ‘Everything is illuminated’ by Johnathan Safran Foer, because Clare said it was good. Her word is good on such things.

4. Chewing gum

I like to chew gum. I like to try all the different flavours. I especially like cinnamon chewing gum, but I so rarely find it in shops, even candy-specific shops.

5.Conclusion

Well, that’s that out of my system. I hope you have enjoyed this (and are now inspired to download wing commander games) and will be back soon.

Comment, lest I be made to feel unloved

Oh will you look at that!

I’m sorry, but is that a pubic hair I see stuck in my keyboard?

Mysterious! It’s long and thick and jet black, so I can’t have been from anywhere on me.

Looks like it was pulled out from the root.

I don’t remember anyone coming into my room and moulting on my laptop during the night, but maybe I need to sleep lighter!

I will catch you!

Crazy!

I will

reap my own bitter harvest

(This year, and always)