• Feeling: a bit stressed
• Listening to: “Whip it” – Devo
• The weather outside: 299 Kelvins
• Mantra of the day: I doubt, therefore I might be

If you don’t know what “jIyajbe’ tlhlngan” means (*gasp* how could you not?), it’s Klingon for “I don’t understand Klingon”. Sure, my (fake) resume claims I speak it fluently, but like most people, I was just lying to improve my (imaginary) job prospects. I am starting to learn a few phrases here and there though, thanks to The Klingon language institue and Hol ‘ampaS – I can say nuqneH, qaStaH nuq? (meaning “Hello, what’s happening?”), but more importantly, essential phrases like nuqjatlh?, jIyajbe’ and nuqDaq ‘oH puchpa”e’ (“Huh?”, “I don’t understand” and “Where is the bathroom?” respectively), which should help me somewhat if I ever end up lost in Kronos and need to pee. Unfortunately though, my pronounciation is positively horrendous. All the sounds that require unusual mouth and tongue movements seem to come out sounding like a footballer spitting on the field at half-time, or worse, no sound comes out at all. Maybe I should stick to learning French. *sigh* Though the sad thing is that I actually know almost as much Klingon now as I do French…so you can imagine it’s not much at all. Oh well, best yet would probably be perfecting my English, lol. Heavens knows I should try to master that first, haha.

Back to more earthly matters though, I had my (Dis)Orientation Day at uni last Thursday. Even though I’m not actually a first-year student, it’s my first year studying science at this university, so I went along anyway and tried to blend in. I actually did have to be there for a while to go to a lab safety seminar (which I’d been told was a lab safety test, but apparently the only on-campus bit was a boring seminar and the test was just an easy online quiz – sweet!). As well as the lab safety seminar (during which I embarrassed myself by tripping down the steps in the lecture theatre – way to stay safe, huh?), I also went to the faculty & lab tour, and attended an information session for the commencing biomed students. I was quite shocked to see how few people are actually studying this course (there would have been a couple of hundred people at the general science faculty sessions, but there would probably only be 30-35 biomed students, tops), but the info session itself was actually really interesting…and dare I say, exciting! I must have looked like such a dork, sitting there with this look of rapture as the professor told us about her research (she’s growing a human heart from adult stem cells – how kickass is that?!) and about all the other projects going on in the biomed community. It was really motivating, and I’m so glad I went to that as well as just the compulsory lab safety thing.

One interesting thing I did note when we were looking at these electron microscopy pictures, is that up close (very very close!), a white blood cell looks exactly like a Raffaelo chocolate. No kidding, the resemblance is quite amazing! I don’t know how widespread the popularity of Raffaelo chocolates is though (they’re made by the company that makes Ferrero Rocher and so forth), so I got some pictures from Google Images and put them side by side for you to compare.

Cool, huh? There were some other really cool electron microscopy pictures we saw too, including some really pretty colourful ones that remind me of those fractal graphics people make in Photoshop, but I couldn’t find the same ones online. Bummer…I wanted to use one for my desktop background, hehe.

Anyway, moving on, I’ve updated the poetry section today. Yes, yet again! What’s left behind, Murdering a dead man, Zoo, Senseless, The whole house is an attic, Tearing down the sky and Requiem for Lana are all new, and as expected, the usual teaser. I’ve been watching U2’s Zoo Tour, lol.

Zoo

I believe you, do you believe me?
we’re going to watch the world end
on a big plasma screen TV
and with high definition audio
the trumpet sounding will be
crystal clear
so clear!

I believe you, do you believe me?
I place my trust in the hands of politicians
and oh, I know that when I hunger
they will feed me
all the sweet lies that keep me nourished
and when I’m ill it will only be because
I put my tick in the wrong box
my mistake!

I believe you, do you believe me?
there’s a golden star within my reach
if I pay the price they’re asking
and I will walk with flowers
blooming at my feet
if I wear that shade of lipstick
and drink their brand of cola

I believe you, do you believe me?
please stop it if you do
because everything I know is wrong

And before I go, a few more questions for you.

1. Random question: Do you ever dunk food in your coffee (or tea)?
2. Another random question: What is your favourite cartoon strip? (Online or print)
3. tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh’a'?

Must start getting stuff ready for class tomorrow now. The first day of semester always makes me so nervous! Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Vanessa, Jessica, Simply Precious, Deanna, Kate, Caity, Jamie, Julie, Mary, Tiff K & Rachel.

• Feeling: lethargic
• Listening to: “Freedom” – Richie Havens
• The weather outside: 298 Kelvins
• Cocktail of the day: Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster

Today I’ve been thinking about life, the universe and everything. No, not the book from the Hitchhiker’s Guide series. No, not the number 42 (I have a secret theory that 42 isn’t really the meaning of life, the universe and everything anyway – I reckon it’s 37). Today I’ve been thinking about the big bang theory. No, not the TV show (even though it’s awesome). Why do I keep getting distracted like this? Anyway, the real big bang is what I’ve been thinking about – as in one of the most popular theories of how the universe came to exist. Now, I mean no disrespect to anyone who favours the “God created everything” school of thought, but personally I believe in the big bang theory. But how did the big bang happen? It’s all well and good to say ‘yeah, there was a big bang and the universe suddenly existed’, but how was that possible? This is a question that for one reason or another I’ve been coming back to regularly since I was about 15, even though my belief hasn’t really changed at all since then. Let me try to explain: Remember that one of the fundamental laws of science is that matter (which everything is made of) can’t be created or destroyed? Hold that thought. Before the universe came to exist there was nothing. Absolutely nothing – no time, no space, and no laws of science. Since there was nothing to stop matter from suddenly being created, the big bang could occur, which is essentially the creation of all matter. Does that make sense? Over the years I’ve gotten the impression that I’m probably not explaining it very well because everyone I say this to either argues with me or just says “what?”. But hey, this is what I stand by and if anyone wants to enlighten me to an alternative perspective, feel free to – just keep it friendly.

Besides pondering the origins of the universe and the meaning of life (rest assured if I can think of a way to explain that I will, but don’t hold your breath! haha), I’ve been starting to get organized for the new uni semester that starts next week. I’ve bought funky new stationary, I’ve had my hair done (more on that in a moment!), I’ve started planning my packed lunch menu…oh, and I suppose sooner or later I’ll get around to looking at the course guide and textbook too. Seriously, I’m going to try to be more diligent with my studies this semester, since I’m finally going to be studying something I enjoy (science) and have told the business degree to kiss my fat butt. Hopefully when the course material doesn’t make me want to beat myself unconscious with the textbook I’ll be more inclined to study.

So as I mentioned before, I had my hair foiled (just like my plans for world domination – bugger!) last Thursday, and a bit of a cut as well. Basically I was sick to death of looking like I had a rat’s nest glued to my head, so I went and saw my mum’s stylist and she managed to undo most of the damage I did last time I tried to trim my split ends (seriously, will I ever learn?!). Unfortunately the photo is really bad quality (iPhone camera + shitty lighting makes everything look very faded), so in person the streaks are a bit brighter. And I’ve come to the conclusion it looks basically the same when I’ve just gotten out of bed as it does after I’ve attempted to style it, but I’ll let you be the judge of whether that’s good or bad, lol. I’ve been told it makes me look a bit older though, so hopefully now they’ll stop carding me at the casino. It’s a bit embarrassing to still be asked for ID when the legal age here is 18 and I’m 24…

Anyway, trying to stick to keeping the entries a bit shorter these days, so I’ll just ask a few questions before I go.

1. How do you think the universe was created? (Come on, you knew I’d ask!)
2. Do you observe Lent? If so, did you give up something?
3. What’s the speed of dark?

Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Simply Precious, Caity, Julie, Angelica, Jenny, Tiff K, Charley & Christine.

• Feeling: excellent
• Listening to: “I’m throwing my arms around Paris” – Morrissey
• The weather outside: 298 Kelvins
• Under-appreciated historical figure of the day: Grace O’Malley, the pirate queen of Ireland

With all of my cynical silliness and condemnation of Valentine’s Day last entry, I completely forgot to mention my new fish. As you may know or have simply noticed, I do not have a very exciting life, so a new fish is quite a big deal for me. I’d been thinking for a while that Dorian (current, older fish) might be a bit lonely these days now that Rufus and Saffy have gone to the great fishtank in the sky (even though I suspect it was he who sent them there in the first place), so last Friday I went to my local aquarium and bought him a tank-mate.

He’s a pearl gourami and I’ve named him Lord Henry (get it? Like in The Picture of Dorian Gray?) and so far he’s settled in very well, amusing me frequently by how, like Lord Henry in the book, he seems so interested in Dorian, always swimming around after him and trying to bite his tail. (Well, there was no swimming or tail-biting in the book, but…oh nevermind, lol). You can see a picture of him and Dorian together to the right – Dorian is the bigger light grey one; Lord Henry is the smaller orangey one with a thin black stripe. I tried to snap a pic of the butt-bite in action, but they were too fast for me. And yes, I know there’s something terribly wrong with me.

Slightly on the same topic, I finally got to see the 2009 Dorian Gray movie (based on the book – though somewhat loosely, I would say) the other day, and although I initially wasn’t too impressed (from the first five minutes alone it was obvious they’d not only made significant changes to the beginning, but had also butchered the timeline) it actually ended up being quite fantastic. They did take a good few liberties with the plot (not only in details – like how Dorian met Lord Henry, but also somewhat in the tone of the charcters – for example, in the book Basil’s feelings for Dorian are far more subtle, though I suppose in the context of 19th century England, it caused enough of a stir already without anything else to offend the homophobic masses, lol), so if you were expecting it to be exactly like the book, detail for detail, know now you will be disappointed. But if that doesn’t bother you or you haven’t read the book anyway, I would highly recommend the movie. Colin Firth makes a fantastic Lord Henry (though I may be biased – I think I would love Colin Firth in any role ) and Ben Barnes (in the role of Dorian), who I'd never even heard of before, let alone seen on screen, was also very good (...and rather gorgeous, hehe). Nothing at all like how I'd pictured the character (for starters, the producers seem to have skipped over the hair and eye colour descriptions in the novel), but that only annoyed me for about 3.5 seconds until my hot guy sensory unit started working. In fact, even if you couldn't care less about the story, just mute the sound and you'll still enjoy it.

Moving on though, since I think I've exhausted the topic of the movie (or at least exhausted my readers with all my rambling, lol), let me tell you about something dramatic that happened to me today: I got hit by a car. At this point you might like to picture me lying bloodied in the gutter with two broken legs, or sprawled across the hood of someone’s car with my face smashed into the windshield, but the sad reality is that nothing that exciting (oops, I mean horrible, or…whatever) resulted and I have no scintillating tales of being carted off in an ambulance or being operated on in the ER or being given roadside CPR and mouth-to-mouth by a sexy paramedic named Carlos. No, all I have to show for my narrow escape from death is the beginnings of a bruise on my hip (where the car hit me) and a very squashed Twix (squashed because I fell on it, not because the car ran it over, lol). Basically, for those of you who might actually be feeling a little concerned, I crossed in the shopping centre car park when I probably shouldn’t have, and two guys driving past didn’t sense my “stupid reckless pedestrian” aura and slammed into me (or my hip, rather – which is fine, thanks for asking ). Surprisingly they didn’t seem terribly phased that they had just hit an actual person, and the driver merely shouted out to me (through the open window) “are you okay?”. Of course I should have replied, “of course I’m not okay, you dickhead! You just ran me over and made me squash my Twix!” but instead I only managed a feeble “yeah…I’m fine”, limped out of their path (though the limping turned out to be unncessary, since my legs are both fine) and watched them drive off without even the sense to get out my iPhone and take a snap of the license plate. Not that I could have sued them anyway because I wasn’t crossing where I was supposed to, but still. So unfortunately, no prime time TV-worthy dramatics. See, my life is so boring that even if I get hit by a car it happens in the dullest way possible!

Anyway, I’ve updated the poetry section here again – Relearning to walk, A hug from Venus de Milo, Sonata in A minor, Abra cadabra, Sterilize and Gemini are all new, and as usual, here is a teaser. Come to think of it, maybe I should call them taunts…after all, it is rather cruel of me to keep bombarding you with them, isn’t it?

A hug from Venus de Milo

I await with hopeful expectation
I wait in my delusional state
flickering photographs scanning through my head
and a chant that’s hardly prayer
I await with hopeful expectation
I wait for you to see me

I have so much and still
I want only what I’ll never have
your refusal is my encouragement
push me away and I’ll spring back like a bungee
and I don’t feel the danger
and my mind won’t let me see
that there’s a chance my rope will break

I await with hopeful expectation
I wait on your leather couch
flickering through expensive coffee table books
and chanting to calm my nerves
I await with hopeful expectation
I wait for you to change

and I know I’m going nowhere
but that won’t slow me down
I want only what no one will ever have
I await with hopeful expectation
I wait for the impossible
blind faith and stupidity are not so different
I’m still waiting to see the face of God
and be hugged by Venus de Milo

And one last thing before I go, today (February 17th) is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure Day, so I trust that you are all being excellent to each other and partaking in most triumphant celebratory events like watching the movie (and the sequel if you want to be really excellent) and playing air guitar. Personally my air guitar skills are a little rusty, but I have certainly not forgotten how awesome the movie is, which is why I’m heading off to watch it now. Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Vanessa, Tiff K, Gillian, Simply Precious, Julie, Alyssa, Janice, Caity & Kitty.

• Feeling: cynical
• Listening to: “Love stinks” – J. Geils Band (but of course! )
• The weather outside: 300 Kelvins
• Aphrodisiac of the day: A dab of onion gravy behind each ear will make you irresistible to the opposite sex.

First of all before I forget, HUGE thanks goes out to Vanessa for being so kind and patient to convert my layout to divs for me. I’m finally starting to get the hang of them myself now that she’s gotten me started, so thanks times a billion Vanessa!

Next up: Valentine's Day. Or as Brandy called it, “Singles Awareness Day”, hehe. I won’t get into a long rant about how I think Valentine’s Day is just an over-commercialized load of crap designed to raise the share prices of Hallmark, but know now I’m not exactly a fan. Of course everyone I say this to just seems to snicker and insinuate I only dislike “V-Day” because I’m single, but I staunchly insist that it’s a lot more than just that. I’m not a outwardly affectionate person and I have a romantic streak about as wide as a strand of vermicelli pasta, so the lovey-dovey sentiments of Valentine’s Day tend to just sound corny to me. And don’t get me started on the flowers…what the hell is so romantic about something that’s going to be dead and withered in a few days? Is that how you want to symbolize your love?! Sheesh.

*takes deep breath* Sorry about that…I get a little carried away at times. Though luckily I have been channelling my dislike of V-Day into cooking this weekend, having made some very unromantic broken heart cookies and some hand-made chocolates that when lined up together spell “Love stinks”. Me, bitter and cynical? Not at all, hehehe.

The chocolates actually turned out surprisingly well considering I had no recipe and no idea what I was doing. I tested out a variety of fillings, all made from a base of melted chocolate (either milk, white or dark), canned whipped cream (hehe) and various bits and pieces I could find around the kitchen like glaced cherries, coffee powder and creme de menthe. I think the nicest one though was just a simple combination of white chocolate, whipped cream and finely chopped strawberries. Mmm… *licks lips*

Moving on though, out of a fit of boredom the other night I filled out yet another of these Facebook survey memes, which resulted in me looking over to see which ones I’d already done (you know, to make sure I didn’t bore everyone twice as much as necessary, lol). Among them I found one that asked you to list 10 things you would like to say to 10 people but can’t, which I think is actually quite a good question for a therapy session, but probably not so much for everyone on your Facebook friends list to see. My answers were serious but vague things like “I regret wasting my time on you” and “I wish you’d open up to me” and about 8 other similarly whiny responses, but in hindsight I really don’t want to say any of those things to any of those people. Really, I can’t imagine disclosing any of those thoughts to the intended recipients would have any positive outcome, so to combat the wave of regret and self-pity reading over that question brought on, I made another similar list…though clearly a much more light-hearted version.

10 things I would like to say to 10 people (but can’t)

1 “Jeeves, be a dear and fetch me another martini.” – To my imaginary butler.
2 “Oh yes Morrissey, of course I’ll marry you!” – To Morrissey, obviously
3 “Hold on a sec Bono, I’ve got Bob Dylan on the other line.” – To Bono.
4 “Why yes, I have lost weight! Thank you for noticing.” – To anybody, hehe.
5 “Well, curing cancer wasn’t easy, but someone had to do it.” – To the channel 9 news.
6 “A Nobel prize? Me? Oh, you’re too kind!” – To the chair of the Nobel committee.
7 “That’s very generous of you, Mr Trump; I’ll be sure to spend it wisely!” – To Donald Trump (after receiving a hefty monetary donation for no apparent reason).
8 “You like? It’s a one-of-a-kind from Hermes…I had it custom-made.” – To any female friend.
9 “Sorry I can’t come and visit tomorrow, Mum…I promised Her Majesty I’d pop in for tea.” – To my mother.
10 “Thank you warden, you can take my brother back to his cell now.” – To the security guard after Sean gets sent to prison

I know, I have too much time on my hands. That will change soon though, with the new uni semester quickly approaching. I have only 2 weeks now before classes resume, so I’ll have to make the most of my time by doing absolutely nothing, hehe. I envision a lot of lazy days watching DVDs in my PJs with a tub of ice-cream…

Anyway, trying to make my entries a little bit shorter these days, so I’ll end here with some questions for you.

1. Did you do anything special for Valentine’s Day?
2. Do you consider yourself a romantic person?
3. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

As for me, I’m going to end my Valentine’s Day by eating chocolate, having a(nother) glass of port and going to bed alone. Oh yes, woe is me, blah blah blah. Sometimes I suspect I would be far more depressed about being alone on days like today if I actually had any interest in a “real” relationship, but alas I don’t. Romance is so overrated. Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Deanna, Vanessa, Simply Precious, Caity, April, Georgina & Christine.

[EDIT] I’m sorry about all the downtime this site’s been experiencing the past couple of days – my host has been changing servers. Everything should be okay by now though! Thanks for your patience.

• Feeling: slightly neurotic
• Listening to: “Charlotte sometimes” – The Cure
• The weather outside: 298 Kelvins
• Reason to stay in bed today: The hole in the ozone layer will give you sunburn

Dimwits of the world, take heed: you are not alone in your plight! I, Aly, suffer from dimwittedness too. What a surprise, huh?

Aside from the usual acts of “dimwittery” like catching the wrong bus, forgetting my phone number and accidentally adding Gatorade powder to my coffee instead of sugar, this latest brain fart (hereon known as cerebral flatulence, to be politically correct, hehe) has essentially turned me into a man, at least according to the folks at SurveyHead. I signed up with my full name (assuming I might need to for payment purposes), which is Alana in case you didn’t know – except I made a typo and dropped the A at the end, thus registering me as “Alan Stevenson”. Lol! I filled out the gender field properly though, so now they’re probably thinking I’ve got some serious gender identity issues, haha. Now I have to figure out how to correct the mistake, since “Alan” doesn’t have a bank account (or a body, or personality, or a life…). I really shouldn’t try to do anything that requires a working cerebral cortex late at night…I’ve said before that my brain doesn’t usually start working until about 4pm, but the opening hours are not extensive – closing time is usually around 9pm. And since my brain doesn’t get paid overtime, it gets rather slack after that.

Moving on though, let me try to pull my thoughts together for a few more minutes so I can share with you my paranoid opinion about the new GO cards we here in Brisbane and are being forced to use now on public transport. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the public transport system here (which I can safely assume is a rather large percentage), “GO cards” are like little debit cards to use on the buses/trains/ferries/whatever and the government is forcing everyone to use these now instead of buying paper tickets onboard (which very soon you won’t be able to do at all – already some bus routes are GO card only). What, you ask, is the problem? Well in order to protect the amount of money you’ve loaded on to your card, you register your card online, forcing you to divulge not only your name, but your address, phone number and even credit/debit card details if you intend to top up your balance online. Add to this the fact that the GO cards (which are now directly linked to you as an individual) logs where you go and when every time you scan your card to get on or off the bus/train/whatever, and you have a rather effective tracking system for everybody in the whole city who has to use public transport. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find this a rather unnecessary breach of privacy. Personally I daresay I’m not going to land in trouble over it because it’s not like I catch the circle line to known meth labs or bus it into the red light district every Saturday night, but on principle I don’t like this system one bit. Do we really want Big Brother monitoring our bus rides? It might seem silly and far-fetched to most people, but that’s only the beginning – it starts with tracking your morning ride to work and eventually escalates to a cage full of rats clamped to your face a la Nineteen Eighty-Four. Which reminds me, I really do need to read the book itself instead of just reading about it. It sounds like something I might enjoy.

Speaking of books though, I actually have got grand plans to start reading again (as soon as I remember how, hehe). Over the past few days I’ve loitered around about 8 of my local book stores, picking up a novel here and there, and I’ve now got quite a reading list to keep me occupied for…well, probably about a decade, knowing me.

I bought The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, The Divine Comedy 1: Hell by Dante (translated edition of course, lol), Utopia by Thomas More, The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (actually a legit ancestor of mine from the Scottish branch of the family tree), Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Only revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski and Alice in Wonderland & Alice through the looking glass by Lewis Carroll. I haven’t read any of them before (except the first Alice book, but that was about 15 years ago!) but hopefully I’ll actually like them as much as I think I will. I also wanted to buy Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce, but after sneakily reading the first chapter or so in Borders and barely being able to comprehend a word of it, I decided to delay that one a while, lest I give myself a brain haemorrhage trying to decipher it. Anyway, I already started The Screwtape Letters in the waiting room at the clinic this afternoon (and am very much enjoying it), so once I finish it and a couple of others I might write some brief reviews or at least blog about whether I enjoyed or not, lol. So yes, stay tuned!

And to finish off, some questions for you. I forgot about this for a while but I’m going to try to start doing it more often again. Anyway…

1. Have you read any of the books I mentioned? Did you enjoy them?
2. Got any conspiracy theories to share with me?
3. When you cup your hand over your ear, can you hear the ocean?

Well I’m off to bed now folks. Ok, maybe I’ll read a little first… Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Vanessa, Catherine, Simply Precious, Angelica, Sean, Georgina, Rebecca, Tiff K, Daniella & Melle.