A Ticklish Thing

I had never thought that a sound could make me all ticklish all over, but I think I’ve found one that manages it. Plug in some headphones, adjust your volume, and then hit play. It’s pretty awesome. I kept catching myself turning my head to follow the sound and giggling at it, which might indicate that I’m crazy, but definitely indicates that this demonstration is pretty off the hook.

Women, Fire, and Other Dangerous Objects

As I’m sure you all know, many languages (not English, but hey, we’re rebellious like that) have gender for all nouns. For instance, in Spanish and Italian, “table” is feminine, as are “keys” and the moon, while “oven,” “bridge” and the sun are masculine. These genders have little to nothing to do with the nature of the actual objects in question. Other languages have noun classes in the place of genders–categories of objects, often grouped by characteristics like “shiny things” or “wet things” or even “things you can eat.” My favorite class system, however, is one used in the Dyirbal langage, spoken by the Australian Aboriginees. It has four categories. One for men and animate objects, one for edible fruits and vegetables, one for women, fire, and other dangerous objects, and one more for everything not covered by the first three.

Yeeaaahhh, fire! I freaking LOVE fire. The Aboriginees have got it going ON.

*This classification system also inspired George Lakoff’s book Women, Fire, and Dangerous Objects.

The Appropriate Butt-Shaking

There’s this song that I can’t get out of my head. If you’ve seen Little Miss Sunshine (or if you were alive and listening to music any time in the 80’s), you’re probably familiar with it. It goes a little bit like this:

She’s a very kinky girl
The kind you don’t take home to mother
She will never let your spirits down
Once you get her off the street, ow girl

She likes the boys in the band
She says that I’m her all-time favorite
When I make my move to her room it’s the right time
She’s never hard to please

I even do a little dance when I hear it in my head, with the appropriate butt-shaking and head swinging (the music is in my head, the dancing is in the real world). This seems to confuse passersby, and even occasionally crack them up. It’s pre-tay awesome, and while it can sometimes occasion some ridicule, it also adds a really interesting kick to the day. I highly recommend it.

Freaky Dream Land

Last night, I had a bizarre and wonderful dream. Instead of living in Mirrielees, I lived in an apartment complex just outside of the Stanford campus that appeared to have been modeled after Venice, in that instead of having streets, it had canals. To live there, you had to drive one of those duck things, the amphibious cars? And there were locks (the water kind) to get in? My apartment was beautiful, and spatious, and I had a HUGE bed that was on this porch that hung out over the water. (I have a thing for big beds. I think it comes from having had nothing larger than a twin ever in my entire life. Having a big bed is the one feature of my future grownup life to which I look forward most.) It was way cool. There was a big kitchen, filled with all kinds of perfect kitchen equipment–the stuff of classic Williams Sonoma catalogues (which my sister calls “kitchen porn”), and a pool (which I guess was kind of unnecessary, since I lived in the middle of water anyhow), and all of this soft, huge furniture. I was completely disappointed when I woke up back in the real world. Anyone know where I could find some canals and a king size mattress?

Listen, my child, and you will hear…

…of the pictures I took before Viennese Ball. Although in this picture, Nathan is in fact expounding on a theory, the name of which I instantly forgot, you should instead imagine that he’s telling you to head over here to look at the set of pictures in which he stars, along with Jessica, Lekan, Katie, and Catherine.

Viennese Ball is a very formal annual event, at which attendees waltz, polka, and swing the night away to the strains of various local bands and orchestras. It’s supposed to be extremely chic, which is somewhat unusual in the social events of Stanford students, and indeed, all college students everywhere.

This photo shoot was a lot of fun, and only had one injury (Katie clocked Lekan in the face in an unfortunate posing incident). The pictures are up in both color and black and white, but I really prefer the black and white. They seem to be much more in step with the spirit of the ball, too, which is a little old fashioned, and very swoopy.

St. Valentine Loves Quotes

Valentine’s Day is a strange, artificial but ultimately entertaining holiday, and so this will be a strange, artificial but ultimately entertaining (I hope) entry. It contains some things I like, some links I love, and a few nuggets of wisdom.

• Love is complicated, dancing is awesome.
• “I love you, in a really, really big pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window, unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you. So pick me, choose me, love me.”
  –Grey’s Anatomy
• Daydream delusion, limousine eyelash
  Oh baby with your pretty face
  Drop a tear in my wineglass
  Look at those big eyes
  See what you mean to me
  Sweet-cakes and milkshakes
  I’m a delusion angel
  I’m a fantasy parade
  I want you to know what I think
  Don’t want you to guess anymore
  You have no idea where I came from
  We have no idea where we’re going
  Lodged in life
  Like branches in a river
  Flowing downstream
  Caught in the current
  I carry you
  You’ll carry me
  That’s how it could be
  Don’t you know me?
  Don’t you know me by now?–Before Sunrise
• Cupcake Carrier
• Overheard in New York:
  Dude on cell: I saw Tim Burton on an interview the other day, and I said to my cat, ‘Snicket, behold a man who has never yet combed his hair!’–AMDA entrance

A Pretty Thing

I’ve redone cupcakenation, and it is very blue. Very blue and very pretty.

The Future Doctors of America: Surgeon, Two O’Clock

When you sit in the back of a big lecture hall, watching 200 stanford sophomores taking a biology exam, you can pick out the future doctors from 1000 yards (or rather, were it actually possible to BE 1000 yards away from them in the lecture hall, you could). There’s the twitchy asian kid who sits in front of me, figuring out the movement of microtubules by making creeping spider motions with his fingers like he’s some sort of super villain, planning on taking the world by storm with his creeping fingers of DOOM. He’ll be a doctor for sure, but probably the kind who will make his mother proud. The jerk behind me, on the other hand (the one who mutters “fffffailll” under his breath when the alarm on my cell phone goes off in the first 5 minutes…which, I know, I know, TOTALLY bad news, but seriously, the thing was on silent. Apparently that doesn’t spread to the alarms. Shit.), that jerk is going to be the cool jackass surgeon who’s too hot for his own good. He’s going to piss off his coworkers and hit on models. 30 years from now he’ll regret being just an ass, but that’s not helping me much with my current problem, which is a deep and lasting hatred for him and all his jackass friends. The kid with the foot long ponytail and the goatee two rows down will be a biologist, probably the kind who works outside in a river somewhere. He’s the kind of guy my dad takes out on hikes to look at frogs with. The clean cut boy one tier up and to the right of me will work in a lab, probably curing cancer. On the weekends he’ll take his kids to soccer practice and watch football. He’s probably really nice and has a bunch of lovely, slightly nerdy friends. The hotshot frat boys in the corner flirting with their wispy girlfriends between problems will use their old boy’s club connections to coast their ways out of college and into a consulting firm. They may be premed, but doctor’s not in the future. They don’t look freaked out enough about this class, cause everyone who’s taking it seriously look like they sold their souls to the devil for the chance to take it. There are some serious parental expectations riding on the next 2 hours.

And then there’s me. Sandwiched between jackass and Mr. CreepyFingers, I am clearly out of my element here. My “I Fancy The Roadie” pin and my completely disintegrating converse say “humanities” louder than I ever have, while the copy of Jane Eyre in my bag has more of my attention than the long boring list of enzymes I should have memorized last night. That, plus the “fffaaailll” muttering jackass pretty much has me rattled.

Although I briefly contemplated taking a page out of the blue book of an AP American History test taker a few years ago who, instead of writing an essay about the great depression, wrote a long and heartfelt letter to his grader about the futility of even attempting to grade his miserable exam, and for a moment even began drafting a charming piece about what it means to be an english major taking the biocore in my head, in the end I did actually answer at least 75% of the exam questions. However, the prospect of playing hard core catch-up for the rest of the quarter plus the knowledge that the drop deadline was on sunday and I was already carrying 19 units combined to power up into my dropping biocore over the weekend. I would say I’m disappointed in me, only I’m not. I’m filled with joy that I no longer have to feel guilty about not memorizing enzymes. I can officially sit here, delightedly, reading Jane Eyre and NOT memorizing enzymes. It’s a good life.