Farewell 349

Today I went for my first exams this semester, which happens to be of BIOSCI349. The emotions just before the exam range from calculated confidence to total panic, which was very interesting to observe.Also, nobody wanted it when I offered my mint copy of Biochemistry 6th Ed by Berg et al for grabs, c'mon, I thought you are the ones who are into science.

The exam went fine, question one was a hard call between two questions of similar difficulty, and I ended up switching topic after making a start on the other. Special thanks to Obsidi of Dissecting Minutes, question four became a breeze after reading the elegantly laconic summary of A.lumbricoides.


I also remember the comment "The highest you will get is a B+" from the start of the semester when I casually declared myself a B student. Well, turns out that was a pretty accurate prediction.

The result for Test 2 MCQs are not out yet, however I am confident it will be 15/20 at least, this compounded with my A-ish lab marks and otherwise lackluster exam performance at the exam, would land me consistently in a high B or B+.

People say the most you will get is what you aimed for, did I aim for a B? Well, hard to say, but judging from the negligible time spent studying prior to this morning, I am utterly indifferent to this course, farewell 349, you will not be missed. Maybe I ought to join Andre's daily countdown to the end of education for many of us.

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And the other day, I picked this up during a spontaneous visit to the off-license in Howick over the weekend. The main reason to get it: It is darned cheap, priced so low that you probably won't believe me if I put the figure here. Anyway, a 750ml bottle goes for less than half the price of a 700ml Baileys.

The name is O'Mara's Irish Country Cream w/ added caramel. The bottle is not too informative, other than saying that it is made in Abbeyleix, County Laois. I looked up on the internet and it turns out to be something made exclusively for export, no wonder why I have never seen this brand in Eire.The internet also told me that this combination has a wine base, which is not mentioned anywhere on the labeling, strange.

 This is what it looks like, pale straw colour from an opaque bottle.

Despite the over-friendly price tag, it is actually very tasty, probably the smoothest cream liqueur I have ever had, no sting at all. It is quite rich too, goes down like a thick shake with the punch. The added caramel is subtle, just right to be tasted, with a coffee-like aftertaste.

It works pretty well neat at room temperature right now in winter. You may get it on the rocks however ice tends to mask most of the sweetness, and it will dilute the Milch too.

Verdict: Surprisingly good for the price, excellent after-dinner drink and a quick, bottled fix for your sweet tooth. The alcohol content is low enough (13%) for this drink to be considered wine for legal purposes, so future tax hikes on spirits are less likely to have any effect. (FYI, filled bread must have at least two slices of bread to be legally considered a sandwich, at least in Boston)

State of Photography

This post is dedicated to the living memory of a friend among the 87,150 lives lost in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and their surviving families.

Blessed be our compassionate lord for ever,

we bring you grief in loss of many

and ask for courage to bear it.

We bring you thanks for all you give us in those we love

and we bring you prayers for peace of heart

in the knowledge of your mercy and love

Amen

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The post started on the same day when my magnifier eyepiece broke off.  It was attached on a fragile makeshift mounting, that is, DK-22 with cut threads and super-glue reinforcement. I have been expecting this for some time; a spare DK-22 was on standby for more than a year. Well, time to do the assembly all over again, this time with more care so it might last a bit longer.

Before you ask me whether I own a serious digital camera, yes I do. It is a staple Nikon D200 bought second-hand from a certain professional store in Parnell, many of you will probably know which one it is.. To put things lightly, I have been ripped off for the purchase. The built-in flash stopped working once their warranty period ran out, I went back and was refused any remedy. Out of options, I sent it to TA Macalister, where they slapped me with a substantial bill and, adding insult to injury, told me that the repair cost more because someone had previously botched the innards of the camera. Needless to say, I have never been back to the same store and have recommended against them to everybody I know. After all, it looks like I am stuck with this poor little thing for a while.

The AFS 18-200VR lens had a more pleasant background: A piece of retired ex-journo equipment from my friend Rob, chief editor of Pacific Wings. He might have taken the lens to miles of skies above the ground, and I have certainly taken her across the oceans to many corners of the world. She is the one that you will definitely see me with in the foreseeable future.

A couple of pics taken with the duo:

Shanghai Dawn, late'08

Posing in front of Federal Hall,early'09

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At the same time, I have been trying to reduce my personal belongings into one room. So I took the opportunity to go over what is the remainder of my once glorious camera collection:

I used to own a full platoon of Nikons, including a very nice black paint F with plain prism, F2AS with motor, F4/F4E etc. Right now I am down to 2 film SLRs. This is the last F3, it is the prototype AF body complete with motor and high-point finder. I also have some expensive accessories not included in the photo: DW-4, AS-17, SB-15, MF-6B. Anyway, it is too unwieldy to use, so it sits on a display shelf most of the time, occasionally taken for use as a focusing stage for macros. Lens: AI-mod Nikkor-H.C 50/2 with a interesting serial number, bought from a pianist in Kohi.

The black FA, lens is AIS 24/2 with custom Tiffen hood. The camera was hand-built from the three dead FA bodies by the late friend of mine. He is a highly disciplined technician, keeping track of everything and have me informed with lots of pictures.

He perished in his hometown which was obliterated to the ground: this studio he worked in is still buried under 15 meters of debris, his body never recovered.

R.I.P. pal, I shall safeguard your work for as long as I am alive.

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The AIS 300/4.5 ED pictured above is the longest lens I currently have. It might be old, but not losing to any modern offering: razor-sharp and feather-light (relatively speaking). I bought it without the tripod collar, which was later added on a trip to England. Greys of Westminster is probably the best-stocked Nikon store outside Japan, a must see place if you happen to be in London.

Corsair FG-1D flyover, Wanaka, 2005

My Emo Goth Sweetheart, Auckland, 2006

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When I started in photography, dad gave me his old Minolta X-700. Unfortunately it was ruined in an accident and later cannibalised for parts.

I have since replaced it with this mint example as a spiritual successor. Thanks Dad. The lens is a "yellow paint" MC Rokkor-X 50/2, with a clamp-on mid-tele hood.

 Location unknown, probably the Botanic Gardens, Early'07

Owairoa School Gala, Howick, 2005

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Leica IIf, The only rangefinder I still have. The lens is 25/4 Snapshot-Skopar w/finder. Also present is Canon 50/1.5, one of the better Sonnar-copies, plus an early cradle type Leitz 50mm sports finder, which according to the reference books, had never been produced commercially.

I used to have M cameras too, one M6TTL and a couple of M2s, however those are too bulky and business-like. Knob-wind Barnack models are inherently less accurate beings, and that is the reason users will have to concentrate on what is really-important: The decisive moment and the form of frame.
(Except for IIIg, M3's retarded cousin)

Central, Hong Kong, 2006

Madonna and Child, Macau, 2006

I mentioned in a previous post that I had been a Leicaphile. The problem was, I became one at the wrong time when prices were high and my income was low. Notwithstanding that, the people I met back then were still great friends that I will never give up. Once upon a time, photography was my life-blood, however my interests have waned somewhat over time, especially after I left school and lost convenient access to a wet darkroom. Yet I am determined to keep the hobby going, faugh a ballagh!

Cutting Corners,and music too

(This post started almost a month ago but never finished because it is....lame, even for the internet. I have made up with music near the end, scroll down to skip the boring part)

Back in the glorious old days of high school, the only sweet treat that does not mandate the endless queue at the tuck shop is the $2 Cadbury chocolate sold by your various compatriots raising funds for both mundane and noble causes. I must have bought hundreds of these bricks of concentrated energy, and once in a while I got to sell these coronary-blocking treats to other people, and from what I can tell it moves pretty quickly, seriously who does not like chocolate.

I bought the first of such chocolate since graduation, and to my dismay the price has gone up 25% to $2.5. The package says 85g, yet the block feels significantly smaller, can someone let me know if shrinkage is also involved?

Cadbury can disgust me no longer, after they cunningly introduced cardboard packaging so the smaller chocolate blocks may go undetected. It has been a blatant ripoff for as long as I can remember. Another example below:

Yes, that is right, the box had the capacity to hold 9 bars, yet what you get are six feeble wieners of muesli rice puff ingots. It certainly blow all senses of corporate responsibility(which in itself is an oxymoron) out of water, as well as breaking the golden rules in packaging: never let your contents move inside its container or it will break.

Something less significant also happened to bottle seals:

First it was like this, notice the beautifully stamped continous piece of metal seal cap with a generous ring.

The same bottle now, probably a result of anorexia. 







Sighs.

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Laura Marling - My Manic and I
 

If case you have not noticed, Laura Marling seems to find her way into over 50% of all posts by me. To make long praises short, she sings true to the hearts and minds of the premature/immature, confused and eternally struggling of us.













Julieta Venegas - El Presente 

I have watched this on TV, so take my word for it, shes even more fabulous than this fuzzy video already has to show.

(Refrain)
El presente es lo único que tengo
The present is the unique thing I have
el presente es lo único que hay
The present is the unique thing there is
es contigo mi vida con quien puedo sentir
With you in my life so I can feel that
que merece la pena vivir
It is worth the trouble to live

A simple, happy and beautiful song like Cuban sunshine (Julieta is an US-born Mexican, FYI). If you have not previously listened to Latin music I highly recommend that you do. A better recording can be found on here, yet visually disappointing(must be her outfit, huh?). Just let me know and I will lend you her MTV Unplugged CD.

Also, the accordion is awfully underrated, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries. Playing an accordion is a dance of its own kind, where the body is truly incorporated into the rhythm. I might learn as well if I can first of all master chromatic harmonica.

AI - Story

I grew up listening to Japaneses pop music, nevertheless I don't like it anymore since the genre has been steadily going downhill in the last 10 years or so. What used to inspire an entire generation of musical talents in the far east had already reduced to a random assortment of Engrish-filled lyrics and repetitive melodies that always have your ears ringing. Well, unlike the rest of the bunch of female jpop singers with high-pitched "cute" voices, AI is a nice break from general mediocrity.

一人じゃないから

You are not alone 

私がキミを守るから

Because I am taking care of you 

あなたの笑う颜が见たいと思うから

So I'd love to see your smiling face 

时がなだめてく 痛みと共に流れてく

Time soothes and flows with the pain 

日の光がやさしく 照らしてくれる

The light of the day, gently shines on us all

The Corrs - Runaway

I listen to a lot of obscure folk, country and celtic music. The Corrs may be somewhat too well-known for the group, however their music still had the grassroot touch of the people.

Erin Go Bragh




Diane Cluck - My Teacher Died

Anti-folk does not have a grudge against anything, it is a continuation of the true folk/punk spirit following the ascension of rock music into the mainstream. Like many antifolk singers, Diane Cluck's style is hard to generalise,but there is a rein of rare casualness throughout.

Gabriela Robin - Torukia

Gabby's identity deserves a high ranking on the list of the worst kept secrets, losing narrowly to Ricky Martin's sexuality. Her existence has been vaguely hinted/admitted/denied many times in the past, but every fan knows Robin is the pseudonym of The Sealbelts' composer/conductor Yoko Kanno.

Her strength as a composer is her ability to write music to any style with high authenicity: Orff, Wagner, Kitarō，Björk, Joplin, Garbarek, Elgar, Sousa, you name it, she can do it. However, her vocals are consistently transcendental and soul-grabbing. Some closure has been provided at last year's The Seatbelts 7/7 concert, at the end of which, Kanno performed one of Robin's songs, informally putting an end to the speculation. This song is the opening piece of the same concert; the version played here, as found on the compilation CD "Space Bio Charge" has been rearranged to be 30s shorter than the full version, honestly I failed to detect the difference.

 

Lyrics, well not really, Robin sings in her own fictional language, this is just an impression:

In the land of Torukia

Words fall to become the sand

Did you see the sea? Did you see the sea?
Guided by the water of thought

A proud spirit walks a proud road
A humble spirit walks a humble road
And between the two
The fog breaks over the flat land
And a song that cannot be heard dries out those two spirits

In the land of Torukia
Words fall to become the sands

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In other news:

- Three more exams to go, will commence studying once time runs out. 

- I have got into my hands another prospective project, that is successful, may relieve me from the troubles of postgraduate studies, hope everything is going to work out.

- Things to do: Complete the other 3 draft posts/bake blue cookies/buy a single bed/eat all the cake before the others get to it

In my defence, ask DNA

Rule 51: There is always a song of it


By the time I turned 18, mom passed onto me the journal she has been keeping since I was born. It was probably to suggest that I am a case of "mission accomplished" for her, anyway, I did not like it. Mostly because the journal contains an honest account of my life since my first breath, with a good dose of constructive criticism that I never will take. The exact whereabouts of the little green notebook is not so certain, it may have been stashed securely in some random nook and cranny place that only rodents will find to devour, or else, tossed into fire while inebriated, whatever, I no longer remember.


My biggest fear is to go on and live the life of my father or grandfather, who are both loners with unqualified inferiority complex. And I see myself slipping further in that direction day by day. As a result I make up elaborate stories to create distance, however there are hard facts that I can not and shall not deny. Recall a previous post suggesting that I might have fragile X syndrome, well that was a lie. I may have a few phenotypes that seems to fit the (mis)diagnosis, however all evidences I could gather, including my mom's trusty journal of me, indicate that I acquired speech at a rather early stage with advanced clarity, hence ruling out any possibilities that I might have the disorder. 

Unlike dull biologists, psychologists are a much more helpful and understanding bunch of folks, who carry on inventing all sorts of excuse to characterise and externalise your issues. Here I present: Oral Fixation.

According to the theory of psychoanalysis, pioneered by Sigmund Freud of Austria, oral fixation is the obsession resulting from either:

"1. A lack of proper gratification during one of the psycho-sexual stages of development, or
2. Receiving a strong impression from one of these stages, in which case the person's personality would reflect that stage throughout adult life."

A general feature of oral fixation is the obsession with oral stimulation, which can manifest in a wide range of behavior from nail biting, constant talking, chewing objects, overeating, tobacco/alcohol use, et cetera. Psychologically, such people are "generally passive, needy and sensitive to rejection".

Yup, that is me, I talk BS all the time, and you have all seen me popping Eclipse mints like Dr House on his Vicodin.

Going deeper down the rabbit hole, oral fixation may be further divided into two following categories.

Oral Receptive: Like the name suggests, kids with this kind of personality are easily influenced by outside ideas. They subconsciously pick up other people's accents, phrases, habits, or even an entire alternative persona.

Oral Aggressive: a.k.a. oral sadistic. This is the awful "sting" type, not unlike Eric Cartman's version of Tourette's. Externally unpleasant, they simply cannot help to be verbally abusive, whether they meant harm or not.

I am a bit of both, yet I belong more to the latter group. That is why I am never really close with anybody, or else I cannot help but to dig into their deepest fears, shames and regrets, then throw those into their face for my own amusement. I am very sorry to a certain person that I have, until recently, bombarded with school stories, as well as some rather patronising comments on certain physical attribute of theirs. I am fully aware that you are upset, despite the best effort to shrug it off. Isn't it creepy, all lengths taken to know somebody, only in order to piss them off to the maximum extent.

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Special thanks to the few bday well-wishers today, listed in the order received:

TSR: It was a good site, however I no longer have the courage to visit again, it makes me think of all the unpleasant things that happened in 2008.

Alanna: Yup, one of the two only human beings in the list. She deserves a dedicated post one day, stay tuned and I will write for sure.

Stormfront: Yup, I read WN forums for comedic relief, some people are just stupid. I might write about them as well.

RFF: Thanks, I am no longer part of the Leica-scene but it was good while it lasted.

Mr Lavin: Just got your txt, thank you a brazillion. And you were right about things all along.

...why should I please those who will never be pleased...

What is with all this? Why make life more difficult?

I don't know and I am only 12 years old.