When I was doing work with my colleague assembling ancestry trees using the mitochondrial DNA of caveman skulls.  We used it to make these maps of maternal immigration patterns.

There were many hours swearing at computer algorithms and parsing through weird chunks of genetic data.

In the end we got it to work though and it was somewhat of a rewarding feeling. Although also a touch frustrating to go through that many permutations just to solve one puzzle.  Kind of like when you finally for the first time beat a really tough videogame like Ghosts 'N Goblins or Contra but only after having had to go through over and over dying every possible game death each level until you figure out bit by bit and piece by piece a memorized set of patterns and strategy.  That's called the brute force method of analysis by the way (somewhat, I'm using the term loosely, if you want to go off strict definitions I'm describing the nature of it but not exactly defining it in so much).  It isn't terribly efficient but though tedious it can be satisfying.  What's smarter is to do stuff in grouped strategies using things such as I believe you might call them optimization algorithms... stuff where you sort fields of possible answers using particular rules.  We ended up having to do plenty of both.

Show them no fear.

My father tried to kill my spirit of inquiry and just about nearly succeeded.
He also had worked on convincing me I was unlikeable.  At this he failed.
I'm still working on recovering the former though.

Before you try arguing and saying I don't know what I'm talking about, you have to actually know my father first.
You also probably haven't lived with him like I have.

So the cumulative exam is in the morning.
It's all short answer+ essay format and not multiple choice.
I don't really know enough about any of the topics to be able to talk about it. Which really, really sucks.

I was kind of riding a C- before in the class.  I'll be lucky if I can get a D. 

I got interrupted from my studies quite a bit. Mostly by my mom and brother at home.

Sometimes at school by my girlfriend.  It seemed like whenever I sat down to read she'd start tugging me, poking and putting things in my face about how she was bored and absolutely insisted we walk around because she felt too hyper.
When I confronted her about this she apologized but it did continue, albeit with somewhat less frequency.

My mom has this weird notion in her head that you shouldn't study or do homework at home and somehow it should all magically get done during class... nevermind that there is already classwork you are assigned to do in class which takes up most of it.  Trying to explain this to her and argue that it isn't simply to get out of doing chores is... frustrating.

I spent my last $20 on a lunch, some latexfree condoms*, and put together enough leftover change to pay back my buddy I'd borrowed a fiver from last month.
The second half of general biochemistry is basically how biochemistry relates to endocrinology.  It's not something you can fuck around in and isn't exactly the most appropriate of subjects to sleep through if you want to still muddle your way through.  When you consider that basically biochemistry is you take the stuff you learned in organic chemistry and start applying it to components of living things, and life processes, within organisms, etc. it gets all the more interesting and convolutedly effed up in terms of complexity... somewhat.  So yeah, I didn't really help myself out that much either by procrastinating it so heavily this quarter.

*Fun biochemistry fact: What is an isoprene?  It is a monomer that is found in RUBBER! So isoprene condoms are a special type where most of the allergen producing components (~95%) you'll find in latex have been removed from it during processing.  I believe it's a 5 carbon little thing that makes a skeleton or backbone and involves an eensy bit of branching/forks and has two double bonds in it. The structure of those bonds is an alternating one where it goes double, single, double... kind of.

I learned about this and other things like glycosylation, dephosphorylation and various metabolic crappola in that class but I do not know enough about it to be able to do okay on the test.  If you asked me how many ATP or NAD⁺, how many FMN or FADH₂, NADPH are produced or consumed at particular stages of complex biochemical reactions I'd know that it was talked about but wouldn't be able to answer that question.

But after this, I'm out for a bit. Done for the quarter as far as I can tell.
>_<

I should have sent and filled out that job application weeks ago.  Whenever I talked to my dad about it he told me he didn't really want to address it 'til after the quarter; Yet, I'm pretty sure that if I wait 'til summer to fill out a summer job application then that will be too late.  I've already tried that a few times and know from experience that waiting that long is too late.  It's kinda my own fault for not doing it sooner and it's not like he expressely forbade me from doing it.
Then again, since when has being forbidden from something successfully kept my curiosity to do or find out about it at bay?

To be fair and paint a more balanced picture, he did say (how even though he'd really prefer it if I waited 'til after the quarter to do the application) if I really wanted to he'd help me out with part of retrieving the record files from my archives to do an updated resume one of those weekends that was a few back but I had to rain check on it because some other things had came up that kept me sufficiently otherwise occupied/engaged.

Trying to tell me they think taking things a step at a time in the relationship I have with my girlfriend is bad.
She and I are kind of cerebral.

>_<

We don't exactly have any "overwhelming passions".

Things are scheduled and well, you may think that to be horrible but since she and I are kind of cerebral people it makes sense to allocate time for various things and to set aside particular days for particular things.

I had to meet and go out with some other people first before I met her. There is really nothing wrong with that.

Some people tell me they think you should try so hard to make things work with whoever the first person who comes your way is.
That's not how life works... not for me.  If things don't work... guess what... there are I forget how many other exactly several hundred million people you haven't even met yet so you can try, try again.

This is a good thing. That when things don't work out with one person it isn't the end of the world and you can try it out over again with somebody else. I can't believe I was in an argument with one of my closest friends about this the other day.

Lost my cellphone.
I had it but then I fell asleep with it next to me on the bed. When I woke up it was gone.  I can't call it to see where it is because I had the damned thing on silent.  No ringing, no vibrate. That doesn't help too much.
A few people who text me kind of don't get that it doesn't have to be just one sentence at a time and fire their messages off in bursts as they think each part of the paragraph. This is fine, yet to adjust to it I find setting my phone on silent makes less of a sensation that there is a hive swarm of angry bees in your pants or jacket pocket.
 People can wait. You only have to answer them on your own time. Which means when you feel like it. Unless it's a really big emergency.

So yeah, sure, I like her.  Neither of us likes saying we love each other exactly.  We kinda dislike using those words because they get bandied about so carelessly so often by people.

Once in awhile it'll slip out her or my mouth in the middle of something intimate but we'll quickly change the subject or try to distract the other for a bit.
We'll readily admit to liking each other a great deal. What do you want? It's only the third month of our relationship. Leave me alone.

So I want to ask you guys an opinion for some help picking her out a set of earrings for her birthday, which still isn't for a bit more than a month and a half but I need some time to modify them. I'll explain:  I let her browse on my computer a little for some that had a stone that she liked that wasn't out of my budget range and we settled on like two or three designs.
The thing is... the earrings themselves are fine but they have stupid french loop wire instead of being hinge/lever backed for the part that goes in your ear.
It'll cost a little bit more to get those fasteners but I think I can swap them on my own by hand.  She doesn't want the french wire because those have a tendency to fall off your ears whenever you lean over or shake your head.

[link]
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The metal of choice is silver... evidently, much like a werewolf her sister dislikes being exposed to the presence of silver (I guess she's allergic to it? That's a new one for me) so if I get my gf silver jewelry, won't have to worry about brat gal appropriating it for herself.
She wants something in jet or obsidian. I asked her why since her hair and eyes are dark and wouldn't that provide not much contrast but then she showed me that against a specific background they were deep brown instead of black. Then she told me it was because she didn't have any pieces with those stones in them yet in her collection. I was like, okay then.
So yeah... if somebody could give me some of their thoughts on which of those three they think looks better than the other two, I'd appreciate it.
I'm not gonna buy her all three. The budget I'd set was between $20-50.

I, she, and my parents are all fairly universally horrified with the idea of us settling down (like there was something wrong with dating and getting to know each other first? What is this? 1602? ) and are wondering if these other people have a couple screws loose.  It's only a couple months in. What's with all the stupid pressure to go get married and have a mess of babies when we aren't even all the way finished with school yet and are seeking advanced degrees?  Even if we did end up getting married which is a kinda big if because you don't waltz into that crap all half-cocked without knowing what the hell you are doing since that's kind of a pain in the ass sort of a level of commitment to try to walk out of, not to mention the financial and time constraints imposed as the cost of forming a family unit! Then you're basically saying you want us to live a life of abject poverty and have a miserable environment to raise that family that isn't even born yet in just because your supposed morals dictate what you think other people should do.  Unless you're sensible about it and realize the reason why we'd practice family planning is to be able to scrounge up enough resources to be able to provide for any not born yet potential mouths to feed that could show up along the way.

Humanity disgusts me somewhat at times like this. They really have no idea what it is they are saying that they suggest other people should do.
It must be nice to live in a world like that where things are always that simple and clear cut. When I try to explain that it's a touch more complicated than these simplistic ideals they tell me I'm bad and evil or try to accuse me of being depraved.
I think I'll ask my psychiatrist about it to see what his thoughts on this stuff is.

Don't tell us not to be cerebral. We're science students. Analyzing crap is what we do.  

Parents' fighting kept me awake last night.

Feel this stupid pressure to sacrifice my future in order to keep the peace from time to time. Like people actually resent it when I'm trying to study.
Like, as in not have a career and not get my degree to be the eternal referee/free therapist for the other family members' butthurt.
Which you know, is one thing at any other time but this is freaking the week leading up to final exams. A time where yeah, cracking open the book would be a good idea,... if you want to have any hope of knowing what the hell the last few most recent sets of things are about in any sort of detail... to avoid sounding/feeling like an idiot during the test.
... and having to repeat the course.  The meantime everybody being sure to chime in bullshit about how you were too ambitious or perhaps simply weren't smart enough to get through it and shouldn't have bothered trying the first time. Or that they figure you didn't try hard enough. >_<
And then it's like, you can try to explain until you are blue in the face to people about how you are serious about your subject but the chances are they might find this quaint in a foreignly exotic or alien type way.  You may get a reaction of amusement.

People who tell you that being a student is the best time of your life are idiots.
Let me give you some (oftentimes ignored negative) facts about the realities of being a student:
1.) You are constantly in debt pretty much.
2.) You have very limited income to pay off that debt and may even end up saddled down with debt before you get a chance to earn any income with which to pay it off.
3.) You get no respect and have no authority so be prepared to be treated like shit by people.
4.) People won't respect your time so they'll choose to interpret your attempts to seclude yourself in order to catch up when you are behind as socially avoiding them, and they WILL get butthurt about it.  Your phone will ring with stupid messages and your voicemail will get filled up by 'friends' who just don't get it, or rather, they choose not to.
5.) When the people in charge are incompetent, your only practical alternative usually is to change schools.  People get away with all kinds of crap that wouldn't fly in a corporate setting (I'm not sticking up for the business world because that can suck too, I'm just saying some of the ways which the two suck can be kind of different).
6.) You get handed this crap about how your love of the subject should be enough to carry you through and should matter more than being able to afford stuff or if the environment is hostile and that you're simply being a puss so should man up.  Or like how because you are a student then you wouldn't mind doing all sorts of things unpaid just for "the experience." This helps pay bills how?

The harder I work, the more I do,
the more my father tries to crush my spirit and takes credit for my accomplishments as his own.
He's a jackass.

The more he attacks me and claims that my doing age appropriate things is horrible, the more I realize this is to cover for his vast amount of self-indulgences and the large sums of money he spends on indulging these habits of his. He tries to guilt me in the hopes I ... let him get away with this crap I guess?
I know it is to try to take even more.

To take and take endlessly til there is nothing left. Then move on to the next victim.

A healthy parent would say he is proud of his son's accomplishments, but instead mine always either tells me how much better than me he thinks he is, that he is proud of 'himself' I did something or twists it around to piss all over whatever the accomplishment was.

His mother was like that. It's either a personality disorder or a disgusting sickness of the soul.
Technically it is a personality disorder. It's called NPD.  That stands for narcissistic personality disorder.

In public he acts nice to those he wishes to influence but at home he is a creep.
To us. His family. He claims his family, his real one is just his mom. But she died. And much before she died of old age we were already regarded by him as dead to him. So now what?

I stopped really regarding him as my father when he took to screaming at me that I shouldn't have depression because only his feelings mattered and that if I loved him I "should quit school, go be a janitor, then kill myself." <- The stupid asshole.  You know how I got depression? From him continually taking over all my things. I was doing pretty well in my classes and started getting recognition in my department so he marched in there and whined to my academic advisor and anyone who would listen that I was too severely impaired and disabled, fundamentally incapable of doing anything without massive amounts of help and his complete assistance. It sucked. Alot. Epically even almost. So creepy.  He really wanted to rub in my face that anything I created he could destroy and punished me each time I did something to be independent of him. This included when I did things independently from him. He wanted to instill a sense of fear in me so he could have complete control... or so he thought.  My spirit was crushed.
I changed schools. It's been a real uphill struggle through that shit storm and don't think for a second I've had to stop fighting for control over each little piece of schoolwork, nae, even what it is I am to do when. He tried to control who my friends were... and to associate himself with them at times in the hopes they would side with him or become his friends instead of mine. That was awful too. Fortunately most of my friends were smarter than that and were able to see through it.
I met a nice girl. She likes me. Dad hates that. So to punish me for it he's taken to seizing my finances. >_<   Mom and I are trying to stay one step ahead of him.
Yeah seizing them up, to spend even more on himself. I hate the sense of entitlement.  The unearned privilege.
Every time... I think there is not a step he could possibly go lower... I am disgustingly not surprised.
I began seeing a psychiatrist as well. He prescribed me antidepressants. They helped some. In order to punish me for it... dad tried to forbid me from seeing him any more and thought taking away the antidepressants would be a "great way to teach" me "a lesson." Mom stopped him.

I recall him screaming out at me how very much I was absolutely nothing without him.
I recall him telling me he thought he was the one who should be the biologist instead and with a wave of his arm, a simple gesture then proceeded to tell me how I knew nothing about my own subject, the one I'd studied and gone to classes in and how he thought he knew more, and also better than my teachers, simply from having borrowed a few of my books and browsed through some of them, casually.

I wish I could say I was joking but if I was it would not be a funny one. That's my reality and the kind of shit that I deal with from him on a regular basis.

I wish my dad was a little less insane but it seems the egomania continues to increase with age.

What I need to do during times like that, what I struggle with is to find motivation.
What it comes down to though and I'm getting to realize it now is when you don't have enough external sources of motivation you have to look deep inside and go for internal ones. Some people turn to religion for that...
I try not to pray for superfluous things but will occasionally find myself praying for added strength to deal with the extra crap that gets handed to me.  The thing I find though is religion doesn't really seem to address family dysfunctions much.  
I think my dad's narcissism is more bothersome to me than my mother's alcoholism.
I kinda worry that I might wind up with either of those two negative traits when I'm their age, or worse yet, both.

I'm not entirely sure why my girlfriend likes me.

I'm certainly glad that she does though.

She told me part of it has to do with my grown up attitude towards stuff and mature outlook on life.
Also, probably doesn't hurt that there's a healthy physical side of our relationship which we both enjoy.  Yeah, that stuff is kind of important in an adult relationship.
I know, going to make some people reel back in horror that I actually am outright saying that.  They think it is the devil and such.  Also that such things are evil.
Good for them. Then let's have them have bland relationships that don't involve any sort of touching, hugging or kissing if it'll make 'em sleep better at night.
Doesn't mean they need to talk everybody else into it.

I don't exactly plan on ever getting married.
Also, I'm not even sure if I ever want to have children.
Big shocker, right? WRONG! It's not a big deal. That's just part of what it's like and one of the realities to face as a possible way of life some people have in this our modern world.

Well, my girlfriend tells me I'm very kind and have a tendency to be caring and that this is another reason she likes me.
When she and I cook together (she's a good cook) we also enjoy eating together.  

Call me perverted but I like it when women have a healthy appetite and aren't always trying to starve themselves down to fit in weensy little size 00 clothes.
Why? Two reasons: 1. Curves are fun to play with. Okay that's an oversimplification. Let me get a little more specific: If it comes to lovemaking or cuddling do you really want it to be with somebody who juts out at sharp angles or has you worried the whole time that your body weight is going to injure her by accident because she's such a weak and delicate tiny little thing?  Wouldn't a partner having some places being nice and soft be more suitable for that?

2. And you know, it's nice to be with somebody who has some physical stamina from having a teeny bit of excess reserves, so that they aren't passing out at the drop of a hat or seemingly always exhausted.  How fun is it to date somebody who is swooning all the time? Think of the money you'll save on smelling salts.

I'm not sure if she likes me because I'm smart but since she's smart too I realize this helps to keep the conversations more lively than if it was conversing with your average neanderthal. So in terms of practicality I think both being science people helps, even if the science we do tends to be different.

Also, being with her is an incentive for me to have good hygiene! I've learned (and relearned) about scrubby and grooming type things I was near clueless about when I was a grungy single person.

I had a weird dream that my girlfriend and I were camping and we got attacked by a bear.
Then even weirder... it did like a jump take to us in the hospital getting stitches. Everybody got better but it was weird to me for several reasons.
Why a bear? Big brown one like a grizzly bear.  Bears are rare and what's more I barely ever camp.

Personally I blame the spicy food I had for dinner.

Sometimes she and I like to watch the Muppet Show too. That isn't scary though and none of the horror movies I've watched involve people getting mauled by bears.
I'm really not sure where the mental suggestion of a bear attacking came from.
===============================================================================================================================
My girlfriend wants me to take her to the anime convention next year. Do you know how freaking hard I had to fight to point out to people that going with me to that might be a fun thing back in high school when I still gave a damn about that stuff? Now it's like, that's a sweet gesture of her but I don't like that stuff so much anymore. I got jaded kinda. I don't hate it but don't like it as much as when I was younger. I do still like some though and watch it from time to time. I think she has a few favorite ones.
So yeah, I'll probably take her with me to it.

I started watching two that I might review in a bit.
One is Highschool of The Dead (yes, they do have anime out there about zombie apocalypses) and the other is A Certain Magical Index...
I'm not exactly overly crazy about the story of one or the art of the other but between the two of them I can cobble something together maybe.
My main complaint about the aesthetic in A Certain Magical Index is it's too lolita-ish, nobody looks quite adult enough and the female characters seem ridiculously prepubescent (Maybe this is what happens when too many people complain about female characters being depicted as large breasted?).  The plot is okay though... kinda.

High School of The Dead has the opposite thing going on. There's loads of jiggly fanservice and pantyshots but enough action sequences to keep it from going pornographic exactly.  Look, they've got a different aesthetic than us and if you think you have to get it off to an animated character as a grown adult then I probably think you've got problems.  I'm no psychiatrist though.  Unfortunately midway through the series things get progressively smuttier and smuttier and I guess you might classify the OVA as outright hentai.
Anyway look, cartoons aren't just for kids. People who assume that are stupid and that's part of why certain companies these days keep churning out things that are stupider and stupider. The execs share that stupid mindset that it needs to always be silly and not too heavy to appeal to children because they think children are silly and stupid. If you look at things from the American underground you'd realize it isn't just Japanese cartoons that have all kinds of weird stuff, and sex and violence.
But people don't do that. They try to pretend everybody is so pure over here and all the bad stuff only comes from abroad. It's bullshit.
I want to give you some no nonsense guides to things when I'm reviewing stuff. Even if I do get a little goofy and will clown around here and there during it.
It's a visual medium to convey stories and ideas.  You wouldn't assume the same things about a live action movie or a still painting unless you had some serious problems so stow your middle american ethnocentrism and outrage about how everything needs to be 'cleancut and nice' and I dunno, if you're into that pour yourself a glass of pretend absinthe... let the smoke of this dank cellar waft around and sit a spell. Pull up a barstool and listen to the grungy people, beatniks and apathetic hipsters talk about some crap. You're on dA. It's either that or furries (which is going to be another topic for perhaps some other time but not anytime soon*). Be thankful.

*Lord so help me if I get questions from people asking me to explain that subculture! DO NOT WANT TO GO INTO IT. It isn't my thing... first off I wouldn't do a good job second off I probably wouldn't have much good to say about it.

I guess what spurred this on is my father and his idiotic insisting that anime is hentai (he refuses to recognize the distinction between anime and hentai) and all anime is "porno".

I dunno, he may have just been saying that to get my goat but enough of the time it seems like he enjoys sounding off more than bothering to fact check that every once in awhile I want to assess some of the junk being said or done.

(AKA More things that will probably piss you off about me: )

1. I was raised Episcopal.  What's that? It's a somewhat progressive and Anglican-derived sect of Christianity that seems to concern itself a tad more with manners and decorum than fire and brimstone or the Rapture.  The focus is mainly New Testament and Easter + the ascension are a pretty big deal.  We don't proselytize.  What gained some degree of notoriety was that we're okay with having female ministers.  On the issue of gay marriage the sect is evenly divided 50/50, with half feeling it is a blasphemy and the other half being either begrudgingly accepting of it or potentially open to the idea.  We don't do individualized confessions like some of the other sects do (there is no one-on-one thing, you also won't find a confession booth in an Episcopal Church), instead opting for a more generalized blanket approach where there are some hymns and a psalm about forgiveness and resolve to be a better person to oneself and one's neighbors.  There isn't a pope so the highest ranking cleric we've got is an archbishop.  Who, yeah, defers to the pope.  Not every sect gets to have a pope, you know.

2. I'm pro-choice. Yeah, pro-life people won't like that much.  Look, the way I see it men aren't the ones who get pregnant and it takes a tremendous amount of time, money, stress, nutrients and other resources to rear a child.  So I believe it should ultimately be up to the woman whether she wants to have a baby or not.  No sense forcing her to have one if she doesn't feel she'd make a fit parent.  I'm not making light of abortion, it's still a pretty serious topic/issue. I just... have a hard time not seeing the telling of other people how to run their lives and control of their personal/intimate activities as something immoral.  If you don't like it, don't do it yourself. Don't give other people a hard time about it.

3. I eat meat.  Yeah, I know, But meat is bad for you because blah, blah, blah and animals are fellow living creatures so eating plants is less cruel, etc.
Guess what? If you analyze our tooth types in our mouth you find a combination of cutting and grinding, chewing specialized teeth because people are designed to be omnivorous. Also, plants are also living things.  You're still killing living things when you eat plants.  I suppose the only real alternative then is to eat rocks? Good luck with that...
I like eating both vegetables and meat.  Meat helps remind me that humans are still a type of animal when you get down to it. Look, it was sacrificed so that you could intake its component matter/substances as nutrients to build yourself... I'm not going to turn my nose up at it.  Also, when you've got as many allergies as I do, there's already enough things that you can't or should not eat without having to add moral dietary restrictions on top of that.

4.  It doesn't particularly bother me that I'll probably go to hell.  Yes, this is something other Christians tend to have a very hard time with and get uneasy about.
See, the way I figure it... no amount of praying for forgiveness truly erases or undoes the sins you've already done.  People still got hurt by your actions.  The only thing then you can really do as far as I can figure is resolve to be a better person.  Also, you know what?  Instead of losing sleep over it I figure I ought to leave it up to God almighty to decide since scriptures basically say that's what He's to do during the Time of Judgment and in a way, worrying about or excessively trying to police the behavior of others to control their fate is a form of playing God, which last time I checked is kind of a sin for mankind to do, right?

5. Do the ends justify the means?:  If the skills I gain are ultimately to be used in service to others then does that still make them bad? Some people are against the practice of medicine and use of technology.  They think it is a form of witchcraft or idolatry.  That or more simply that it can be overly materialistic and neglects the holistic and spiritual side of things if you let yourself become overly reductionist.
The former is arguable either way, I'd say you've got a better argument philosophically about the latter.  However, it isn't like I'm trying to raise the dead, enslave humanity or wipe out entire populations via ethnic cleansing or genocide (the lathering dictatorial cleanser) so stfu plz.

6. Celibacy is for monks! I believe that one explains itself.  And no, I don't think that means having hedonistic orgies is a good idea (definitely never said that).

7. Drugs: Addictions are bad.  That one is a no brainer. However, some drugs that can be abused also when used correctly do serve a therapeutic role or have medical use. To throw the baby out with the bathwater seems overly short-sighted.  Personally I don't believe in the gateway theory.  The evidence in support of it tends to be shoddy at best.  I'm not saying go out and smoke a bunch of crack or inject yourself full of crap but I do feel like the War on Drugs is somewhat of a big waste of money which could perhaps be better spent on infrastructure for the public good or education (that's my liberal side sounding off right there. ).  Why waste money in endless moral crusades when it could be better spent on goals with a more finite beginning, middle and end?

8. Corporate welfare at taxpayer expense is ridiculous.  How come the same people who balk at governments assisting small businesses are curiously silent about anticompetitive practices that get worked into legislation to support big businesses? Why isn't there more talk about the damage caused by large companies outsourcing?
All the fuss about undocumented illegal immigrant workers who for the most part take on the crappy jobs that we ourselves don't want because they are willing to be paid less than minimum wage seems ironic.  I guess the real problem with illegal immigrants is people don't like they collect benefits from our system without paying the taxes that people who immigrate legally, residents, and citizens do.  That's a whole 'nother issue and too many folks seem uncomfortable with acknowledging it compared to whining about how "they took our jobs!1!!" .  No, the large businesses which decided to outsource or switch to automation and mistake reducing expenditures via massive downsizing for a way to 'create' profits did a fine enough job of that on their own.

9. Violence and sex in the media:  Yeah, some people think there is too much of it.  Other people think there is not enough.  Me, I feel like some is okay as long as everybody has a clear understanding of the difference between fantasy and reality.  Once in awhile you get delusional idiots who think that it's okay to go all John Wu/Quentin Tarantino on a school, hospital or their workplace.  Those people did nothing to you. They aren't the reason why your life is crappy. Not cool homicidal people, not cool.
Also, I don't care what your effing political beliefs are... blowing up a bunch of unassociated bystanders is going to be read as that you are an asshole more than a statement about whatever particular cause it is you think you are acting in support of by doing that shit.  As for sex... well, rather than get all hung up on that people are having it... I'd rather leave well enough that goes on between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own bedroom alone and worry about other things like prostitution or gang violence.  The emphasis there is on consenting.  Coerced sex is bad, ok? These two issues bring me to my next point which is:

10. Censorship: Rather than just banning all the controversial stuff and trying to police everybody in a hypervigilant big-brothery total information awareness little Orwellian lovefest, instead why not focus on teaching how there are acceptable and unacceptable behaviors and how your actions influence other people?  Yeah, some people won't care and will continue to do whatever they want but that there are both good and bad people in this world is somewhat of a constant in this life. That's my belief on it anyway.

Okay, yeah, those are my opinions. You don't have to agree with them. You don't even have to like them.  I'm still going to have them though.  Also, since those are my strongest held ones you're probably going to be wasting your time to try and convince me otherwise on them.  So in the spirit of fairness we can agree to disagree if that's the case.

Ordinarily I tend to keep these to myself unless asked about it but the pestering I've been getting from some people continually about my supposed not having a moral compass when it would actually be more accurate to say I do have one but that it is aligned somewhat differently from theirs was starting to get on my nerves!

More headtrips with me about how him getting to spend my money in the accounts that are in my name at the bank on stuff for himself is well and good but me spending about $10- 20 a piece to take my gf out to a decent restaurant a couple times a month is horrible, terrible and wasteful (yes you read that correctly, as in maybe 2 or 3 times a month tops, not every single week mind you). >_<  I mean, she even usually is okay with it when we go dutch and each pay half.  What more could you freaking want?

I try to tell myself it (the money I have/make)'s going to help the family to keep from getting too angry
but then I get peppered with reminders that he spends so much and wants it all for himself.
Somehow he feels entitled to my earnings and my mother's earnings. Financial abuse is sucky...

Yeah, not going to do a list of all my political opinions and beliefs and junk because that tends to be just flamebait.

If you want to ask me what I think about something, that's fine.
If you think you're being clever because you just want to use it as a springboard to argue a whole lot in the spirit of debate... [the] thing is, I'm kind of busy.
Like, seriously busy.

I'll probably get to it.  I just am trying to get my finances in order, balance job, girlfriend, (serious) studies, caretaking my handicapped kid brother, etc.
So it isn't that I'm too much of a wuss to deal with being challenged on something.  And it may or may not be that your argument was just so good I didn't have a counter (depends somewhat on what the argument is and the subject is about)...
I have more on my plate than just sit around and argue for argument's sake about stuff that neither of us is in a position to do much about other than flap our metaphorical gums.  I don't mind input/output/feedback, etc.  I just am at a place/in a spot where I need to prioritize my time more strictly than usual.

I'm not saying I'm getting off on thinking I'm too 'important' to bother getting back to people... I'm just too freaking swamped at the moment.
The quarter is winding down and all that skim reading I did to just barely scrape when it was too damned noisy to study better those evenings... is going to bite me on the ass if I don't cram the hell out of things now.

This is an apology in advance for if I fall behind in my reply frequency or it takes kinda longer for me to answer than usual.

Usually you guys are pretty chill about it so I don't even really need to make a journal about this kind of thing; that's because you guys already know.

It's more like I'm reminding myself that I need to spend some less time on dA to get caught up on my work and... know I'm going to see it if it's on my page. On dA. <- which seems kind of like I'm going in a circle.

Yeah, don't try to BS your way through general chemistry.  Definitely wouldn't recommend that.
And yeah... call me an academic masochist if you want but I'm doing it without any tutor and didn't accept any disability accomodations because people telling me they thought it would be an "unfair advantage" and my dad with his frequent insistings that "Oh, you need SO MUCH HELP that you can't do anything without me" crap got under my skin.
I'm doing this hard course the hard way to try and prove something.
I did pass calculus without accommodations.
I passed the first level of this course without accommodations but did have a tutor.
This time (in the second level) I've got no tutor and no accommodations.
Does it make things harder? Yes.
Does it not help that I have a crappy study environment at home? You bet ya!
Am I stressed because dad has been pocketing more than his fair share of my paychecks so that it's getting trickier for me to make ends meet during all this? Probably.

Am I worried I won't have any cash left to buy my gf a birthday present? A little (to be honest, but right now that's a bit further down on my list since her birthday isn't for a couple more months and the huge exam is in just a few weeks).

You and your girlfriend find yourselves describing sex in terms of math problems.
Srsly.

When my little brother graduated from his adult day program my girlfriend and I took him out with us for a nice meal at a noodlehouse and dessert in a bakery.
You know, to celebrate it?
My dad said he was going to give me some money for it but he didn't. So I had to borrow from her and go pay her back at an ATM  because apparently the Chinatown in Mountain View doesn't like credit/debit and alot of the shops prefer cash only.

My mom had been saying shit about her to my brother when she (my mom) got drunk at night for several of these past couple nights so I was worried if the little bugger would behave himself.
My brother mostly did but at one point made a slanty eyed face on purpose at the table and I very nearly decked him then and there...
I'd told him beforehand that if he called her any names when he met her (he started calling her names the other day, thanks mom ) he'd either be eating soap or I'd stick his head in the toilet. <- = my brother @ that, btw.


He's back to being a little shit again mostly but he behaved himself at the time for the most part other than that one little outburst.
.

I had to alligator wrestle my router just to connect today.
I think everybody on my block in the neighborhood must be trying to torrent or something.

Lol.

Dating is the process whereby you wade through a cesspool of losers, pretenders and psycho-morons to find one that sucks just a little bit less loudly than the rest.

For my friend Aleesha who seems to be suffering through the pangs of a rather sucky breakup.

She's a quite swell and upright gal and I'd have a few choice words for the guy who dumped her if I lived closer to either one of them but since I do not, the best I can manage is this little pithy statement which will have to suffice.

Having to explain and re-explain to women with eating disorders that they aren't fat/hideous and they SHOULD eat something because crash dieting to not input any calories at all is really freaking stupid. Would you really rather be tiny if it meant you were passing out all the time and cranky from low blood sugar rather than have a little bit of some reserves so you have some stamina?  

You know, healthy eating patterns... where like... you eat 3 meals and maybe have a snack or two... and get plenty of liquids... so that you don't freaking get sick and/or injured all the time from being too weak.

It really bothers me when my girlfriend starts rapidly calorie counting each thing.  There are times when it can be useful though. Like in trivia contests when the subject gets to food.


Anybody who is too wussy to deal with it if you are a nonflat shape probably needs to work out and/or eat more too themselves or perhaps, unless it's impacting your health from being too heavy... should really be minding their own body first before telling other people what to do with theirs.

FFS... stop starving yourself.  Why would you be trying to make yourself miserable on purpose?

Another thing that annoys me are these crappy badly written tests my biochemistry professor throws together where he seems to make it either too easy or too hard without having much medium because the guy is inexperienced and it's still his first year of teaching.

Some things in my biochemistry class that the professor went over got my mind to thinking... there had to have been some transition stages between unicellular life and multicellular life. Now... it couldn't have all happened at once since evolution really doesn't typically work that way.  It probably came about in stages but the thing is... I'm not sure exactly how to fully explain my speculation yet but I figure that the formation of organisms that have tissue types and beyond that which make differentiated organs composed of more than one tissue type in order to perform specific roles to benefit the whole in a system format... this in some way I would suspect is descended from a. colonial organisms and b. biofilms which c. can form on organic substrates.  They don't form their own entity at this primitive a level but you start to see division of labor and symbiosis+mutualism going on where the waste products of one of the organism types in the film on that substrate are used as food for another... which in turn creates waste products that get used as food or essential nutrients by still another. So when you have a complex and cooperative system it begins to make its own tiny little ecology... in yes, that fuzzy looking lump of glop on a rock in the ocean or what may appear to the untrained eye to be merely a stain on the ground.  You have demands for transporting nutrients and needs for conveying waste... I'm not saying there is a linear relationship because obviously the branch points where things have diverged so radically from each other as to make such an assertion seem ridiculous.  It isn't 1:1.  That would be overly reductionist. I am saying I can sort of understand how things like that may have been the ancestors of the first complex multicellular life... in a similar way to how Lynn Margulis before me suggested endosymbiont theory in which certain metabolic organelles in eukaryotic cells started out in the very beginning as prokaryotes which got ingested but not destroyed over the course of evolutionary processes became vestigial in that they lost their own independence.  The DNA that exists inside a mitochondrion or a chloroplast replicates independently of that in the nucleus and is different from it.  I wouldn't be too surprised to run into plasmids in there since they seem more closely related on a certain level to the genomes of bacteria than of eukaryotic cells.  So yeah... I haven't quite worked my idea out all the way but something tells me that finding out more about "living substrates" may vaguely illuminate the origins of organs and to a lesser extent organ systems in a way that so far does not seem to have been overly thought about, to me anyway.

I know, sounds pretty crazy, right?

I'm not suggesting anything as wrong headed as that each individual cell type in a tissue was at one point originally ancestrally it's own independent species necessarily. Don't be ridiculous (obviously, not in their present forms that they exist today, don't be so literal! ;-P)... I'm just saying some of the early differentiation that led eventually to the beginning of tissues which hello, organs are made up of and behave as systems... is probably linked to living substrates + biofilms and colonial organisms.  It's kind of a tenuous link at present but to me this is a sounding board that there is a relationship between them.

When you look at organisms like the sea sponge and a common jellyfish you will see a bit more what I am talking about.