Bacteria part 1

Aah! Almost a month without posting, which means there's been a month of homework. Lots and lots of homework.

Because, you see, all teachers have the idea that our workload peaks just before our exams, and then drastically decreases afterward, leaving us with spare time to laze around and do nothing. So, to help us use our time productively, many of my teachers keep giving us a bundle of assignments because they think nobody else is. So actually I'm busier now than I was before or during exams.

Gaaghr.




Why do we call only textbooks "textbooks"? EVERY book is a textbook, or it wouldn't be a book.




At school (which I live and breathe for) my elective-biology-class-team and I cultivated bacteria from most of the washrooms at school.

It was SO FUN (no sarcasm).

First, we made the medium for cultivating our bacteria. That was probably the hardest part. We chose to make MacConkey agar, because all sorts of fun disease-causing bacteria can live there.

Google searches later revealed to me that you can buy this stuff pre-made. We, however, found a recipe on some website and set about mixing up a bacterial playground. That's wasn't so hard, but it was a bit tedious. Also, the stupid peptone wouldn't dissolve, so we had to chase it around the flask with two stirring rods to try to mash it up a bit. So once it was sufficiently dissolved, we were supposed to pour it into sterilized Petri dishes and put it in a little oven thingy-box to set. The dishes weren't sterilized, though, so our medium had to wait a whole week.

Somehow, during the week it was on the shelf, the fungus growing in the flask next to it (which belonged to another dude) managed to send some adventurous spores out. The spores somehow managed to penetrate the aluminum lid on our flask (osmosis??) and grow in our medium, so that when we checked on it it was unfit for our bacteria (which deserve only the best, you know).

So we made the medium again, mushed up the peptone, sterilized everything, poured it into the Petri dishes, put it in the oven boxy-thing and the DAMN THING DIDN'T SET. So we were left with a dozen or so Petri dishes full of sticky purple liquid, while other people growing cultures already had happy little colonies.

The teacher, who may have been tired of us messing up, asked to see the recipe we used to make the growth medium. He was all, "You need more agar for this to set", because agar is sort of like the grenetine, or gelatine, in Jell-O. It makes it wiggle. This incited much whining, mostly along the lines of "We have to make the medium again?? The stupid peptone won't dissolve."

Luckily, the teacher said we could just use the medium we had and add more agar. We put in way more than he told us to, just for good measure (I mean, bacteria grow on anything, and they like agar, so what the hell). We sterilized it, and it didn't set. Again.

Personally, I think the peptone is to blame. I bet it was old or something. But really I have no idea.

The teacher told us to just give up, and use it as a liquid medium. Because, again, bacteria grow on anything, and we just want to get... well, anything that might be in the washrooms.


I'm stopping here, since it's five to midnight and I have to study for a presentation I have to give. Oh, and print some stuff. And brush up on Psychology, because I have a test...

We sterilize stuff in a big pot.
The last time we did this, we didn't have aluminum foil, so we used a face mask.

Ode to a pig in a Blanket

Part I.
Innocent piggies

Little piggies, little piggies, here I come...!
Wait for me, piggies, there's no need to run–
for good care I'll take of you, soon you shall see,
oh! How nice and warm you'll be in my belly!
But if you want to stay there, I'm afraid it can't be so:
although you may not want to, there are places you must go.
You'll help me build muscles, and keep my reflexes snappy–
but most importantly, piggies, you'll make me very happy!



Part II.
In the oven


Now all you little piggies should bundle up quite snug;
roll inside your blankets and give yourselves a hug.
Stay there on the tray; you must be tired, go to sleep!
Mom will put you in the oven and then turn up the heat,
but what started out as toasty now begins to burn!
"Help! Let us out! This will be our urn!"
Scream and twist, little piggies, there's no way to get out!
Go ahead and try, but you can't even move about
for what started as a blanket soon began to swell
and now confines your movement in this scorching prison cell.
Roll about, you can't get up, here you'll meet your end!

You know what I said before was merely all pretend.
I told you you'd be happy, I said: "How nice and warm!"
except instead of feeling nice you're seeming quite forlorn.
Could it be you've finished baking? Has the oven done its job?
Then come out, little piggies, there's no more need to sob!
Your blankets now are golden, your bodies limp and soft;
my hand reaches towards you, it lifts you up, aloft.
I gnash you, I mash you, with juice I wash you down,

You're delicious, little piggies! You have the best blankets in town!


My mom made pigs in a blanket today. They were dee-licious. Also, this was surprisingly FUN to write, even though it turned out wonky.

Projectile vomit

Just now I got up from my desk to put on some pants and felt something odd inside me, something warm rising fast from my stomach to my throat...

You know how sometimes when you eat too much, you throw up a little in your mouth? It's always totally unexpected, so you're stuck with a mouthful of vomit until you can go and spit it out (that isn't just me that gets that, right?). That's what happened to me just now.

Except instead of just sitting patiently in my mouth, my puke shot out of it. Luckily I have awesome reflexes and my hands, thinking for themselves, rushed to catch whatever it was that was trying to escape from me, without knowing what it was.

And so I was left standing in my room with two handfuls of vomit.

I guess it was OK, because on the floor in front of me was a Calculus book that belongs to my sister and not a drop fell on it. Which leaves me wondering why I'm so bad at sports. I mean, I've just proved that my hand-eye coordination is perfect.

My ego is late

But as some people will insist, better late than never.

I'm 17 now and my mom made cupcakes.

That's not my motto, though. My motto is, HA! It's statistically likely that I'm younger than you!! Suckers.

All the children sing!

You know, the first favorite song I ever had was "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill", by The Beatles. It's from the White Album. I remember I loved it.

...my dad taught me well (thanks, Dad!).

it's. a. PEA!!!

In my elective Biology class, there's about 20 people, and we usually only take up four tables because not everyone shows up.

I always sit at a table with two other guys. I don't know what they're called- in fact, all I remember about their names is that one of them starts with a J, so instead I call them Metal Guys because J has a Metallica T-shirt. I mean, I call them Metal Guys in my head. When I want to actually talk to them, I say "Hey", which serves both as a greeting and as a name-substitute ("Hey, how many mice are you going to use?").

So I'd sit at their table and do experiments with them, and all was well and dandy, until this foxy girl decided she likes Metal Guy: Not J, and sits between them and me, leaving me all by myself at the end of the table. I mean, M. Guys aren't my friends or anything, so it's not like she's usurping them (can you steal fellow table-sitting folk?), but she'll lean against the table with her back towards me to get a better look at Metal Guy: Not J, effectively cutting me off from all communication.

On Friday we were arranged at the table as previously described. The teacher gave us these magazines, two per table, to look at the articles in them and see how the scientific method was used for reporting experiments. Foxy was absorbed in witty banter or something with Not J, so I paged through it and found an article about peas. Foxy turned around once, long enough to notice that the magazine was in English, and say,

"You speak English, right? Well, good thing you're on my team, then! Ha ha! (We're a team?)"

And she patted me heartily on the back with a hand covered in fake cheese, from eating cheese-covered popcorn. The kind that smells like feet. I was wearing my Diablo Swing Orchestra T-shirt, and she got it all cheesy. That's one of the main reasons I don't like her. I just can't forgive that.

I don't know where she's going after she dies, but it ain't up.

Oh, yeah, so I was reading about peas while she foxed around. Remember that the ensuing conversation takes place entirely in Spanish:

TEACHER: So now that you've had a look at some articles, let's talk about them. You (Metal Guys), what biological material does the article you chose use?

METAL GUY: Uh, it's about (mice or horses or something. You can't expect me to remember such details).

TEACHER: [At Foxy & me] And what's yours about?

FOXY (looking at the title of the article): Uh, Pisum sativum.

TEACHER: Uh-huh. And what's the common name?

ME: Pea.

FOXY: Uuuuh...

METAL GUY: Hmmm....

ME: Pea. It's a pea. It says "Pea" here.

TEACHER: ...common name?

FOXY: It's, uh... uh..

METAL GUY: It should be here... somewhere...

ME: Pea! Pisum sativum is a pea!

FOXY: It's, uh... I can't find it.

ME: PEA!!! It's a PEA!!

FOXY: Oh, it says "Pea" here. I think that's it. What's that mean in Spanish?

ME: Pea! It's a pea!

METAL GUY: Uh, I don't know.

FOXY: Oh, I think it's... a pea?

TEACHER: Yes, good. It's a pea.


Um, hello?

Pipets are cheap, so why not just buy them?

I keep thinking that it's only been about three days since I've written, but then I stop and think about it. Once I've realized it's been several weeks, I figure, "Meh, one more day makes no difference".

Two weeks ago I was in my elective class, making lab material out of glass heated over a huge Bunsen burner. I mean, that's what I was supposed to be doing, except my efforts were producing little more than... well, twisted bits off glass (and yet my bits of glass were some of the best in my class. Hm.). I made four attempts at Pasteur pipets and a triangle. Who knew making pipets was so hard? The triangles were relatively easy, though.


In the process of forming my second triangle- which, alas, was never to be- I was kinda not paying full attention to it, so I bent it too hard when it hadn't heated up enough, so it broke (well, I guess technically I broke it) and then followed a trajectory which led it first to my arm and then to the floor.

Now I've got this burn on my left bicep and let me tell you, it ain't pretty. It's not really gross or anything, but still.

Oh, and that same day, I was taking something out of the toaster oven (fish sticks or what have you) and I burned my hand.

Ouch.

Oh, although one of my pipets wasn't sealed shut, and it actually had a little hole about half a millimeter wide on the small end. Useful for sucking up minute amounts of water.

You know what's tasty?

I do: an octopus! I watched a documentary on octopi once, and not only do they imitate the texture of coral reefs and fish and stuff, they also imitate their shape by arranging their (many) limbs in different ways... AND they imitate behavior. Like, they can mimic both a fish that swims a few centimeters above the ocean floor, and one that swims a few meters above. I assume they can do other swimming patterns, but those were the only two I saw.

See the octopus? The delicious, delicious octopus?

Fun fact, just now when I was writing about fish, I typed "...a fish that flies a few centimeters above...".

Ooooooh god, it would be so scary if fish could fly! Imagine a fish that dies mid-flight and falls on your head!!

I'll leave you with that thought and retire off to bed. Hopefully I won't dream about F.F. (and I mean Flying Fish, not Final Fantasy).

Biologist?

I have a class called Orientación Educativa, which I guess is kind of like career counseling, as well as being a class that I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO TAKE this year, but I do anyway because it can be interesting and it's always warmer inside a classroom (even if there's only 5 to 8 people in it... again, it's optional) than outside... well, mostly I take it because one of my friends makes us. I don't offer up any resistance anymore, but for the first two weeks or so, this conversation happened every Thursday after Biology:

Me: Aaah, let's go see who doesn't have class.

Brenda: Ok!

Wiskas: No! You guys, let's go to Orientación!

Brenda & Me: Aaargh, Wiskas!

Brenda: Why do you want to go? Nerd! You're a nerd!

Me: It's not like we don't already know anything they're going to tell us...

Brenda: And it doesn't even count. There's no credit.

Wiskas: C'mon, let's go! It'll be fun!

Brenda & Me: ... ... ...

Wiskas: Please?

Brenda & Me: Fine, let's go. It's cold out here anyway.

Wiskas: Yay!

[We walk up to the classroom while dozens of people in our class head off for their morning coffee]

Me: Dang, we're all nerds.


The point of all this was that we have to (okay, "have to" is too strong here. We're meant to) find information about someone who inspired us to pick the career that we want to study. I thought about it, and I can't really conjure up any biologists that inspired me.

(Note: My mom is a biologist, but I didn't even know until, like, a year ago. I mean, I admire her, but I didn't grow up saying, "I want to be a biologist like my mom!". How can you not know that kind of stuff? I should sit my parents down and have a serious talk with them. Another example of neglect is that my dad can only hear out of one ear and I had no idea until I was 12 and he told me to walk on the other side of him because he couldn't hear me. I was shocked.)

Sorry, I keep getting sidetracked. Biologists I admire!

Right, so I guess I thought it was cool when biologists would go on Quirks and Quarks, a radio show, and talk about their latest discovery in animal behavior or extremophile bacteria research or stuff. I don't even remember any of their names, but they're awesome. I think one of the things that makes it cool is that they sound like they really love what they do, and they're always being surprised by their findings and all.

There's only one specific biologist I admire, now that I think about it (apart from my mom. Hi, mom!): Roberto Rojo.

He's this guy that hosts a show on channel 11 (well, several, but the most famous one is the one I'm talking about here) where he goes around the woods and jungles and so on, looking for animals, picking them up and talking about them. What makes his shows different from others of the same kind is that he actually respects the animals he finds.

I mean, take Steve Irwin. I know he's dead, was probably a nice guy and lots of people loved him, but SHEESH! He'd go around pouncing on crocodiles' backs going, "CRICKEY! CRICKEY, IT'S HUGE!!". Or pick up snakes and yell at the camera about how they have huge fangs and poison that can kill you, and hoo boy, you don't want one lunging at your face! Just like this one is lunging at mine! Because I'm pissing it off by YELLING IN ITS FACE!

Sorry. Nothing against Steve Irwin (plus he's dead, so I can't say anything too mean about him. Like when Michael Jackson died, suddenly everyone was all, Oh, I never made fun of his nose! How cruel that anyone would. Yeah, right.), but you get my point, right?

Lots of people that host that kind of show will go, "Oh, this bug's gross! You wouldn't want to find one of these! Look at it, eugh" or "This thing's got huge claws that'll --oh! I've got to be careful or it could rip me to shreds! I'm in real danger here--oh! There it goes again! No, get off! Heh.. no, don't bite... don't bite me!"

Roberto Rojo, however, is awesome. Like, once he picked up a cockroach and said that he loved cockroaches, 'cause they're really cool and people shouldn't get so freaked out when they see one. Or if he sees a snake, he's gentle with them and seldom provokes them into attempting murder. Once he caught this lizard that was lying on a branch over a swamp, and he totally fell in the swamp when he caught it but he held it above his head the whole time so it wouldn't get hurt.

I mean, compare that to poking a snake with a stick and going, "This thing is off the Richter's scale! It was so ballistic, it was launching itself out of the tree, trying to sink its fangs into me! Crikey, it was dangerous! Really dangerous!" (actual Steve Irwin quote).

Plus I went to a conference he gave once about bats and MAN, is he cool! He gave autographs after, and he's super kind and fun.

Plus he's hot. THERE. I SAID IT.

Why is this so funny???

A guy walks into a doctor's office with a duck sitting on his head.

The doctor asks, "Can I help you?"

"Yeah," says the duck, "can you get this man off my butt?"

I'm not a dude, but quite a few people have though I am. I like to think of it
as being in touch with both sides of my... what do they call it? Well, being in touch with myself.

Last year vs. This year #2

I was going to write about how awesome my teachers are this year in the last post, but then I got all worked up and ended up whining about how school sucked last year. Then I calmed down and deleted a lot of what I wrote and posted up a nicer version. On the off chance my ex-Italian teacher wanders across this and then takes up kickboxing.

Anyway, this year I have awesome teachers (mostly):

Psychology: My group is split in half for Psychology, sections A and B. Section A has this old man who talks so quietly you can't hear him unless you're about two meters away. Once I went into one of his classes, and my friends and I sat at the second table and all we could hear was "Psychology.... animals.... drugs...." . Also, he was so old and weak he had a hard time opening a marker to make chicken scratchings write on the board.

And he kept leaning forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards, his hands on his hips, while sitting at the desk mumbling to himself. Like a frail, old bird trying to peck at the ground, but not quite making it.

I'm in section B, though, which doesn't actually have a Psychology teacher. Hee hee. So I can sleep in on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Physics: Interesting subject, but the teacher makes it kind of boring, 'cause he explains stuff over and over (and over), mistaking our looks of boredom for looks of puzzlement. Luckily, the homework is interesting (so far, at any rate).

Literature: She's weird about some stuff (who cares what my notebook looks like? She's the only one who even bothered to tell us to bring a notebook. Sheesh) but she's kind of interesting. I'm not sure what to think yet.

Oh, and she's married to the Physics teacher and today I saw them walking together. Well, not really. It was more like she was striding along and he was scurrying behind her, carrying her stuff.

Biology: I have the same teacher as last year. This time I'm making an effort to stay awake and it's awesome! Did you know that jellyfish don't have orgasms?

Derecho: I'm not sure how to translate that. Sort of like law, or rights, or something like that. I thought it was a highly unnecessary class until the teacher showed up on the first day and made it evident that we could be ripped off at any moment and not realize it (after telling us never to believe anything he told us. Who's to say the UNAM didn't hire a troupe of actors?, he said). He's really funny, and also doesn't show up sometimes because he's apparently a very busy lawyer and has to run around doing lawyer-stuff.

French: She's an actual real French person. She also can't say "Guadalajara". Meh, she's okay. Better than my other French teachers I'd say.

Math: Snore. Not very good at explaining. Last week we did limits, and se started off by saying that she was walking along a graph and wanted to get to a certain point, and something about the slope from one side, but then the other, and something about jumping... I don't know, but I discovered that if I just tune her out and look at the board, I understand way faster.

Chemistry: WAY COOL! Last year when I had my useless dolt of a teacher it took us two weeks to learn electronic configuration. And I had to study it out of books afterwards, and I still didn't get it. And yeat, with my new teacher, I understood completely in about fifteen minutes.

To think that for an entire school year I was suffering with that... man... while on the other side of the wall, only a few meters away, was Chemistry Heaven. Who woulda thunk it.

I also have extra Biology as an elective subject, with a guy who's about 30 and gets sidetracked a lot, but the class is still interesting. Because when he gets sidetracked, he just keeps talking about Biology, whereas others will start talking about politics and so on.

Last year vs This year #1

My last year of high school started on Monday. I mean, I'm hoping it's my last year of high school. Because who knows, maybe I'll break my back and be unable to attend school EVER AGAIN, or perhaps take up prescription drugs and alcohol and get run over one cold November night in a drunken daze of druggieness.

I mean, you never know.

But I was going somewhere with this... ah, yes. I was going to say that your last year is supposed to be the hardest, right? Working to raise your grades and all. Securing your future. Bribing your teachers. Blah blah. But you know, I've only been back for three days and I have a feeling this year won't be anywhere near as hard as last year.

For one thing I don't have to stay a zillion extra hours at school per week the way I did last year.

Last year I had to go to weekly stupid, pointless meetings for the group that's going to Europe (did I ever mention I dearly regret joining that group? A psychologist at school made me see her and said that she understood why I felt they way I did, but at this point all I could do was go and try to enjoy myself. Then she told me to socialize. And to think more about what I want and then act upon that, and not what other people want. Where was I? Ah, yes. Pointless meetings). I had to take psychological tests and have extra French lessons apart from my normal ones. And go to boring talks about ugly paintings, museums, buildings, etc. Also, Italian classes. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I think, from three to five.

And giving up weekends for those useless workshops about controlling your emotions, molding plasticine into little shapes according to "whatever you're feeling right now", and then nodding at the end and saying that it was fun and cool and it felt good to get in touch with your inner self and I WOULD NEVER DO THAT AGAIN EVEN IF YOU PAYED ME.

Sorry. Anyway, that in itself isn't that much work, but then I also had crazy teachers for my regular classes. Altogether I didn't really enjoy myself last year.

It's getting late, so I'm going to shower and hit the sack for now. But keep your eyes peeled for part two, where I won't be so angsty and annoying. I promise.

Suburban Godzilla

Remember my Godzilla sock puppet T-shirt? You should, I wrote about it like 3 days ago. (That is, 3 days ago when I started this post, which means that it's actually been over two weeks). I've been meaning for ages to make a Godzilla sock puppet and I figured, hey, I'm on holidays. All I do is laze around, eat, and watch Star Trek with my family.

i.e., it's time to get off my butt and do something productive... uh, just do something.

So I dug out through the piles of unmatched socks we've accumulated over the years and found the closest match to Godzilla's skin tone. I was worried at first because I couldn't find any green socks, but then I looked more closely at pictures of Godzilla and it turns out he's not green, he's black. I don't know how I never noticed.

**bragging up ahead**

Also I know I've got the color just right because I have an original Bandai Godzilla figurine hand painted by a Japanese slave (there's a picture on the box of an unhappy man painting a little Godzilla with an eensy brush to prove it. Then there's a lot of Japanese writing with "GODZILLA DREAM" at the end). The color matches pretty well. Actually the figurine is pretty nifty. It's from a series that was made for Godzilla's 50th anniversary and it's an excellent photo subject.


Lovely. But I'm totally off track now.

So I dug up two socks, and looked around the Internetz for helpful instructions. I didn't find much, as it turns out that people don't write about making sock puppets nowadays, and I blame them entirely for the fact that my puppet is crappy and will fall apart before I can show it proper love, see a movie, and have a picnic on the beach with it.

So anyway, I mostly had to wing it. I used this for the mouth, though I modified it as I went along. I'm not actually sure what I did, I just remember there was a point where I stopped mindlessly sewing for a moment, only to discover I was sewing his mouth shut. YouTube and sewing don't mix. I finished sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

Following are three action shots of The Suburban Godzilla Sock Puppet that my dear mother valiantly risked her life to obtain. I don't think I have to tell you to click to enlarge.

I love this shot. I cropped it to the proportions of my screen, so I can use it as my wallpaper.

After a long day of knocking down pagodas*, Godzilla will often stare off into the horizon, wondering if his true love is out there somewhere, too.

Okay, this next one isn't what you'd call a quality shot, but I'm putting it here so you can see how bad the mouth turned out. As I said, his life expectancy isn't great.


*Get it? Because in the movies he always knocks down a pagoda...

Farm Crackers

Today I went to Costco with my parents. I love grocery shopping, it's so fun 8)

In Costco they're building something where the fridges are, so a section of the refrigerated food disappeared, leaving my parents disoriented and confused on their quest for butter. Something good came of the ensuing hunt, though, in the form of the discovery of cheese- and pizza-flavored crackers!

The crackers are farm-animal shaped, so you can eat cows, roosters, ducks, sheep, giraffes and pigs. This in itself is really not that remarkable, but what made me fall in love with these crackers was the fact that one of the mascots is a pig... called "Piggles".


So there I was, doubled over in the middle of Costco with a box of crackers in my hand, going, "HA HA HA HA HA, PIGGLES!! HA HA HA!" for a few minutes. When I finally finished I noticed that an old man was staring at me and that my parents had forged my signature on an emancipation form and run away.


They're actually very yummy. Also, according to the box they're 70% organic, which means that the other 30% is plastic, pesticides and dead bugs. Inorganic dead bugs.

Bits of cloth

I know it sucks to post about your clothes and that's really lame and all, but I LOVE MY T-SHIRTS.

And recently I've found a whole bunch of cheap ones, so...

This one is about protecting whale T-shirts. You see, everyone's always going "Protect the whales!" but who thinks about the whale T-shirts? NOBODY! A bold statement. Also this is wrinkled because I found it in a ball at the foot of my bed, for some reason. I thought it was in the laundry.

DJ Penguin.
Rad.

I wasn't going to get this one on account of the fact that it says "CUTE", but it has a space bunny on it. With fangs. And a space fish that FLIES.

I love this one. It has it all: a sock puppet, fabric and GODZILLA. Also I was with my sister one time when we needed 5o cents to get on the Metrobús, and some guy lent them to us and said that he was a designer-artist guy and he liked our T-shirts (sister was wearing mushroom shirt that says "I love you very mush")

Can't leave this one out. It has a naked woman on it taking a nap, AND it's a hoodie shirt. I got this at the Haggard concert last week and now that I think about it, I haven't washed it since. It doesn't smell... even though there were hordes of sweaty people smushed up against it. Yeah, I know. Ew. *eyeroll*

Mah youth

I've been badgering my parents lately for tales of their youth, and they both say they can't remember and that they were boring when they were young anyway (and let me tell you, in the case of my dad that ain't true, 'cause I've been talking to my aunt. Hoo boy). That got me thinking, I should write more here. Otherwise I'll be old and senile one day and I won't remember my youth.

Not fun.

So in the interest of not forgetting my entire life up to this point by the time I'm 40 and boring and LYING TO MY CHILDREN (should I have any), I'm going to try to not be so lazy about this.

So here's a hil-aaaarious tale of my golden years:


Like two weeks ago I went with my sister to the mall and we got some chocolate popsicles covered in cereal-y stuff. I accidentally spit out a ball of my cereal topping, watching in horror as it sailed from my mouth, forming a neat parabola through the gap in the glass case protecting the syrup and landed in the piña colada flavored syrup.

Then I looked around and saw that nobody had actually seen this, including the shop employees. Nobody, except for this one girl in the line who slowly moved her gaze from the piña colada towards me in disgust.

Yum, popsicles.

Lookng through an old notebook

I found this, dated June 11th, 2007:

"I think one of the guys at my [preparation] course [to get into high school] is crazy. He says he was walking down the street and an old lady with no teeth gave him an apple, but he didn't want it. Then he said Santa Claus came and then he started laughing like a madman."

That guy was creepy. He always wore a pair of red plaid pants. He had a weird name that started with an O...

How I hated that course.

Quote of the day:

"Up up down down left right left right B A start
Just because we use cheats doesn't mean we're not smart"

-The Moldy Peaches

Totally.

Material lust

You know, the Internet is probably not good for me. It seems that in the last few months I've just been surfing around and finding cool stuff for sale that I don't need, making a huge list in my head of Stuff That I Should Buy When I Have Money.

• This Godzilla Dress, because it's cute and has everybody's favorite supermassive reptile on it. Also it's good quality (it would have to be, 'cause it's freaking expensive).
• This Pac-Man hoodie. Because I only have one hoodie and I've basically been living in it ever since I got it. And while I do love my Domo-kun hoodie, I think it's getting lonely and could use a friend.
• A Viking hat and fur cape. For epic movie marathons.

Hm. Now that I think about it, most of the stuff I want is clothes. Or shoes... Geez, I'm such a girl.

Also there's stuff like notebooks, mugs... a lot of stuff from Etsy.

Live long and prosper. Over & out!

I'm just a poor boy, noooobody loves me!

So I passed all my courses and am officially done with school until August. However, I'm a wonderful person so I'm helping a teacher with a Math course for people who didn't pass Math and are writing the Examen Extraordinario (Google tells me this doesn't exist in English-speaking countries, but the gist of it is that at my school you write two finals: if you don't pass them, you write another two tests, which are the Extraordinarios. Yes, you get a lot of chances)

In this course, I'm the one who goes around and helps the students solve stuff they don't get. Also I fetch photocopies. I should actually be helping fourth graders learn to do easy stuff like factorizing (actually, I never learned to do that properly, I just figure it out every time I need to do it. But shhhh) but there was only one student helping in grade five, so I'm doing that instead. It's a lot harder, especially since the other guy that was supposed to be helping came, like, three times and then disappeared.


Also, on OTHER NEWS!!!

I have a confession to make.

I'm actually a man. (jk!)

I'd been wanting a Queen CD for maybe a month or so but couldn't gather the courage to buy it. I mean, I don't love Queen or anything, but they have some really good songs (case in point, Killer Queen. Also Don't Stop Me Now, among others). And buying a Queen CD is nothing at all to be embarrassed about, right?

So, rewind to three weeks ago. I want this to be quick and painless, so I wander over to Amazon and peruse** the selection of Queen albums available, and eventually settle on one of many compilations of their greatest hits. I then go to the Mixup Music Store website and discover, to my delight, discounts on most Queen CDs, and that they have in stock the one I've chosen.


(Enter the result of reading a buttload of plays for my Literature final exam)

(The next day. Setting: "Mixup" store, inside mall)

Enter ANDREA, stage right. Acting somewhat nervous. Reaches English Pop section, stands for a few seconds. Slouching, turns toward Metal shelf, which is situated opposite aforementioned English Pop display. Sighs loudly.

ANDREA: Oh, woe is me! So much preparation for this moment are to be in vain if my heart gathers no courage! For I am too cowardly to fulfill my purpose here, too cowardly indeed! Hark, what be here? Is it possible this be a trick? No, my eyes deceive me not! Behold! For this I wield in my unworthy hands is none other than the most recent–as of late– album by the good men of Rhapsody (of Fire)! And what is this? Could it be? Indeed, the money asked for this precious object is unusually low! Strange, I deem this, as is it not that items such as these are imported from the distant lands of the States up North United? I now know what I must do. It is necessary that I acquire this relic while the opportunity is present, for times like these are few and far apart in the life of one such as I. Yes, I approach the checkout now. Nothing will come between this album and I, as the death of any misfortunate scoundrel who attempts to pry my treasure from me will attest!

(End crappy attempt of reproducing an excerpt from a really old play about slaying people)


So Instead I got a lovely, cheap copy of Triumph or Agony. Why did I do that? I mean, what I ended up getting was a great buy, but why couldn't I stand 30 seconds in the Pop section without turning into an embarrassed pile of Jell-O? It's not like I'm a big metalhead or hardcore Goth or anything. I like pop! I mean, not most pop. But some pop. Sometimes.

So that was stupid. But! The situation has been dealt with.

Today I finally plucked up enough guts to buy a Queen CD! Actually, I didn't buy it. I stood next to my sister while she compared prices and track lists for me, and then went over to the checkout and payed for it with the money I handed her. So although I didn't technically buy it myself, I was present during the whole operation and was an integral part of it. Right? Right???

I paid the price (literally) for not buying the one I wanted when I had the chance, though. The album I'd chosen before wasn't there anymore, but we got another one that's pretty good. Two drawbacks, though: it doesn't have Bohemian Rhapsody on it, and it cost more than the others because it was an import. Ah, well. I'm still enjoying it right now. Also, I. love. my. sister.

** "to peruse" actually means to examine in detail, and not "to skim", as most people think. Hah, stupid people.

Sucks.

I've posted like 5 times in the whole year. That must be a new low.

But I've been busy. Studying. To fail.

Grr.

I love my dog because she loves me. And she's furry and has an amazing personality. Indeed, her opinion of me is largely influenced on whether or not I have cheese.

Which reminds me that I love you all, so while you & me and the devil make three, we can watch this. It's the first ever Mitch Hedberg video I watched. He's my idol now.



Pardon the lack of animosity. I have no excuse.

Pig Swine flu.

So our pigs apparently got sick and now there's swine flu going around. Oops. Sorry, world.

School was canceled on Friday and won't start again till May 6th (at least), and it's a bad idea to leave your house (and even worse to do it without a face mask). The school thing's not that bad, actually, because I had three final exams scheduled before the 6th. Now I can study a lot more for them, whee.

My whole family's read this book aaand this book. If you're too lazy to read the summaries, all you need to know is that the moon crashes into the earth and its gravitational pull changes: everything on the coasts floods (eg., New York is under water), volcanoes all over become active and turn the sky permanently gray which in turn leads to dying crops and extremely low temperatures. So the vast majority of the world starves and gets the flu. And then dies.

So what did my family do in the face of the beginning of the end of the world? Duh! We went to Costco, bought a ****load of food, and then hurried home to shut ourselves at home.

I cannot tell you how sorry I feel for Anne Frank, and not just because she's dead . I mean, she must've been bored beyond words, shut up in an attic or wherever (I don't know, I've never actually read the diary, just a book about it- oh, the irony).

So I'm getting kind of sick of being here all day, every day. Especially because if I sneeze it's like playing 20 questions (Are you okay? Have you been feeling sick at all? Have you been sneezing a lot?). No, I don't have frigging influenza.

And okay, it's not THAT bad, but seriously. Gaaaaaaarggghhh. Also, April is pretty much over and it's not faaaair, 'cos this month there are discounted National Geographic DVDs, and I only got three. Boo. Also I totally wasn't able to celebrate Earth Day.


Stupid pigs.

..well, no, poor pigs. Little piggy-wiggies.


It's not all bad, though! Let's list the advantages brought by our voluntary quarantine:

1. As mentioned above, I have way more time to study. Also, there's nothing else to do, so studying is actually pretty fun to do (wait, what?)
   
2. I got to spend some quality time with my sister watching zombie movies.
3. I can spend all day in my pajamas without worrying that somebody will drop by unexpectedly.

Well, it took me about fifteen minutes to come up with that list. That's really all I can think of.

Oh, well. Now that I've had my teenagerish whining session, I can go to sleep, knowing that this is up here for the whole world to see. Not that the world is looking this way.

This Morning

I'm too lazy to write more than this:

Yes, I know it looks like my throat is receiving pleasure from my hand- ignore that. Also, I didn't notice my sister was recording that (that evil thing on the left is my sister). I was warbling to "One" by Metallica on Guitar Hero 3.

Tales: sneakers, bruises & fake fetuses

Sorry to my two and a half readers, whoever ye may be, for not writing for a looong time. If time were measured with animals, then I wouldn't have written for about an elephant and two ducks. This is due to the fact that I've been busy and uninspired. Mostly uninspired.

But just now I was lying in bed, composing bits of blog post in my head, so I knew: It. Is. Time!!

Typically, however, I just forgot what I was going to write. That is what happens when you bother to type up an introduction to a post. Your brain goes fuzzy.

I chopped of my hair (actually, I paid a lady to do it for me because I don't own one of those little head-mower machines that go bzzzzzt!!). I almost regretted it after because people KEPT ON ASKING "Why did you cut your hair?? Oggle." I eventually got so bored with the question that I would go, "My hair? I didn't cut my...? Oh my GOD! It's GONE!!!!"

Today I went to get an ultrasound because of that Europe Project thing at school that I wrote a little post about a while back (but I'm too lazy to link to it. Wow). So I was lying on a bed in a clinic, wearing one of those little robe things that don't close properly at the back (but it's okay, because I got to keep my pants on, whew) an the doctor came in, said hi, and sat down at a computer-like thing an typed a bit. Then he smiled and was all,

"So! How long have you been pregnant?" Big doctor smile.

I thought he was joking, so I went, "Heh. Yeah."

"...how long?"

Then I realized he actually meant it, and I remembered that earlier my mom had told me about a guy she worked for once that could tell the age and sex of a deer just by looking at it. And I thought, eek! what if this guy is like that, except with pregnant people instead of deer?

Then I realized I was being stupid, and the reason he thought I was pregnant was because the ultrasound is supposed to be for lovely ladies who actually are harvesting a baby, letting it live off of them and suck out their daily energy. The reason I had to take it is because the teachers of the Europe Project apparently don't trust us and insist we have an ultrasound to prove that there aren't any stray fetuses floating around where they shouldn't.

Hmph.

So anyway, he was all surprised and said that the receptionist told him I was pregnant.

Stupid receptionist ¬¬

Well, no, not stupid. Just... grr.

On the bright side, however, I am happy to announce to the world that true love has entered my life <3 in the form of a new pair of sneakers. Bought them today at Costco, and will update this post later with a picture of them (how could I not? I love them!).

Seriously. If they were people I'd seduce them, marry them and then love them to the point where they were old, battered and stinky. Then I would file for divorce and repeat with a new pair. This is a sustainable cycle, because the money you get from the divorce serves the purpouse of luring in a new pair.

I think I may be a bit tired. I shall go to sleep after I narrate to you, o lucky reader, one last tale.

It occurred, as did the last two, today. I have to get some tests done for the Europe Project (amongst them the no-fetuses proof), including some blood tests to see if I have rabies or something. I don't really know.

That doesn't matter, though, because when they took my blood, it left a huuuuuge purple-red bruise. For now all I have is a crappy webcam photo, because it's night and the lighting sucks. But! tomorrow I will take a photo not only of the beautiful, rubbery new love(s) of my life, but also of my spanking awesome bruise so you can all get excited or grossed out or whatever it is you funny little chums do. Check it:

Webcam-quality strikes once again!

The nurse said the reason I have such an epic bruise is because I have "sensitive veins". How sweet is THAT? It's confirmed: my insides are made of awesome.

UPDATE:

Shmexy photos of my bruise & sneakers up ahead. mm, sneakers.

seriously. wtf!

I have this theory that my Health Ed teacher isn't a real doctor. I think she bought her degree after doing about a year of med school.

Firstly, because she believes that transmitting the light-energy that floats around in the air through point eight of the chakra (or something) is a legitimate way to cure paralysis or, you know, any other illness. She gave us a whole class on that sort of stuff. I mean, it's okay to be into that stuff as a hobby or whatever (I guess, if you don't take it seriously), but not to devote yourself to that as a doctor and then teach it to a class of 17-year-olds as legitimate medicine.

Secondly, because she spells poliomyelitis wrong. Seriously. 

And thirdly, because she gave us a class consisting of Power Point presentations– the kind you get in junk mail– about how shampoo gives you cancer, and oooh, all the things that happened in WW2 but never made it into the textbooks because the government doesn't want us to know! The worst one was about how the world will end soon because Sister Mary or something from some convent in Europe made a spooky prediction that scared the Pope, and a giant cross will appear in the sky and a big earthquake 10 minutes before midnight will kill all the non-believers. She told us that she was showing us all this because we should be prepared for the day that it would all happen, and we should start buying crosses and candles, and stock up on holy water.

Mom, Dad, close your eyes.

WHAT THE FUCK?????

Okay, open them again.

I mean, seriously! There is NO WAY she is a real doctor. I'm totally going to complain. Not that it'll make a difference, but in a few years when she gets sacked it'll be added to her record and she won't get hired anywhere else ever again.

Oh, I didn't mention it, but she let a stranger that claimed to be a Math student (with no ID, that showed up out of nowhere and was wearing a surgical mask and hat for no apparent reason... and looked way too stupid to be studying Math) take care of a classroom full of knapsacks. She was very surprised when she returned and a bunch of iPods, cell phones and wallets had mysteriously disappeared. 

2009 HERE I COMESss!

I wasn't going to write anything today, except then I realized that January is almost over and I haven't actually written anything all year. So! I will take time out of my busy, busy schedule to blog a bit.

Let's begin the year with some resolutions (good old things, it's like a free post because you don't have to come up with something to write about):

Andrea's 2009 resolutions, whoo!

1. Study. A lot. For real.

2. Take a lot of photos of my school and my friends, 'cuz I don't want to wake up in thirty years and go, "Who did I hang out with back then, again?"

3. Go to a hair salon and ask how short-short I can cut my hair without it looking stupid, and then cut it. Long hair is nice, but annoying.

4. Exercise 6 hours a week, and obviously more during the holidays. Added note, see if I can squeeze into those size 2 jeans I got that one time by accident.

5. I'm totally going to read all those books I got during the winter holidays about the environment.

6. Get a new pair of shoes. Sheesh.

7. Stop correcting people's grammar mindlessly. It's annoying.

8. Learn to cook several real meals.

9. Post at least 4 times a month.

10. Plant something.


Well, they do say 10 is a magic number ("they"? who?), so I'll leave it there.

Oh, no, wait!


11. Reach 160 cm (or buy some high heels, see resolution #6).


Moving on, what has I been doin'? Well, not much: school, getting my ego beaten to a tiny pulp, shopping like a crazed maniac on drugs, and skipping showers. You know, the usual.

Gah. Musssssttttt ssstudyyyyyyy......