Things I Have Learned on Thursday the 12th of May

Today marks the two-year anniversary of this blog of mine existing. It was this time two years ago I was trying desperately not to fall behind in maths. I had just lost my iPod (beautiful, green, Pip II) after showing the song Middle of the Hill to a friend outside the pharmacy on campus. I was miserable, so I started a blog, and wrote my very first post about being miserable.

Back then, I would write lists of things I’d learned, which was meant to be the whole concept for this blog. As an anniversary celebration, I will now list some Things I Have Learned in the past two years of my life. Just a few things.

• Sometimes you do really, really stupid things, and then rather than apologise and try not to do any more stupid things, you just do something even worse, then feel miserable about it for the next couple of years.
• Maths is hard, but studying maths makes you a better person. At least, once you’ve studied maths, even the most ridiculous topics can be made more appealing by thinking “at least this isn’t maths”.
• Physics is okay when it’s about pushing crates up inclines. Unfortunately, that kind of physics isn’t called for so much these days.
• Biology is just memorisation and sadness.
• Chemistry is a good middle ground.
• When in doubt, make a poster about it.
• Sometimes you just have to get along with people you don’t like. Sometimes you just have to cut people you don’t like loose, and deal with the consequences. Sometimes the challenge is knowing which of the above techniques to employ.
• Sometimes you get things you want through a mixture of stalking and good fortune.
• The ‘real world’ is something that will loom in front of you forever, because so far, each little discovery of something ‘real’, be it studies, work, friendships, seems to just blend right into the existing mix.
• Occasionally, people will  screw you over. Often, you’ll be better off for it.
• Some people you meet are the kind of people who you know straight away will change your life. Some people you meet, you’ll WANT to have your life changed by, but won’t get the opportunity.
• Two years goes very, very quickly.

Because two years have gone very, very quickly. These two years have been filled with people and things and places and events, and I suppose that’s how life will probably end up being.

Find some large enough division of time, and stuff will happen in that division. I don’t know. Seems obvious when you put it like that.

It’s all a bit wonderful.

I hope I’m still keeping this blog in two years time. I can’t imagine much will change that will prevent me from posting. I’ll always have things to procrastinate from. It’ll be pretty interesting to see what goes down before the Things I Have Learned on Sunday the 12th of May, 2013 post goes up.

Web diary holding
All my wishes and secrets
But really vaguely.

Haiku.

Things I’ve learned on Thursday the 21st of October

Here is a list of things I’ve learned today;

• Not only is Benedict Cumberbatch an excellent name for a human person to have, the owner of the name is a wonderful actor in a wonderful show. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy the new Steven Moffat take on Sherlock Holmes, but Sherlock is pretty much fantastic…Possibly because it’s like Doctor Who… But it’s lovely in its own right.
• My green pillow feels like a brick when I’ve got a headache. Also, my dreams are weird when I have a headache while sleeping/attempting to sleep.
• My current playlist of choice seems to facilitate one of the weirdest jumps between genres ever… From 99 Problems (Grey Album version, so some nice Helter Skelter screeching involved) to Decatur by good ol’ Sufjan.
• This is downright offensive but oh so wonderful;

• Pink paint totally comes out of carpet.
• Hugh Laurie is pretty much awesome. I have to shake my head at anyone who can only see him as House, though. To me, he is Tony Mercherson, and always will be.

Soft red triangles
are destined to fade, but those
Sapphires remain.

PS. Here is a picture of a weird fountain.

Soupy twist!

Feels Like A Rainbow

I haven’t posted anything substantial in quite some time, so I thought perhaps I’d return to my old format for a bit and write up a list of things I’ve learned of late.

After all, that WAS the point of this blog intially…

Things I’ve Learned in August, 2010 (so far):

• These things exist! I would like a bathroom covered in these…
• This band exists. They’re very peculiar. It’s taken me a few listens to figure out how to cope with them. The basic technique is ‘don’t think too hard about it’.

The Olivia Tremor Control = Kind of the Beatles plus Kind of Of Montreal plus Random Assorted Crashing Noises.

I might also add that I decided to like this band before seeing that Pitchfork gave their album ‘Black Foliage: Animation Music’ a bizarrely high score of 9.1. Nine point freaking one. That’s pretty high. ‘Funeral’ by Arcade Fire still wins out with nine point freaking seven, I should point out.

Not that Pitchfork stands as much of a guide to which albums to buy… More like, which albums to tell indie kids you liked before anyone else had heard.

• Getting a cold has become even less convenient for me. Somehow, all the fluid in my head that determines my awareness of myself in space has been displaced, and as a result, I have even LESS balance than normal. This means lots of falling over and lots of nausea (imagine you’ve just come off one of those spinny things at a park).
• I have learned a bit of programming, and I’ve learned a bit of computational chemistry, and I think that I’d like to learn more about the latter. Third year research project, perhaps?
• I miss the large amounts of time I used to spend with coloured pencils.
• I have a task ahead of me that involves precision, thoughtful wording, and balancing of extremes. I’ll let you know how it goes this time next week.

At last, a haiku!
My first attempt in ages!
Yeah, I’ve got nothing.

Hard Soft Acid Base Theory

Hypothetically held in your hot little hand
Is an acid or base you don’t quite understand.
To work out its properties quick as you please,
Close your eyes, hold your breath, and give it a squeeze.

It’s small like a marble and hard like a stone?
Its qualities suddenly make themselves known!
Its electron affinity is high as the sky
So it’s not as affected by charges nearby.

But what if it’s squishy like squashed up banana?
Its electrons are welcome to wander out farther.
A low oxidation, can be pulled out of shape,
These will suggest a soft acid or base.

So next time your looking for strong interactions,
Remember the fundamentals of attraction.
Like Pearson proposed, as a rough rule of thumb;
Hard to hard, soft to soft, and your work is done.

Chelate Effect

The chelate effect is dependent on size,
And clever young chemists, this will not surprise;
A five-membered ring is indeed the most stable,
More so if delocalisation enables
The flow of electrons through double bonds,
For resonance strengthens benzene hexagons.

But make that ring smaller, and lo and behold!
Ring strain will encourage the thing to unfold.
The more rings that bind to a metal cation,
The stronger the bonds the complex must rely on!
So, multiple five membered rings are the best
For a happy and stable metal complex.

Hello

I love you, won’t you tell me your name?

Cory Monteith gets points, me thinks.

Things I learned today;

• Apple and Cinnamon candles are delicious.
• Green sheets are very out right now, according to the old lady working in Adairs. Dark green is a cold colour and no one in their right minds would buy dark green bedding in winter. It’s just plain foolish! … Thanks, lady, but Target was selling them and now my room looks like a forest.
• Positions at Pajenkas can be enlightening. 6 o’clock, 6 o’clock!!
• Vampire Weekend? Is that like Twilight?
• We have a biology quiz tomorrow. Whoops! Better memorise some of my poetry!

Hello, I love you,
Let me jump in your game, dearest
Glee cast singing boys.

PS. Please note that I have used a MEME in this post, and the effect of this may be misleading. Just to clear things up, here is a little pictorial thing…

Just if you missed that; Ezra is GOOD, Edward is BAD.

Edit: Cory was feeling left out. Sorry Cory. Here you go.

The Escapium Escapes!

Oh I get it! It’s a joke, because the Escapium gets away from the shop guy…

The Humans vs Zombies Summer 2010 Game has just wrapped up. It was a million times better than last game, mostly for the introduction of Escapium. It’s amazing what people would do for Escapium.

I ran, I jumped, and I killed a grand total of NO humans. Sigh.

Here are some things I have learned:

• The new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, is interesting. It doesn’t take itself as seriously as Demon Days, I think, and it has some awesome tracks. I don’t think it’s an example of an album that’s better as a whole; it has good tracks, it has less good tracks, it doesn’t feel complete. But hey, it’s freaking Damon Albarn. It’s fantastic.
• I have stubborn friends. I refer you to the human who was sieged in a computer lab for 10 hours. I think it’s brilliant.
• SSSM is actually the best course ever. Who knew symmetry could be so hilarious?
• The RSC library is actually located in the 50s. To get there, you have to pass through a rift in space-time. When you arrive, everything is silent and smells like physics crying. To check books out, you handwrite little loans cards. The photocopiers seem so out of place. Even the Macs are ancient white bubbles. Pretty sure they had Macs in the 50s. And if the librarian dressed in gypsy attire, she’d be Professor Trelawny.
• I’d really rather not be doing school work right now.

Shiny green wonders,
Hidden from sight by fairies,
Escapium Love.

Terror

I am in maths mode.

‘Maths mode’ refers to any state of anxiousness, anger, sadness, restlessness, or uncomfortableness that is induced by numbers. The term can, however, be used to describe emotions brought on by other aspects of life such as betrayal, illness, famine, heartbreak, Jane Austen, pregnancy, and cheap ABC kids’ shows.

So, it’s a handy phrase to have.

The symptoms include chewing fingernails, self-induced isolation, swearing loudly when beaten on tetrisfriends, homicide, poetry, drastic haircuts, over-eating, dreams of revenge, sniffles, foolishly romantic decisions, and long train voyages.

I have not written a list of things I have learned for a while. Here is a list of things I have learned.

• The Gram Schmidt Process. Who comes up with this nonsense?  Misters Gram and Schmidt, I suppose. Nevertheless. Stupid.
• Jimmy Giggle from kids’ show, Giggle and Hoot has a charming way of struggling to play an F chord on his guitar while serenading his pet owl with a hilariously altered version of Hickory Dickory Dock.
• A whole lot of quite interesting stuff from QI, the best show in the history of British panel quiz shows. Better than Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Stephen Fry is the greatest human ever. Alan Davies is also alarmingly endearing. I kind of love him.
• How to play Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa. It’s a fun little riff. Hooray!

Vampire Weekend
is the only thing keeping
me from going mad.

*eye twitch*

It’s so colourful. So addictive. So funky.

It is BIT.TRIP BEAT.

Everything comes from something.

We were before we became. From life comes rhythm, and from rhythm comes life.

We are beings of information.

Everything is a conduit for learning.

We communicate in bits and bytes.

And we will return to something once we become nothing.

After our BIT.TRIP is complete

This is what you will read if you visit the website and click ‘story’. My brother downloaded the demo of this awesome little game, and we both sat and played through it about 12 times, volume up to full blast, until our father caved and gave us his credit card so we could stock up on Wii Points and become the proud owners of the full game. It’s astounding that something as simple as Pong can be so immersing. The idea is as follows;

1. Hold the Wiimote parallel to the screen
2. Rock Wiimote forward and backward
3. Ooh, note that the little ‘Pong’ paddle responds to such action!
4. Reflect little coloured pixels back into whatever is firing them from offscreen
5. That’s it, really

It’s amazing how the colour and the flashing lights and the beats all blend into a smoothie of awesome. I think it’s worth a look. If you’re after real video game reviews, you should probably check out this blog, although the author is interstate for the moment.

Anyhoo. I’ve found a few other cool things of late, as I have too much time, too much youtube, and very little else to do. Let me share them with you.

Kinetic sculpture is quite radical, and the fellow in the video below makes some awe-inspiring ones.

So, that makes me wish I could wield a lathe with precise skill.

The other cool things going on at the moment include the release of a couple of albums from a few of my favourite artists ever.
OK Go are finally releasing their third studio album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Note that they actually spell ‘colour’ with  a u, which I think shows how forward thinking and literate Damien, Tim, Andy, and Dan truly are. Their first single is WTF? and has a video clip to rival the famous ‘treadmill song’ clip.
Vampire Weekend are readying themselves for the release of their second album, Contra. A couple of songs are out and available on the interwebs; Horchata and Cousins. The video for Cousins is inspired, but then, I just like looking at Ezra.

I think that’ll do for today. Chapter 3 of Mango Trypping is on its way! Stay hopeful!

Broken glass scattered,
Laptop batteries depleated,
Mondays are like that.

A Spur of the Moment Song

It’s 21 to Thursday,
Something sweet is in the air,
Everybody’s slipping,
But nobody could care.

The final threads of colour,
That once swum through my head,
Are, at last, unraveling,
And drifting off to bed.

The wool you thought once filled their brains,
Is more or less a lie,
It’s 21 to Thursday,
And I’ve had to say goodbye.