Halloween pumpkining
This is so fun!
For most of us, this was the first time carving our own pumpkins for Halloween. I did a face of Tonton the pig from Naruto. Our kitchen smells of burnt pumpkins, and now lined on the window sills outside are the 6 pumpkins which my household and the one downstairs have carved.
More reflections on the discovery of
Homo floresienses...
SMH, 30 Oct 2004:
"
Dr Henry Gee, a senior editor at Nature, says the find has startling implications for the common view that we rule the Earth by virtue of inherent perfection or divine fiat. "The uniqueness of our human lineage is something we have all grown up with. It is the foundation of our religion, our ethics and even our science that humanity has been isolated, is a single species, and has been for a very long time," he says in The Guardian. "This find challenges that."
For what this whole scientific hullabaloo is all about,
Otterman's blog has it pretty nicely summed up.
I seldom do these things but well, I was bored then. Taken from
Ee-wen's blog:
(
Kingdomality... What is your medieval vocational personality?)
"Your distinct personality,
The Shepherd is to tend to your human flock. You understand the needs of those for whom you are responsible. Shepherds are vigilant and reliable. You realize your obligation and commitment to the well being of those entrusted to your care. Shepherds are very dependable. You engender a feeling of comfort and stability to those within your charge. On the positive side, Shepherds can be empathic, caring, understanding, practical and realistic. On the negative side, you may be manipulative, close-minded and sentimentally rigid. Interestingly, your preference is just as applicable in today's corporate kingdoms."
The following paragraph is a little chunk taken from
From Plato to Nato, a recommended text for my Politics module:
"The basis of the State, says Hegel, is the power of reason actualising itself as will. Men will the State in accordance with reason. The State is reason. It is mind on earth consciously realising itself there. It is the actuality of the ethical Idea. Actuality is the unity both of essence and of existence. Only when mind is present in consciousness, when it knows itself as a really existent object, is it the State."I stared at word after word, trying to link the former to the latter. I was struggling to understand... then I read on. The next sentence following that paragraph was, "Are you with me?"
It then went on to explain everything. Phew. And for a moment I thought I was supposed to comprehend that all that jargon.
We're closing in on the AMB (Applied Molecular Biology) module now... just had my last lecture today. What follows are three bioinformatics practicals, and then we'll embark on a good few weeks of Animal and Plant Physiology.
Today's Commemoration Day... when wherever you go in Imperial you'll see proud graduates in their robes and gowns and some higher-ups wearing their Elizabethan-era courtsmen's caps. Most other departments let the students have a day off. But not for the biologists. Bah. It was only an hour-long lecture anyway.
I had an hour before the next activity on my timetable... so I went with Xi to the Natural History Museum. The
BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2004 exhibition was just launched a few days ago. It's hailed as the most prestigious wildlife photography compeition in the world, and so undoubtedly the quality of the winners' photos would be of the best of the best. Since Imperial students can get in free of charge, I think I might visit the exhibition again. Just one look at each photo isn't enough. They are that beautiful.
At noontime... we were to hold the introductory meeting for this year's Major Event (for SingSoc). Only four freshers came. The rest were second-years. Disappointing, to say the least, but it was kinda expected. I'm confident that these four would pull their friends in. Gotta get more people for the main committee... I'm gonna be chairing this event with Lionel as the Vice, and we'll need all the help we can get. Last year, they had
Flaggellah... the making of the agar-agar jelly flag mosaic which set a Guinness World Record. Well this time we're going for what they did in 2003 - "The RaRa Show" - a talentime involving the Singapore societies from the other London colleges. I can see a whole loadpile of work coming this way.
Prac reports and SingSoc matters aside, I'm back to my old habit of late-night gaming. Got hold of Unreal Tournament 2004 from some Virgin Megastore (some megastore... I couldn't find the new Operation FlashPoint release) in Camden a couple of weeks ago... Lu installed it on his (new) laptop and ran on crack, so we've been playing multiplayer on LAN. Fun!
Haven't been blogging that much nowadays, not about my daily activities anymore anyway. It might be the realisation that lots more
other people have been visiting my blog... those who were brought here through the links on various nature pages... or it might simply be 'cos I've lost the momentum.
I've always wanted to have a separate blog for the nature-related posts. In fact that's what I used to do, but then I found out that there was too much of an overlap between my life and the nature stuff. So there.
Anyone who has been to my house and has seen the hamster houses would have seen Zima. Many who have been lingering around my laptop long would've the videos taken of her, and the pictures of her as a hamsterling and an adult. Those who have seen the image gallery in my phone would have seen her, too, though they might not know who she is.
She was the fat one, the cutest, the tamest, the family favourite, the pride of the many generations of hamsters that we have. Jane called me this morning, crying. She said that Zima had passed away.
Old age? I don't think so. Even the 1st generation hamsters are still around. Sickness, illness? Perhaps. I don't know, and I won't know for I wasn't there.
At least, I hope, Zima had a happy life. This is her, our Zima.
.jpg)
Eagle's migration mystery
October 22, 2004.
Sydney Morning Herald:
"European birdwatchers are scratching their heads over why a particular species of bird, the booted eagle, is migrating north this northern winter instead of to the balmier south.
According to the Bird Protection League, nearly 1,000 of the rare eagles have been spotted in southern France over the past two weeks -- more than 30 times the normal number -- after reversing their normal September movement which should see them head to Africa and India.
The bizarre phenomenon has never been seen before, the league stressed.
Speculation that the birds, which have a wingspan of up to 1.3 metres might have been affected by weather disturbances linked to global warming has butted up against the fact that no other species appears to be having the same navigation trouble.
Normally, the booted eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus) spends the warmer months of the northern hemisphere breeding in southern Europe and parts of north Africa.
Come September, the raptor flies south to escape the chill, with a migratory peak around the middle of the month.
The eagles, which mate for life, are listed as an endangered species."
This was the wicked shrunken fish Xi and I had found on our seafood platter in Guernsey. The catch was from around the Channel waters, so this one had to be from around the region as well. I had asked my lecturers and demonstrators what this was, but nobody was able to identify it since after being accidentally cooked, it looked more like a fossil specimen of an ancient creature than a modern fish. In fact it didn't even look like a fish; some said it resembled a snake, some thought it to be related to the seahorses, and I just thought it seemed evil.
The closest fish I had in my field guide was the Long-spined sea scorpion (
Taurulus bubalis) or Long-spined bullhead. I searched it on the net. Distinguishing features include two dorsal fins, a large head in proportion to the body, scaleless armoured skin, and a long spine on the cheek, and the photos of the fish looked more like what I had than anything else. It seemed to be right, but I was still not satisfied.
It lay forgotten on a petri dish in my drawer for a long time, and just today I had taken it out to give it another better look. I embarked on a long search... browsing through the descriptions of all the fish in the class Actinopterygii, or spiny-rayed fishes, which can be found in the English Channel. When I came upon on of the descriptions, I was quite certain that had to be the one. After digging up more photos of it on the net, I'm confident I've got it pinned... it's a Pogge (
Agonus cataphractus), also called the Armed bullhead. A full description can be found
here, and more pictures of it can be found
here.
And this... is just to show you how 'evil' my pogge looks:
Weather reports from the Pacific-Asian region hints at a rise in oceanic temperatures and lower pressures around the Pacific.
13th Oct: The maximum temperature in the city was recorded at a high of 38.2°C, making it the hottest October day since 1858.
19th Oct: New South Wales (Australia) experienced more than a month's rain in a day. Murwillumbah received 167mm of rain in 30 hours, the average for October there is just 85mm.
20th Oct: Typhoon Tokage - this most recent typhoon, the second one this month, breaks the record of being the 10th typhoon to hit Japan this year. It's the deadliest one in more than a decade, and has killed at least 60 people. The montly rainfall is averaged at 8.2 inches, but Tokage brought it up to more than 26.4 inches in just a few days.
My family's in Tokyo now... dad's on a bizzo trip and my grandaunt lives there. Around 300 flights have been cancelled and theirs was one of them. Seems like they'll be returning to Singapore later than they thought. Everyone's OK though, thank goodness.
I was looking at my webstats last night, and here're some of the keyphrases searched on web search engines which had led to my site. It makes me wonder. The last two phrases must've been used by fellow marine ecologists wanting to write up their field reports... teehee...
why do moths fly in circles round lights?
need volunteer work for doggy
the secret tunnels under imperial college london
why are kingfishers called kingfishers
what is the toaster that subway uses that tastes it 20 sec.
pictures of naked malay girls
free downloadable worksheets past tense
gay spa bar
hsbc amazing maze
origin of footsie at the dinner table
counter strike hokkein sound
bang! bang! your dead script
ikebana ohara diagonal
keisha castle hughes prince cinnamon girl
dog bag in bangkok
pillow fight trafalgar square group students flash
how to formed a rubbish back into a useful thing
piano notes corelation chart
sand seiving exercise
lichen zonation
Some pics from Guernsey
This is long overdue:
 Seaweed on a rocky shore | 
Guernsey's shores |
 Barnacle (C.montagui) | 
Top Shell |
 Periwinkle snail hatchlings | 
House spider |
More photos in:
Nature in the UK |
Guernsey (People and Places)
We've finally got the internet up...
The router and modem are directly a floor below me, hehe. We're sharing with the household downstairs, a 2MB connection.
And now that I'm finally online, I can't pretend I'm not. :P
Back to 'work'... and I think I gotta get used to blogging again. I'm totally out of the routine.
Ze Broadband will be activated tomorrow... or so the providers say. Fingers crossed...
I've finally received a letter from BT yesterday. Now I've got a land line number, but I'll still have to wait for the engineer to come on the 19th! I really can't stand the speed at which things are done here. Hooray for my new preciouss and the mobility that allows me to roam around my faculty wireless. The one hour every day which I manage to spend online are usually reserved for SingSoc and freshers' issues and household matters. I'm still itching to upload my field trip pics, add in the new features to the ICSS website, startup Trillian and simply chat away. I suppose in some orgs I'm already listed as having gone AWOL...
Now that I've got some free time to write, I'm not sure what to say.
Hmm... my new timetable? A slacker's schedule (we've only got a 50mins' lecture today), but with no structure to it whatsoever. Each day's timetable is different, and practicals and tutorials are chucked here and there. We're doing Applied Molecular Biology now - another compulsory module for which I haven't the faintest interest in, but it must be done. All the small micro stuff... dead topics... but still better than biochem.
Had my first Politics lecture yesterday. I loved it. It's such a welcome change... away from the all-too-silmilar tones of the biological sciences. Only con's that our reading list is waaaay long... and it dates back to books from 375 B.C. (Plato's
Republic). It'll make my Monday lunchtimes something to look forward to.
But then... there're fencing training sessions on Monday lunchtimes, and it clashes. There're BUSA matches on Wednesdays, so Monday trainings are usually quite important. Dunno if I'm up for tomorrow's match. Plus it's 'Away' at Southampton, roughly at least 4 hours' train ride south-west from London. And I haven't fenced since more than 3 months ago. And I don't know who else is in the team, and what weapons we've to fence. Demoralising.
EE's in London with cousin Jessica. Needed to attend an interview for admission into a girls' boarding school in Wyncombe... and to visit Justin who's in Winchester.
Some other things... went for archery with Lu, Lionel and Viv last Wednesday at Hyde Park, and again on Sun (though there was a lack of kits available and so we left)... had dinner with EE at Four Seasons (roast duck!)... had the SingSoc freshers' picnic at Hyde on Sat... got to know even more freshers... SingSoc meeting last night... and now... I just can't bear to part with the internet and head for home.
Still alive... just haven't got the time and opportunity to blog. Still no internet at home yet.
The whole BT phone line and broadband internet issue's taking a long while to settle; reviews from friends and on the 'net have forced us to abandon the Bulldog package, and so we're opting for a better alternative. At the rate things are going it's uncertain if we'll manage to get internet up within a month.
That aside, things have been going pretty well with the freshers - helping them settle into halls (go Linstead!), shopping for necessities, yadda yadda.
With the arrival of Vivian in London last night (finally...) and the return of Marvin, my household's finally complete. Amar stayed over last night, and left today for Warwick after having packed whatever remained of his belongings in London.
New developments have brought about some tension, but I hope it'll ease. It's all for the better.
Time to put the gears and in place and play this precarious game once again, like I've always done.
Freshers' Fair today... hung out at the SingSoc booth, duh. Signed up with ChiSoc (Hong Kong), where, as my mom reminds me, my roots really are, JapSoc (just for the fun of it), Judo (just put my name down... under pressure from Taizo) and Fencing again. Even after being inactive since the end of Term 2 last year, Helen allowed me to rejoin the team. Match next Wednesday - we're up against Southampton.
Lectures start tomorrow. Whoohoo!
