Space Travels

I sketched this for my little sister Laetitia, because currently, she and I are in an art exchange programme and we send each other sketches and drawings and colourings across continents. When I was drawing this, I was thinking about how the image fitted an idea that I am reading about in my Culture, Art and Technology module: how as children, our capacity for wonder is tremendous, but as we grow up, we become more jaded and less impressed by nature's wonders. Then I remember a person I met who never 'grew up', but in a good Peter-Panish way. Maybe not all physicists think like this, but I think physics is beautiful and elegant, and that if we can describe all the world in the language of mathematics, it would be wondrous. So maybe I have 'grown up', but I've not given up looking for wonders; I'm just looking in different places.

I came across an oddity in Warren College. A row of trees on the lawn, all of the same variety, and all perfectly healthy except for the last one in the row, which has lost almost all its leaves. It did seem strange. (Thanks Jimmy, for pointing them out!)

Since I'm studying human evolution and the extinction of so many sub-branches of hominids due to possibly very small factors that caused a differential selection pressure, I was reminded of a model of birth rates and death rates made by anthropologist Ezra Zubrow, who offers an explanation for the extinction of H. neanderthalensis. Zubrow suggests that the disadvantage of having a slightly higher death rate than that of contemporary Homo sapiens could have meant that Neanderthal populations dropped below replacement production levels. "This superiority may be as paltry as a one percent difference in mortality, and the extinction may be as rapid as 30 generations. In other words, Neanderthals could have become extinct in a single millenium." I was thinking about Zubrow when I saw this tree.

I am very interested in anthropology, and I thought for sure I would take a course on anthropology and human evolution for winter, but recently, I have come across and and even more exciting field: cognitive science, the study of the mind, computing, and behaviour. Apparently, cognitive science is HOT in UCSD. So I'm definitely taking cognitive science instead of anthropology, for winter 2007. Sorry, anthropology, maybe in 2008...

Currently for fall, I'm doing 21 credits, when the average student here does between 12 and 16 credits. For winter, I'm going to try 28 credits, to see how it feels. Some people think I'm crazy, but I just want to push myself and learn as much as I can. Anthropology, philosophy, cognitive science, visual art... I'm looking forward to all of them!

A trip to Ralphs, the nearest supermarket

Ben, sitting on what he claims to be culturally unique in America, a bus bench

Ben's a physicist too!

So is Jimmy.

It's a coincidence.

The physics batch in UCSD is actually smaller than I thought, and it's fantastic to have 2 fellow physicists with me on the same level in my hall, which I am sure doesn't happen often at all. Physicists tend to think alike in many ways. The good ones, anyway...

Racoon!

Fall, and the Leaves are Falling

Ooh, I'm starting to take note of the seasons and its effects now, cause it'll be my first time experiencing any seasonal variation in the weather. So I've noticed that leaves are falling. I've noticed that it gets colder too. But other than that, I haven't really noticed much else. Gotta keep my eyes open! I don't think I'm noticing enough...

I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open too. Literally. Went for my first rock concert on friday and I fell asleep. I blame it on lack of sleep in general and the crappy bands. Then again, I know people who've enjoyed the concert so maybe it's just not my type of music. My FIRST rock concert and I fell asleep!

The anime club I've joined is showing some excellent anime. My top choice would have to be Death Note, and I remember you telling me about this series, Jinx! I was kinda surprised when they showed it, but so far, it has been mind-blowing. For those who don't know what Death Note is about, I'll do a short history: a straight-A, handsome, extremely intelligent college student named Light discovers a Death Note dropped onto the material plane by a bored Death God. He finds out that any name written on this black book will die an almost immediate death. Instead of being afraid of this new-found power, Light embraces it and decides to remake the world in his image, by cleansing the world of people whom he deems 'evil', and eventually becoming a god. Every day after school, he returns home and writes down hundreds of names, systematically exterminating all the known criminals in the world. Light, apparently, has a dark and warped side, which borders on the psychopathic. When hundreds of criminals began to die of unexplained cardiac arrests over a few days, a mysterious and extremely capable investigator, who goes by the name L and heads Interpol, begins to hunt down this mysterious killer, whom people are calling "Kira" (Killer) reverently. L tricks Light into revealing his powers on national TV and what begins is a cat and mouse game of the highest stakes: if Light finds out who L really is, L will die; if L finds out who Light is first, Light will die. Both believe that they are on the path of righteousness. One is destined to die in this battle of wits.

So far, that's it after two episodes. What's really intriguing about this anime is that the classic anti-hero here (Light) may just be plain evil, and yet somehow Light draws you into his twisted perspective of the world and you can almost believe he is the saviour he claims to be. Awesome stuff. The anime is really first-rate and is highly recommended (by me, that is).

A new addition to our suite: yet ANOTHER tv with yet ANOTHER Xbox, so now we can play Halo and actually snipe each other from different screens. It's gaming heaven here.

Hmm?

Dear Eric, happy 18th birthday!

Great Balls of Pain(t)

I was reminiscing about times past

About paintball, mostly

About pellets that shred and pulverise human skin

Paint my memories with great balls of pain

Left to Right: Yung Chuan, Jinx, Ray, Rodney

Aftershock

Jinx's Lovebite (he's REALLY crying) ( I think I did this to him)

Anime, Nerds, Speedos, Chopsticks and 18th Birthdays

I'm kinda surprised to say this, but I've joined an Anime club in Sunny San Diego. I've always liked Anime, but I've never pictured myself joining a club for Anime, but that just goes to show how you should never stop surprising yourself. Every Monday night, I head to Price Theatre for my weekly dose of Anime: seven episodes from seven different series. The range of Anime shown is really interesting: from intensely personal human drama (Welcome to NHK) to supernatural horror/mystery (an Anime christened 'Killer Lollies' by my room-mate Colin, who was Prez of his own Anime club in high school and introduced me to the club, thanks Colin!) to mindless chick flicks (The Ouran Host Club). Plus, members of the club randomly get freebies, like this poster I got on my first week as a member. It's now up on my cupboard door...

On a whim, I walked into the study room of our residence hall with my digicamera and shouted out, "Smile for me, nerds!". And so they did. What nerds! Say hello to (from bottom left, clockwise) Jake, Brittney, Minna and Jimmy.

This is Kathy in a compromising position, with Daniel's swimming trunks (or Speedos, as they call it here) forced on her head by, you guessed it, Daniel himself. They're pretty good friends, and this kind of behaviour is not unexpected between good friends...

This is cute. Tasha proudly shows us her virgin mastery of the chopsticks. Quite a momentous occasion.

On a happier note, Kathy (sitting) celebrates her 18th birthday. Daniel lights the candles for her. It sure felt like a long time ago when I celebrated mine. Wow.

DDR and Laksa Heaven

Grant and Colin doing a pretty good imitation of Dance Dance Revolution in the lounge. Pretty impressive stuff, which requires very nimble feet. I tried it out, and the game gave me a grade of E. I'm just happy I didn't get an F.

Well, finally, I decided to cook my Prima Taste Laksa mix, which was lying quietly in my cupboard gathering dust. After a while, you get tired of sub-standard rice meals and pizza, and you want to eat some noodles. First was a trip to '99 Ranch', an Asian supermarket in Convoy Street, where I bought noodles and all the ingredients I needed for laksa. Actually, I bought a lot more than that. I felt like I was in heaven in that supermarket. FINALLY, real, identifiable food! I even found some of the Korean instant noodles that I have always liked. Hot.

The ingredients were laid out:

Cooking was real fun. I haven't cooked for a while, but most of it is a no-brainer. Just reading the instructions and dumping in all the ingredients. We didn't really have fried tou fu for our laksa, so I just bought some tou fu and Tanya fried them in sesame oil on a pan, and it turned out better than I expected.

My Partner in Crime, Tanya

The end result: the best meal Tanya and I have had since we came to San Diego. Take a look!