How to recover lost marbles

MOVING OUT

2009-12-07T23:09:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends and Readers,

I've gotten fed up with blogger and maintaining all my different gmail accounts, so I've moved here. If you have me on your RSS feed/blogroll/etc, I'd appreciate if you updated the link. I hope to see everyone on my not really new blog.

Love,

Lostmarbles

J.B. Handley, Misogynist

2009-11-02T20:22:00.007-05:00

J.B. Handley has decided that his organization aimed at peddling dangerous pseudoscience about vaccines didn't make him enough of an asshole, so he decided that go for the tried and true way of proving douchebaggery: misogyny.

In case you missed the multiple smack-downs posted by some awesome science bloggers, here's some background: Amy Wallace writes an article on how anti-vaccination loons (henceforth called antivaccaloons) are creating panic out of thin air and ignorance. J.B. Handley does his usual job of throwing shit at anyone criticizing him and takes it one step further by emailing Wallace some pretty fucked-up shit. Here have it straight from the horse's (or rather horse fucker's*) mouth:

Warning: discussion of rape and date-rape drugs

I often write and then re-write pieces. When I first wrote the piece about Ms. Wallace's Wired article, which I wrote right after reading that horrible piece of shit, here is how it began:

Paul Offit Rapes (intellectually) Amy Wallace and Wired Magazine

By J.B. Handley

"The roofie cocktails at Paul Offit’s house must be damn good, I really don’t know how else to explain the intellectual rape that lead to the writing and printing of Wired magazine’s cover story on vaccines and autism that you can now read HERE..."

I was so amazed with the article. As a student of Paul Offit's talking points for years, it was as if he had put his brain inside Ms. Wallace head and written the piece for her. As is often the case, I forwarded my essay, via email in advance, to Ms. Wallace the night before it ran.

In his defense he didn't end up running the article, but then again in his defense this was his defense:

With some reflection, I decided that although "intellectual rape", a relatively commonly used term, and "sexual rape" were very different things, the use of the word "rape" was ultimately in poor taste, would distract from the article, and would most certainly offend some readers, and could appear demeaning of women, which wasn't remotely the intention of the piece or my words. So, I changed the article to the one you all have read, and then AoA ran it the next day. And, I sent Ms. Wallace, via email, the new piece.

Because you know using rape as a metaphor for what you perceive to be shoddy scholarship has absolutely nothing to do with "sexual rape". It's just that that word that's the problem, not that fact that you're trivializing a very real and horrific experience so you can insult someone -- yeah fucking right.

And that thing about "demeaning of women", Handley's title and one paragraph didn't just appear to demean women, it fucking damn well did demean women. Using rape and date-rape drugs to illustrate how much he dislikes Wallace is all about demeaning her as a woman. Using that language to describe her writing reduces her to a sexual object. It also illustrates how much of a fucking misogynist he is because he jumps at using rape to make his point against a woman when the kool-aid metaphor he later used would have been more fitting and he just doesn't actually see what's wrong with that.

Bonus stupid:

"Ms. Wallace appears to have gone exclusively to Google University to research her feeble attempt at describing a very complex topic" - J.B. Handley

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* J.B. Handley does not in fact fuck horses, but he is is about as morally bankrupt as as a horse-fucker.

ID, it's fucking everywhere

2009-10-15T15:55:00.002-04:00

Yes, even in a 4th year class on developmental biology.

I decided to take a seminar class on dev-bio for the following reasons: the topic is pretty damn interesting, I really liked my dev-bio and evo-devo classes last year, and the profs teaching the course are the most engaging instructors I have had at university. What I had failed to take into account was that class content would be highly determined by the students enrolled and that some student would have managed to get through three years of a biology degree believing in Intelligent Design. Apparently, this was a huge oversight.

It didn't help that the person presenting decided to spring this on us as a wild change of topic. He started off doing a pretty good overview of some aspects of sex determination in mammals and how one model of this was creating. After about an hour of this he finished and put up a slide about how the stuff we learn in class and in the labs should effect the way we view the world. My immediate thought was: "Awesome, we're going to talk about sex/gender/intersex people/etc!" Oh, how wrong I was. The segue wasn't for that; it was for a slide with the words intelligent design plastered all over.

*Sigh* What followed that was an entirely uncomfortable 45 minutes.

He started off with an exercise involving us pretending we knew nothing about several objects and trying to intuitively place them in either designed, natural, probably designed. I, of course, decided to object because if I don't know anything about these object I can make no judgement about their origins. It's also pretty damn hard to pretend you know nothing about a lion or a pyramid. As you can guess, this was all about making us go "complexity = design" because obviously our "cognitive biases = reality".

This was all to prime us for the magic that is -- wait for it -- Kirk fucking Durston. Was it rude to giggle at that point?

My problem right now is that I need to give this guy a mark (wee! for peer marking), but I have nod idea how to go about that. Do I give him a good mark because he did a good job presenting the science-y bits? Do I give him a terrible mark because he used the science-y bits to legitimize wasting my time on inane, drivel? Is it right to give him a zero because, while he can parrot biology he seems to have not learned the core of the subject?

Mr. Deity, PZ, and gay jokes

2009-10-12T18:48:00.004-04:00

I generally like PZ Myers and the Mr. Deity show, but I'm not at all cool with the latest episode starting at about 3:10 minutes in ...

I know it's comedy, but can we please do funny without icky ideas of gender and stereotyping of gay men? Gay jokes aren't funny. The old "personal grooming and style isn't for men, it's for teh laydeez and the gays" routine isn't funny. It's offensive and it makes me go sadface.

Tomorrow Is a New Start

2009-10-04T23:40:00.002-04:00

Last week, I got to run through the immunocytochemistry protocol I'll be using from dissecting out the tissue to taking pretty fluorescent pictures and, as can be expected of most first attempts, I failed completely (OK, maybe not completely as I did get one cell that looked like it could be usable data, but pretty damn close). It's frustrating because I really wanted for things to go well so I could prove to that part of my brain that has no self-esteem that I'm not just wasting everyone's time and money with my incompetence.

So, that week didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but tomorrow I'm back in the lab and it's a new week. I have some idea over where I could have gone wrong so maybe my failures will be more minor.

How long until Thanksgiving?

2009-09-23T01:23:00.002-04:00

Today was the last day of the second week of school (UofT has decided to create massive confusion with a schedule that makes sense but is still so fucking stupid) and I think I may be settling in with this going to lectures business and 10 hour days. I miss being a lazy good-for-nothing.

General updates on life:

I spend more than the course recommended amount of time working in the lab on my fourth-year project. I'm currently in the lab honeymoon phase where I'm convinced my supervisor is awesome (even if she intimidates me), the research I'll be doing is pretty cool, and the grad student teaching me is not a controlling asshat who thinks I'm an idiot. Now I just wait until everyone realizes that I'm an incompetent idiot.
I've had a quick intro to neuroscience in three of my classes which is almost all repeat of stuff I've already learned (in one class I've even gotten the same lecture I had two years ago by the same prof). At this point, I think I may be learning more about the various ways to give this lecture and the different things you can emphasize.
The only non-physiology course I'm taking this term is with the two awesomest professors I've had at UofT. I took a course run by them last year and it freaking blew my mind. Since I'm sure someone will make a wrong assumption on the subject, it's a science course.
I've got a lot of events to help setup as club exec and circumstances keep conspiring to give us even more stuff to do. I'll also, hopefully, be volunteering at the Centre for Women and Trans People. Yeah for non-class stuff to keep me busy!
The last two days have been crappy emotionally. Everything external to how I feel is pretty good, but my reactions to stuff are completely inadequate. Anytime I'm not mentally occupied I start feeling panic-y, like I'm about to screw something up.
If I could have any superpower, I'd want to be able to stop time while I nap/sleep...

...and on that note I should go to bed.

Search Term WTF

2009-09-11T09:32:00.002-04:00

At this point, I'm used to seeing various combination of "vagina", "penis", "marbles", "lost", "in", and "recover" when I check Google Analytics, the follow is new and full of WTF:

"if someone has been masturbating before for the past six years and he stop it. is it possible for the person to recover all the lost sperms"

Does anyone else wish to answer this reader's question with something more articulate than "WTF?!?!?!"?

New Year Resolutions

2009-09-09T12:40:00.001-04:00

Some of you might read the title and think, "What the balls is LostMarbles smoking?" Today is the start of a new year for me. I know the calender still says 2009 and will continue to say that for the next 4 months, but having spent the last 15+ years in in school I've been convinced that the year begins sometime in the first week of September. So in the grand tradition of setting up goals you're unlikely to accomplish because it makes you believe that you are planning ahead, here are mine:

- Stop wasting so much money on meaningless trinkets. Yes they're shiny and I'm a magpie pie, but I should try.
- Get into grad school
- Stop eating skeezy candy from the bulk store during exam periods
- Read more than 2 works of original fiction
- Finish building my RX-0 Unicorn Gundam before the anime is released.
- Learn some awesome things from my fourth-year project course
- Come up with awesome pie ideas that don't end up looking like chocolate soup in a pie crust
- Keep on track with reading for my classes
- Kick ass at life...
- ... so I can buy a pet unicorn. A gal can dream, right?

So for all of you who still think the year starts in September, what do you want to achieve and/or change about your life in the 2009/2010 year?

Frosh are Adorable

2009-09-04T17:08:00.002-04:00

I spent most of today sitting around at the UofT Clubs Fair handing out cards advertising Unspecified Club Where I'm an Exec (UCWIE). Having avoided Orientations Week the past two years, I completely forgot how damn excited and optimistic the first-years are. Many of the in incoming life sciences students are still convinced they're destined for med school. How silly is that?

It's really all quite fascinating to remember the days before UofT got to work on destroying my spirit. Hopefully the new student will have just as great a time as I had and the best of luck in realizing there's more options than medicine.

God Probably Isn't.

2009-08-25T22:26:00.004-04:00

I've avoided writing much on religion and atheism because there are plenty of people on these internets that do a much better job of it, but when a review of David Adams Richards' new book God Is. peppered with some of his pretty asinine quotes popped up in my RSS reader - well, I couldn't resist.

I haven't read the book, and based on several reviews I doubt I'll be reading this, so this is not a review or critique of the actual book. For all I know the quotes may be out of context and the context given by the articles may be skewed, but having seen these same things said and written by others I've decided to address them as they are.

"I believe that all of us, even those who are atheists, seek God - or at the very least not one of us would be unhappy if God appeared and told us that the universe was actually His creation," Richards writes in God Is.

And I believe this is where I say Richards is wrong because he is. Unless he's decided that the many atheists saying "no, I'm not interested in this whole God business" are not part of "all of us", he's wrong. I don't "seek God", whatever that means, and in the unlikely situation that there is a God I doubt I would be pleased. Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, but the idea of an all-mighty creator watching over me is as annoying as my mother sitting behind and watching as I surf the internet.

But that part of the quote is just usual feel-good nonsense from the religious, it's not really that offensive and ignorant. This is:

Oh, we might put him on trial for making it so hard, and get angry at Him, too, but we would be very happy that He is here. Well, He is.

I'm so insanely tired of religious people regurgitating the idea that atheist are just angry at God for making things hard. I'm guessing this partly originates from the fact that many atheists rightly use the problem of evil to demonstrate that some conceptions of God are self-contradictory. However, some dimwits seem to hear this as atheists being upset at God for their shitty lot in life. These dimwits are wrong and made of fail. I'm not going to claim that it's impossible to be upset by something that doesn't exist because I've been upset by fictional characters before. Hell, reading parts of the Bible make me pretty disgusted with the God character. That is, however, very different from actually acknowledging that a particular character exists. The anger I feel toward fictional characters is also different from anger at actual people and actual atrocities. [snark] But what can you expect from people who have a hard time telling fiction from reality[/snark].

Note the word in bold below, it's important:

Richards uses incidents from his own life to underscore his belief that God is present in everyday life.
Others might call them coincidences or luck, like the day when he was a child and he was run over by a car. All four wheels missed him leaving him unhurt.
He also rolled a car end over end in his younger years driving at a 175 kilometres per hour and survived. In that case, his forgetfulness in not buckling up probably saved his life..."There are things that happen in life which seem to be absolutely ordained for us," he says during an interview.

Seriously, can we stop selectively picking seemingly unlikely good things a giving God and/or that ritual goat sacrifice credit? I know we're wired to see patterns everywhere and that when we've decided on a conclusion it's easy to ignore contradicting evidence, but is it that hard to think up examples where we see patterns that don't exist? Also, why is it that when these examples are brought up it's always the good things being used as evidence for God's plan? Sure there are the times when someone will console themselves after a tragedy by saying that God has a plan, but there's always that undertone of tragedy being turned into a good thing.

Apparently, Richards also brings up Stalin and uses him as an example of what happens when you accept atheism. Because, you know, only atheists become a tyrannical, paranoid megalomaniac bent on killing millions of people. It's not like there have ever been any Catholics who've committed atrocities, right? But that's not the point. It's not about whether people of X religious beliefs have done worse or better things. Using Stalin in this manner is like taking a sociopathic murderer as an example of what being human will lead to. It's a dumb argument.

Richards also repeats the tired old refrain of religion is special and those mean atheist are well mean and disrespectful:

Richards staunchly defends "a person's right to believe," which he considers sacrosanct to a person's humanity.
The glib comments of non-believers strike him as sanctimonious.

Really, that's one great straw atheist being built there. I'm loving the implication that atheists want a world were people don't have a right to believe whatever they wish. I've never seen that implied before and atheists have never ever said flat out that that's not what they want.

But then again I have dealt with this all my life in my work, the idea that hubris and self-righteousness promotes sins against others. It's the one thing humanity continually tries to overcome and that they overcome it by recognizing in themselves and others a universal truth and that if this is denied as Harris and Dawkins and Hitchens kind of mock it

*Yawn* So now we're back to the whole "atheists can't be moral" schtick because we don't see the "universal truth". It's not like being moral is related to the way our brains work. Empathy and all those wacky feeling things our brains do don't contribute to how we treat others. And hell, social constructs aren't as meaningful as TEH TRUTH because we can all decide tomorrow that killing everyone we want is okay, even if we don't actually do that. Who cares if there is no evidence that seeing TEH TRUTH makes you a better person.

"The church has done enormous harm in the world but that doesn't mean that everyone who practises religion has done enormous harm," he says.

If he means the Catholic Church, a correction should be made: The church is doing enormous harm in the world but that doesn't mean that everyone who practises religion has done enormous harm. Now I agree. What he's missing is that the many good religious people give money and time which supports the church in its endeavour to fuck over the world.

The Islamic fundamentalists have done harm but that doesn't mean Islam has done harm ... these things get very confused in our society. They get confused because there's a benefit to those who want to confuse these things. I know many Catholics who are tremendous people and who have never done wrong.

Yes, the old argument the X religious extremists are bad, but that doesn't mean that X religion is bad. Yeah, sure, the only thing that counts as X religion is that stuff that you picked out that's made of fluff and cotton candy. Of course, this works only if you ignore the fact that the religious extremists are using the same texts and general frameworks and just picking out different parts to justify their actions. You can't justify your cherry-picking any better than they can. Live with it.

The only time man pretends he does not need God is when he thinks or she thinks they are themselves God or are in a position of such comfort that God cannot trouble or touch them. Once the man or woman finds himself or herself in deep trouble or despair, they search for what was always there.

Now we're back were we've started. Yes, tell me again, Mr. Richards, how you know what I believe better than I do. And while you're at it why don't you also tell me that I pretend to believe what I say I believe because I'm arrogant and think highly of myself. It's not like assuming you know know better than me isn't arrogant. You're not a hypocrite at all. And no, the sentiment of "no atheists is foxholes" isn't trite and stupid. All atheists have completely perfect lives filled with unicorn farts and lollipops. That's why they don't believe in God. If only they had shittier lives so they can see TEH TRUTH.

Conclusion: I. just. sadfja[pkl. Why are some people so full of fractal wrongness?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

2009-08-10T22:11:00.003-04:00

Everyone I've talked to today has been practically orgasming over the temperature today and I'd really like to know why. Yes, we've had an unusually cool summer this year. You know what, I think it's been fucking splendid to be able to walk outside and not feel like I'm stepping into a sauna. And, fuck, 20 to 24 C is not "cold" it's the perfect temperature range. I don't know why you think that 26 to 30 C with 80% humidity is tolerable let alone "beautiful".

I'm beginning to suspect that there are actually shape-shifting lizard-people among us and they are EVERYWHERE!!1!!!!1!!!Eleventy!!! How else do you explain these "people" who like this kind of heat.

I'm dying of cute

2009-07-24T11:28:00.002-04:00

Baby panda bears made from frozen sperm are adorable. I dare you disagree.

I am now part of the BBorg

2009-07-22T14:41:00.002-04:00

So, I finally caved in and replaced my old, broken phone with a shiny new BlackBerry Pearl Flip. I'm still figuring this shit out(apparently, "shit" was not included in the BB dictionary).

P.S. You can now bother me by email anytime, if you are so inclined.
P.P.S. No, this does not mean I will start twittering about how I'm taking a crap (another word not in their dictionary).
P.P.P.S. "Fuck" doesn't exist either. Fuck!

15 Books Meme

2009-07-21T15:18:00.003-04:00

Apparently, I got tagged twice for a meme by DuWayne and Toaster. I'm supposed to list 15 books that have stuck with me or influenced me and I'm supposed to do this in under 15 minutes. Unlike the two jokers that tagged me, I actually managed to play by the rules.

The Land of Oz - L. Frank Baum
Metamorphoses - Ovid
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
The Myth of Sysiphus - Albert Camus
The Plague - Albert Camus
The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo - Plato
The Tombs of Atuan - Ursula K. Le Guin

Make what you will of this list. It may say something about me or it may just be a random collection of books. If you think it tells you that I'm a psycho killer or something, feel free to share.

As for tagging people: Hex, Eugenie, and PhysioProf.

UPDATE: There were never any typos and spelling mistakes here. NEVER. YOU WILL FORGET ABOUT EVER SEEING ANYTHING OF THAT SORT.

Asking Is Hard

2009-07-09T15:47:00.006-04:00

I know I should have stopped after the last post. I really should have just left it alone. I should have published that post and never gone back to Male Chauvinist Woman's blog, but for some reason I seek out stuff that hurts my brain. Oh boy, did I find some truly brain-breaking material.

These two posts seem to be a reply to yesterday's post. One of them is a PSA informing me that:

If you take off your panties and get into bed with a man, he will conclude that you want to have sex with him. Counterintuitive, I know, but there ya go.

So, anytime a woman not wearing a chastity belt gets in bed with a man she can expect to wake up with his penis in her vagina? Seriously, this has not been the experience of my friends and me.

Two heterosexual people of the opposite sex have been known to sleep in the same bed, sometimes even nude, and not end up having sex. Really it's not magic; it's simply two people agreeing that since one, or both, of them isn't interested in sex tonight that there won't be sex. Unless, of course, you believe that a man's penis completely takes over his brain whenever he see a great pair of tits and ass. (...this, by the way, is from the same mind that concludes women are irrational.)

In a reply to Hex*, MCW brings up many a man's objection to the confusing signals modern women send to men [/sarcasm]:

So if a woman took off her panties, got into your bed and rubbed up against you, meanwhile breathing, "No," into your ear, you claim that wouldn't be a mixed signal? I pity the women who actually want to sleep with you; what do they have to do, put it on a billboard?

Actually, all it really takes is the woman saying "Yes, I want to have sex" and the man feeling sure of her sincerity. Seriously, asking and waiting until she clearly states that she want to have sex isn't difficult. I know it'll completely ruin people's romanticized version of hot, rough sex filled with violence, but frankly I don't care for it unless there's clear consent and a safeword involved.

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*He now has his own blog. GO. READ. He's a better writer than I am.

No Is Not a Mixed Signal

2009-07-07T18:09:00.002-04:00

I'm not quite sure if adding "feminism" to my Google Alerts was a good idea. On the one hand, I get awesome articles occasionally. On the other hand, I occasionally get articles which are not so awesome.

I wouldn't have bothered clicking— the words "Female Misogynist" are so rarely a good sign— but the half-sentence blurb included a referece to Isis the Scientist, so I was curious. I clicked; I read; I facepalmed. Then I went over to Learn Hexadecimal's house and shared the horror. When he learned that comments on that blog are moderated, he acquiesced to co-write this post with me, which is why this post contains words like "acquiesced".

Warning: Discussion of rape

Things that are wrong with the linked article: where do we start? The title certainly isn't promising. Why feminists claim rape has no connection to sex. It's always nice to analyze people who disagree with you in the aggregate, so that there's no possibility that the object of your musings will come along and say "Actually, you're wrong. That's not what I was thinking at all."

Dear "Male Chauvinist Woman", on behalf of feminists everywhere: actually, you're wrong. That's not what we were thinking at all. And your name distresses the hell out of me.

That issue aside, the title is also more than a little disingenuous. When feminists argue that rape isn't about sex, that's not to say there's no connection between the two concepts. There obviously is, it's ridiculous to assert that there isn't, and nobody is making any such assertion.

The assertion we are making is that sex is not the point of rape. We are trying to get rid of the stubborn myth that somewhere out there are hundreds, thousands, millions of men who just cannot control their own penises. It should be just as disingenuous to explain this idea; it should be just as disingenuous to say that we're battling the falsehood that says rapists are drawn to attractive women by a magnetism so strong that it makes them temporarily forget how to masturbate.

It should be, but it isn't, because there are people who actually think this.

Observe:

Lately I've been seeing a lot of feminists (Isis the Scientist is one example, the Errant Wife is another) shrilly insisting that women should be able to wear provocative clothing without having men ogle them, or that women whoring around will not inspire violence.

If that ain't a problematic opening paragraph, I don't know what is. "Shrilly"? What is the purpose of this word? What are you trying to accomplish with it, Male Chauvinist Woman? According to every dictionary Google has found me, it means high-pitched. This is the Internet, ma'am; there is no pitch. Unless, of course, you live in a world where all feminists speak (and, apparently, type) in squeaky little chipmunk voices, because if you don't like someone's message, they were obviously saying it wrong.

I don't like your message, but I have so far resisted the temptation to do a dramatic reading of your post in the style of Foamy the Squirrel. Please extend us the same courtesy.

As near as Marbles and I can figure, this is what the esteemed Dr. Isis sounds like when she is being "shrill". We're not really seeing the Foamy here.

Moving right along: apparently, MCW has figured out why we're making these "extraordinary claims". But before she tells us the nature of her epiphany, she's going to talk about a book she read. An "awesome" book.

One point he makes is that men will do pretty much anything else you can imagine for sex, why wouldn't they use force?

...I'm beginning to doubt the awesomeness of this book. Men will do pretty much anything you can imagine for sex? Will we really? I sense the Myth of the Uncontrollable Penis^TM approaching. Let me tell you, penises are not uncontrollable. Anyone here ever been really, really hungry? Skipped a few too many meals and then all of a sudden discovered your stomach still existed after all, and it wasn't happy with your neglectful habits? Did you immediately go out and assault the first person you saw who happened to be carrying a delicious sandwich? The same principle applies.

There are exceptions. I slightly know a fat, homely, middle-aged woman who was raped last year. The culprit has apparently raped other women of similarly low attractiveness. Why does he target this type of woman? I have no idea. This guy is the exception, though. Most rapists target fertile women.

Lots and lots of things are wrong with this paragraph, but I'd like to draw attention to the word fertile, because it is the one that bewilders me most. Have some statistics: in 2007, over half (58%) of sexual assault victims were under the age of 18, with children under 12 accounting for 25%. Does that sound fertile to you? Didn't think so.

There's a digression here about "deranged liberal egalitarianism", but Marbles tells me we're not touching that.

Then, at last, MCW's theory of feminist reasoning is revealed.

Feminists need to separate sex from rape because that's the only way they can defend women's "right" to sashay around in provocative clothing, including late at night in bad neighborhoods.

Scare quotes around the word "right". Did I just see that? I did, didn't I.

Yes, Male Chauvinist Woman. You're right. Feminists believe that in an ideal world, we would all be able to sashay (seriously?) around in whatever the fuck clothing we felt like, in whatever the fuck neighbourhoods we pleased. We also believe that in reality, which is very much not ideal, a woman who chooses to thusly sashay is not responsible for the actions of anyone who chooses to assault her while she's at it. And unlike you, we actually believe this.

Does a woman who does that deserve to get raped? Absolutely not. Is it a high probability that she will be? Yes, it is.

An analogy: suppose that when I go into the grocery store, I leave my wallet, with fifty-dollar bills sticking out of it, on the seat of my car. Do I deserve to have that wallet stolen? Of course not. Would anybody be at all surprised or sympathetic if someone did steal it? Of course not.

Basically, feminists want women relieved of all responsibility.

So what you're saying is that you don't believe women are responsible for their rape, you just... believe that women are responsible for their rape. And apparently that your hypothetical self is responsible for having her hypothetical wallet hypothetically stolen, and apparently that a woman's bodily autonomy is worth n*50 dollars of your hypothetical money, where n is an integer greater than one and less than the number of bills that can plausibly be stuffed into a single wallet. I don't think that analogy means what you think it means.

Rape is not theft.

They tell women they have a "right" to do foolhardy things, then insist that there's no connection between, say, provocative clothing and rape. Does a woman have a "right" to wear a miniskirt and halter top? Of course she does. Does such attire make her more likely to be raped if she's not careful where she goes and with whom? Of course it does.

This myth is even worse than the Uncontrollable Penis^TM. The Uncontrollable Penis^TM is risible, that is, you can laugh at it. It's funny. The underlying principle implied by the words "and with whom" here is not funny at all.

71.9% of rapes are committed by a non-stranger. That includes roughly 7% relatives, 27% friends, and 26% casual acquaintances; the numbers given at the link don't quite line up straight, but I'm not going to argue with the US Department of Justice's statistics.

71.9%. Seven out of ten.

It doesn't matter how careful you are. It doesn't matter how modestly you dress, or how early you draw your self-imposed curfew, or how thoroughly you restrict which neighbourhoods you walk in. There is no magic formula that will protect you, because— and I cannot express how much it pains me to have to spell this out— the victim does not choose to make rape happen. The attacker does. And seven times out of ten, they choose to attack someone they already know.

I wish I could say that the fail in this post stopped here, but alas. Much like a used diaper dropped from a height, it just keeps accelerating until you reach splat. In this case, right now, splat is merely a smudge on the horizon.

Anyway, I remember a couple of articles they published about rape. In one, a woman related that a man she had been "dating casually" showed up at her apartment unannounced. He started kissing her. She says she was "too frightened" to stop him or protest, even though she admitted that he didn't threaten her in any way. She lay passively letting him have his way with her. Afterwards, he said, "That would've been better if you had, you know, got into it." She finished, "It was years before I realized that it was RAPE! Sex to any unwilling partner is rape!" Well, how the hell was he supposed to know she was unwilling? Feminists had at that point spent years telling the world that women wanted to have active sex lives just like men!

Active sex lives... passively letting him have his way with her...

Another article: after a date, a woman invited the man into her apartment. While she was pouring some wine, he came up behind her and started kissing her. She said something like, "Don't, I'll spill the wine." He said, "Let it spill," and embraced her. She submitted without any further protest. She too took years to decide that this was rape.

While Googling around for things to link to, we ran across a phrase that summarized this problem perfectly: non-dissent. Not dissenting isn't the same thing as assenting.

"How the hell was he supposed to know she was unwilling?" Here's a novel idea: he could ask. And if he can't get a clear answer, or if he has reason to doubt her sincerity, he could not have sex. There is no problem of the form "but how could he be sure he wasn't raping her?" that is not solved by these two basic principles: (1) communicate openly, and (2) when in doubt, don't fuck.

Oh, but it gets better. And by better, I mean worse.

Yet another, hauntingly remniscent of the Mike Tyson case, though this guy was far more guilty than Mike: a co-ed spent the night in bed with her college boyfriend. She was wearing a short nightgown and no underwear. She had told him repeatedly that she wasn't going to have sex with him. Before they went to sleep, he kept moving his hands up her thighs and she kept telling him to stop. Then she went to sleep. She woke up when he penetrated her. She screamed. He kept on. Now, I suppose this one does qualify as rape, but this woman was behaving with incredible stupidity. (Thankfully, one letter to the editor did point this out.) He behaved wrongly, but really. What was this woman thinking? Did she really think that she could spend the night in bed with a man who had made it clear that he wanted to have sex with her, wearing a shortie nightgown, and still be a virgin in the morning? See, all those hidebound rules about how nice girls behave around boys - i.e., not spending the night in bed with them without any underwear on - was to protect stupid bimbos, and the hapless males they date, from exactly this sort of thing. I doubt this young man believed he was committing rape. She was sending out extremely mixed signals, and he was a college-age male flush with hormones.

That paragraph is a bit of a beast, so I'm just going to pick out the relevant parts:

She had told him repeatedly that she wasn't going to have sex with him. Before they went to sleep, he kept moving his hands up her thighs and she kept telling him to stop. Then she went to sleep. She woke up when he penetrated her. She screamed. He kept on.

I doubt this young man believed he was committing rape. She was sending out extremely mixed signals, and he was a college-age male flush with hormones.

Splat. Ladies and gentlemen, the diaper has hit the pavement.

Like the title of this post says, "no" is not a mixed signal. "I'm not going to have sex with you" is not a mixed signal. Screaming is not a mixed goddamn signal. As Marbles puts it, anyone who ignores all three should have his penis permit revoked. When in doubt, don't fuck. It's not that difficult.

(By the way, it case it wasn't extraordinarily obvious already: any uses of first-person pronouns past the second paragraph should be taken to mean that I, Hex, am talking out of my hexagonal ass. Where Marbles has input, I use "we" or her name.)

Even More Photos: Dog Edition

2009-06-15T17:01:00.003-04:00

Taken on Saturday at Woofstock:

(Hex, this is for you and your weird obsession with heterochromia)

Be "That Guy"

2009-06-14T13:22:00.002-04:00

On this part of the blogosphere there's been a lot of discussion about rape*, but similar conversations are also happening elsewhere. Pyth linked me to an LJ post On Rape and Men**, which calls decent guys out for not talking to other guys about being decent. You really ought to read the comments where women and some men talk about their experiences with/being That Guy. You know, the guy that doesn't take advantage of a drunk or vulnerable woman or the guy who prevents his frat buddies from raping a women. These are the types of stories men need to tell other men rather than ignoring or making excuses for your friends'/coworkers'/etc. dangerous atittudes toward rape.

But don't expect cookies or admiration from us because this isn't about being a great guy, it's about doing the decent thing.

---

*While we're at it go click through the blogs donating as part of the Silence is the Enemy
campaign
**There's an crossposted version here

All Too Human

2009-06-06T21:17:00.005-04:00

...Or may be not.

I was going to write something completely different this week, but reading comments on We Remember Love got me thinking about the topic of AI stories and Sharon Apple in particular.

Ghostlightning writes,

I actually don’t favor ‘cautionary tales’ as the cases of Macross Plus and Macross Frontier
suggest. When the AI of Sharon Apple becomes too human, or when Grace O’Connor becomes too powerful via her ‘on-line’ existence and her robotic bodies — bad things happen. But these are cases where these characters are more plot devices rather than explorations so I’m not that bothered.

The "cautionary tale" plot about an robot/computer/etc. becoming too human or too intelligent or too powerful leading to "bad things" is modern-day mythology. It's the type of story we tell over and over again. From the Terminator movies to half the sci-fi books ever published we see it used. This is such a prevalent yet simple myth that it can be used for various purposes. Sometimes you get explorations of what it means to be human when intelligence can come in non-biological forms (as is the case with the Puppetmaster in Ghost in the Shell) and sometimes it serves as a plot device for a compltely unrelated message (Grace O'Connor's wacky plans in Macross Frontier). The former are interesting because of what AI brings to the table; the latter could work with almost anything replacing AI. It's a fine plot, but too often it's used as lazy writing by simply using the formula of "sentient robots = bad things" without explaining why that's the case.

So what about Sharon Apple? Well -- I have to say, I disagree with ghostlightining's interpretation. I don't see her as as simply a plot device. It's just not as simple as that, especially not in the context of the Macross universe.

Music and love are the leitmotifs of the Macross universe. You can't have a Macross series without singing. You can't have a Macross series where love and romantic triangles aren't a major plot point. And in almost all cases the singing reminds the us, and the various warring factions, of love and through that understanding. We've given culture back to the Zentradi through Minmay's songs, we've made entire islands bloom with life through song, we've even made space whales listen to our song.

Seriously, he is singing to fucking space whale. How fucking awesome is that?

Sharon Apple takes on these characteristics and twists them into something ugly. There's really very little to her aside from her being a singer and feeling love. She was made to do that, just that. And normally in Macross, love plus singing would be enough to save the world. However, Sharon is different because she's not human. She might feel emotion, but she doesn't act like any normal human being (If you think she does, I believe you might want to get your sociopathic ass checked). Despite her feeling love and pain and sadness, she's missing something essentially human, something that prevents her from going through the usual "song + love = understanding".

What I believe Sharon's missing is the ability to understand others--a theory of mind and empathy. Sure she can understand other people's simple desires, like Isamu's desire for a thrill, but she's not very good at the complex stuff. She simplifies Myung's complex feelings toward Isamu and Guld into "I love Isamu a bit more, so who cares about Guld". To Sharon this is a simple matter because she doesn't seem to take anyone's feelings into account; to the human Myung this decision is nearly impossible because she knows that whichever way she chooses someone will get hurt (including her). And her fulfillment of Isamu's "desires" hardly taking his actual feelings into account. He clearly doesn't want his thrill in the way she presents it, but she doesn't care.

In the Macross world, where we've always been told that singing about love will bring about understanding between groups, a singer with the kind of power Sharon has (her song is drugs) not having the ability to understand others is more meaningful than a simple plot point. In a world where love songs are an effective weapon, we need to remember that empathy and understanding are also important. Sharon Apple, the AI that knows only personal emotions, is here to remind us of that.

I'll leave you with my favourite scene from Macross Plus, while I go into a Sudafed and flu induced coma:

New layout + photos

2009-06-06T00:46:00.003-04:00

How do you like the new layout?

Two Awkward Things

2009-06-05T02:09:00.002-04:00

1) Being the only science student in a drunken discussion (*sigh* Philosophy discussions)
2) Being the only female in a group of 5 people going out for drinks.

Silence Is the Enemy.

2009-06-02T00:17:00.003-04:00

I've never experienced sexual assault. That makes me lucky. Many woman aren't as lucky. In particular, women in many war torn areas live with the reality that rape is used to as a weapon in war and even when the fighting is done the rape culture still persists.

Ignoring this is not an option, which is why Sheril Kirshenbaum writes the following:

Today begins a very important initiative called Silence Is The Enemy to help a generation of young women half a world away.Why? Because they are our sisters and children–the victims of sexual abuse who don’t have the means to ask for help. We have power in our words and influence. Along with our audience, we’re able to speak for them. I’m asking all of you–bloggers, writers, teachers, and concerned citizens–to use whatever platform you have to call for an end to the rape and abuse of women and girls in Liberia and around the world.

In regions where fighting has formally ended, rape continues to be used as a weapon. As Nicholas Kristof recently wrote from West Africa, ‘it has been easier to get men to relinquish their guns than their sense of sexual entitlement.’ The war has shattered norms, training some men to think that ‘when they want sex, they need simply to overpower a girl.’ An International Rescue Committee survey suggests 12 percent of girls aged 17 and under acknowledged having been sexually abused in some way over the previous 18 months. Further, of the 275 new sexual violence cases treated Jan-April by Doctors Without Borders, 28 percent involve children aged 4 or younger, and 33 percent involve children aged 5 through 12. That’s 61% age 12 or under. We read about their plight and see the figures, but it’s so easy to feel helpless to act in isolation. But these are not statistics, they are girls. Together we can do more. Mass rape persists because of inertia so let’s create momentum.

The movement began a couple weeks ago after I was feeling particularly outraged after reading Kristof’s terrific NYTimes piece. I wondered aloud to Isis how we might draw attention to the mass rape taking place across the globe. Very soon we began coordinating a blogospheric awareness campaign to say 1) this is happening 2) it’s completely monstrous, and 3) we want change. But acknowledgment isn’t enough–people have to be motivated to care and act. We want folks thinking about these girls beyond a single morning they read a few coordinated posts.

If you haven't already read her post go do so NOW. And while you're at it browse through the following blogs who are donating their June profits (based on site hits) to Doctors Without Borders:

If you have the means you can donate to Doctors Without Borders and if you have the time write to your MP or just blog about it.

On why my anime watching can get frustrating

2009-05-30T16:27:00.004-04:00

Most mecha anime is equal parts male wish-fulfillment and a boys coming of age story. There's nothing inherently wrong with writing shows like that and a lot of my favourites are just this type of story. There is a universal quality in the stories of Amuro or Kamille being trust into war, essentially adulthood, and realizing that their actions and inaction affect others, or Simon learning to believe in himself, or -- Well you get my point. I like these stories, but sometimes the focus on men gets annoying.

The problem with a lot of mecha anime is what they do to the female characters. Since they are written about boys/men for boys/men, the women often end up being entirely defined by their relationships with men. For example, Lalah Sune isn't important as a person because all that matters is her impact on Char and Amuro. Even worse is the tendency to make a female character's entire inner life about romance or supporting her man (See: Ranka Lee. Everything I do or don't do depends on how things are going with Alto).

The can sometimes become very frustrating to me as a woman watching these shows. Which is why I tend to fall in love with the few shows that do it right. One of these shows is Bubblegum Crisis. I can't remember what made me love the show as a 14-year-old, it could have been the gritty cyberpunk setting or simply because rampaging robots are awesome, but I know that I keep coming back to the show years after because I get to see women who are as fully human as any cartoon character can be kicking ass. Priss, Linna, Sylvia, and Nene aren't the cute girls sitting on the sidelines cheering their men. In fact, there is no romance for the lead characters. They kick ass. They have their own life, interests, and day jobs. They aren't just there because the guys need a romantic interest or attention and I love them for it.

Oh, who am I kidding. The really important part of Bubblegum Crisis is the cheestastic 80s music:

---

P.S. If you are remotely interested in anime, check out We Remember Love. I've spend a good part of my day reading the archives of this blog and at this point I gotta say it's my favourite animeblog.

A warning

2009-05-29T23:44:00.003-04:00

I've mention before that I'm an anime fan, right? I spend way to much time and money, by normal people's standards, on Japanese cartoon that for the most part are aimed at teenagers. Despite this, I like it. However, sometimes I get bored of and generally feel indifferent about anime. And whether it's that product of being busy with school (Why do I take summer courses, again?) and work or a prolonged post-exam funk, I haven't been very interested in anime lately. I haven't really kept up with the shows currently airing and I've neglected my half-built Acguy gunpla.

Last weekend, I went to a convention and, let me tell you, there is nothing like a large group of overly enthusiastic fans to get you excited about something again. So over the past week, I've caught up on some of the decent shows airing (Sora Kake Girl, Eden of the East, Shangri-La, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood). I've also made a list of older shows that I want to see again or that I really ought to have seen by now.

As you can imagine, this eats up my time. Mostly it chomps into the time I would spend on another activity I enjoy: playing on the blagosphere. As a compromise, I've decided that I'm probably going to start blogging the anime I watch. This doesn't mean I'm turning into an animeblog mostly because I could never manage to stick to just one topic.

Right now I'm watching the first episode of my favouritest anime ever and I'll probably post something on it Saturday afternoon. Until then you can enjoy this:

More Photos

2009-05-20T23:34:00.002-04:00

I won't have much time to post anything of substance for the next couple of days (including the weekend) because I'll be either preping for or attending AnimeNorth. However, over the long weekend, I went to the Royal Botanical Gardens so I have A LOT of photos of tulips, lilac, and other flora which I'll be uploading to my flickr page in small batches and then posting here.

Speech is Action

2009-05-16T10:02:00.005-04:00

The recent conversations about d00ds and feminism at Zuska's and Dr. Isis' have been interesting yet full of FAIL because some d00ds just refuse to get it. One of the things these d00ds often refuse to get is why we're just talking about it instead of DoingSomething™. And this isn't just used by d00ds who don't get feminism, the phrase has been repeated over and over and over again by people of privileged groups in discussions of social justice.

As awesome a writer as I am (not), I have friends who are much more eloquent and coincidentally one of them is Learn Hexadecimal who posted a comment in another discussion about just this topic, so I asked him if I could repost it.

Speech is action.

Let me be more specific: every word that is on this page right now is a contribution to the social and cultural gestalt of humanity. Every person who has read these words, or read some of them, or skimmed them, or heard somebody talk about them once, has been affected by them. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. But to dismiss a conversation like this, to unroll a banner emblazoned "Talk Is Cheap" and prance away towards far-off charity websites, is to elide a very important aspect of what it is to be human: that we can communicate, and that our communication can affect others and allow us to be affected by them in turn when they communicate back to us.

I don't think anyone here actually forgot that fact. It would be kind of difficult. But I never want to hear "virtual virtue" derided as meaningless. It isn't. It can't be. Virtual virtue, Internet virtue, is the exercise of virtue in communication. Such exercise is crucial to all other aspects of what it means to be human and humane and good. How can we be virtuous if we never learn what virtue means? How can we be virtuous if we never teach that meaning to others-- never discuss it-- never remark on its presence or absence in the stories that shape our minds?

Lois Bujold/110, you tell us talk is cheap, and then you demonstrate that it isn't. You tell us that we tipped you over from intention to action; you tell us that this conversation, this dialogue we're having right here, had a material effect on your material contributions to one or more causes.

You're right: holding admirable opinions and doing nothing is indistinguishable from holding execrable opinions and doing nothing. Because if we hold admirable opinions and keep them locked inside our skulls, nobody will ever know about them. But if we hold admirable opinions and talk about them, and defend them in the court of public discourse whose standards of due process you so diligently uphold, we can change other people's minds. Such a powerful phrase, when you think about it: to change someone's mind. That is action. That is admirable.

Lois Bujold/121 , I see more of the same. Your stance on falsehood and the provability of motivations, while interesting, isn't my primary concern at the moment.

Consider this: you ask us to rule our statements in the court of public discourse by the measure of due process, and by that, you mean we ought to read a book before discussing why we don't like it. Why can't we ask Patricia Wrede to rule her statements in the public discourse of fiction-- and fiction is a discourse; vast, slow, indirect, but a discourse all the same-- by the measure of virtuous speech?

And by that, I mean that you are engaging in exactly the task which you imply is cheap and easy and not enough for you. Here we are, expressing our dislike for yet another erasure in yet another place of a people who are erased too often already; here you are, expressing your dislike for yet another case in yet another comment thread where people talk a book down without ever having picked up a copy. It must in some sense be a worthwhile task to you, or you wouldn't be doing it.

Yes, monetary donations to charitable organizations often have a more concrete, or at least more measurable, impact on issues than words on the Internet. But somebody still has to say those words. Somebody has to say "no, this is wrong, this story has problems", because if nobody ever does, then the people who write those stories will never realize that they could be doing it better.

You are, if I'm to believe the name attached to your comments, a writer of stories. Realize that you could be doing it better. Realize that everyone you know who also writes stories could be doing it better. In other words, what Stella Omega/133 said.

Fiction_Theory/131, you made a good point extremely well. I'm now in the middle of reading the blog post you linked in the course of introducing that point, and it is a work of further excellence. I encourage anyone whose eyes are passing over these words right now to go and read both of the above; you will be improved thereby.

---

The context to the post, in case you are wondering (and I hope you are), is a massive FAIL on the part of author Patricia Wrede. Last week, a review of Patricia Wrede's new book Thirteenth Child was posted and immediatedly is spawned a lot of discussion due to its premise. You see, she wanted to write an American settlement story with MAMMOTHS and other megafauna. That sounds kind of cool and may have made a good book if she had not decided that to do this she had to write Native Americans out of her book's history. Erasing a group that has been a victim of genocide and who has been marginizalized in US and Canadian history is wrong, unacceptable, and wrong. People rightfully got on her ass and on the asses of all the vapid jackasses defending her or attempting to derail the conversation. Naraht has complied a few links on the topic.

Minor Venting

2009-05-14T23:42:00.004-04:00

Dear Linguistics Prof,

I know you're teaching a joint course with psychology and therefore you need to touch upon the biology involved in language, but please don't repeat the lecture you gave this week EVER AGAIN. You were clearly clueless about neurobiology and your attempts to explain concepts you didn't get had me cringing and rolling my eyes.

Love,
That neuroscience student making faces at the back of your class

P.S. The part on the biology of the vocal apparatus and phonology was pretty cool and well done. Videos of flapping vocal folds are awesome.

Fucking Monday

2009-05-11T23:19:00.003-04:00

If been in a less than stellar mood since the end of exams. It's probably some form of burnout and it sucks. If I didn't have work and social obligations, I would have spent Thursday through today lying in bed with my laptop and watching cute animals on youtube*.

As for Mondays, they will be the worst day ever for the next month or so. I can deal with having to wake up at 6 AM to get to work and I can deal with a 6 to 8 PM evening class, but I don't want to deal with both on the same day. Especially not when I have a 5 hour gap between the two. I am convinced that if previous experience hasn't convinced me that Mondays were invented by the devil, this schedule would.

Today was particularily bad because I'm been a massive ball of nervous energy and nausea. I also got attacked by wild books leaping from atop my bookshelf and they were fucking heavy and OUCHmotherfuckingOUCH. The only redeeming part of today was spending two hours with the bestest person on the planet.

P.S. If this sounds disjointed as fuck and pointless, that because my brain is not exactly coherent.

* Damn, I just watched that and i'm already feeling better.

Almost there

2009-05-05T23:32:00.002-04:00

I have one more exam to go. Hopefully, by this time tomorrow I will be happy and VERY drunk. I'll also try to forget that I'm taking a summer course which starts on Monday. *sigh*

More on me being fucked up

2009-05-01T22:59:00.004-04:00

Pyth suggested in a comment to a previous post that it may not be a terrible idea to vent/talk about my personal experience with self-injury. I've been reluctant do do so for many reasons. One of then is that I so rarely (never) talk about it IRL or on the internet and I just don't know what to say or how to say it. A bigger obstacle is the fear of judgement.

I'm afraid of being seen as an "attention whore". It's hard to escape that insecurity when the most widespread image of a person who self-injures is the angsty teenager using mental illness cutting as a way of rebelling, getting their parent's attention, and/or garnering sympathy from their peers. While this image is dishonest and dismissive, it's not what really fucks me over and makes me insecure with how I'm judged when I talk about self-injury. What fucks me over is when it's used to create a distinction between "real" and "fake" self-injury.

You see, there are fake self-injurers (whatever that actually means) who use self-injury to manipulate people for sympathy points when there is really nothing wrong with them (lets ignore that that cutting/burning/hitting yourself for attention indicates that something is probably not right). These people flaunt it (by which we mean talk about it at all) and should be ignored or laughed at (see various jokes at self-injurer's expense). There are of course "real" self-injury. These are people with serious mental illness and serious problems because there's got to be something really, really wrong with you if you purposely injure yourself. More importantly, these "real" self-injurers don't ever talk about it because they are too ashamed ~~and they should feel bad because they're doing a very bad thing~~. In conclusion, if you talk about deliberately injuring yourself you're just trying to get attention and you're not serious and should not be taken seriously.

I know this is all complete bullshit. I know that what other people, especially ignorant idiots, think shouldn't matter. But having that as a the main discussion and characterization of self-injury during those formative teenage years makes it hard not to develop anxiety about this judgement even when I know better.

Busy preparing for the end of the world?

2009-04-29T13:46:00.003-04:00

If you aren't too busy preparing for the ~~zombie apocalypse~~ pandemic that will kill us all, you might want to check out Pandemic II. I've spent way too much time playing it over the past two days, but I still haven't managed to wipe out everyone :(

Twitter

2009-04-27T22:34:00.005-04:00

You know, if you'd have told me that twitter is a great way to observe mass hysteria I would have joined without second thoughts. I loves me some mass hysteria (Why do you think I still have an LJ account? They do mass hysteria better than anyone else).

P.S. ERV has an interesting post on ketotifen fumerate, an allergy med that works both as an anti-histamine and a mast cell stabalizer. I might have to bother my doctor about it, preferably before I claw my eyes out. Dying of allergies. Please rescue.

It's that time of year again.

2009-04-20T02:15:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow, I have my first exam and I doubt I'll be sleeping tonight. Since almost anything is preferable to lying in bed trying to fall asleep while my brain is repeating the spinothalamic tract or the cranial nerve nuclei, I went and got enough caffeinated beverages to keep me awake for days...and chocolate gummi bears. Chocolate gummi bears make me feel better about my impending death by neuroanatomy final. I am, in fact, the most pathetic human being on the planet.

Shoes

2009-04-17T21:48:00.003-04:00

- Or I've caught the Dr. Isis bug.

Reading Dr. Isis' "Shoe of the Week" posts has made me realize that I am severely lacking in hot shoes. Luckily I got abandoned downtown today (long story involving a dead cellphone and various levels of miscommunication) and spend a good two hours at payless hunting until I found these adorable heels. I'm still severely tempted to buy the navy and white version of the brown pumps, I just have to come up with a reason why I would need them.

I also met up with a really good friend from high school who is still one of the funniest and nicest guys I have ever know. sh

Fuck YES!

2009-04-12T22:05:00.004-04:00

After getting our gas shut off on Thursday (someone fucked up the bill payment) I finally have heating and water again. There are no word to describe how happy I am that I won't have to take another ice-cold shower or drink myself into warmth*. Now, I can go back to recording dramatic readings of a friend's porn.

*I'd be lying if I said I really minded that.

What the fucking shit Amazon?

2009-04-12T19:01:00.008-04:00

Apparently Amazon.com has decided to strip sales rankings and remove from some searches books that they deem "adult". This is WTF and stupid in and of itself, but with the pervading culture of screaming "What about the CHILDREN?" it's understandable. What really makes this really fucking egregious is that they seem to be specifically going after LGBT books that aren't fucking adult in any way unless you're one of those idiotic homophobic dimwits who thinks kids should never, ever under any circumstances be exposed to homosexuality because otherwise they'll catch the gay.

What the fuck guys? How is Stephen Fry's autobigraphy or a guidebook for LGBT college-bound students or one of the many banned books that have mentions of non-vanilla-heterosexual sex or love adult? Jesus Christ, first the "same-sex marriage will destroy America"-video and now this bullshit, is this like prudish homophobe week or something?

Update:
LostMarbles: Amazon needs to have one of the giant vibrators they sell firmly shoved up their asses...with no lubricant
Pyth: until then, we can shove googlebombs up their ass instead

So here goes. Amazon Rank and the hilariously written context.

[HT: Stupid Free Drama]

I have unhealthy obsessions

2009-04-09T22:48:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday, the course listings for next year were released and I've spent far too much time hunched over my laptop reading through that and the calender plotting my possibly last year as an undergrad. Seriously, I have wasted so much time trying to figure out how much interesting shit I can stuff in one year. I've managed to make a short list of classes to take, but I still need to cut back on one full course or two half courses to fit in a fourth-year project. *Sigh* my life is so difficult.

Here's a nifty table of what I have so far (If anyone out there has opinions please express them, they need not be based on anything):

Fall

Spring

BCH446H1
Membrane Dynamics of the Cell Surface

Principles and concepts of cell biology are covered including the structure, molecular organization and dynamic interactions of cells with each other and the extracellular matrix during cell migration & cell adhesion. The role of cytoskeletal components and cell surface receptors in these processes and in membrane traffic will be addressed.

PSL452H1
Membrane Physiology

Biophysics and molecular biology of ion channels. Topics include equivalent circuits for cells, molecular structure of voltage-gated channels, distribution of channels, relationship between single-channel and whole-cell recording and regulation of channel function by voltage, phosphorylation, G-proteins and metabolites.

BCH426H1
Regulation of Signalling Pathways

A variety of questions relating to signal transduction are investigated. How is calcium regulated in the cell and how does calcium regulate cell function? How are extracellular signals received and transmitted by intracellular proteins to control cellular proliferation and differentiation? What signalling pathways are triggered by insulin?

PSL450H1
Mechanisms of Neural and Endocrinal Secretion

Exocytosis and other aspects of secretion mainly in neurons and neuroendocrine cells, but also in pancreatic cells. Topics include synapse anatomy and physiology, synaptic plasma membrane and vesicle proteins, membrane fusion, genetic tools, endocrine secretion, plasticity in neurotransmitter release, diseases arising from secretion defects.

CSB483H1
Seminar in Development I

Seminars analyzing the major problems in developmental biology from cellular, genetic and molecular perspectives.

CSB484H1
Seminar in Development II

Students will choose a major issue in contemporary Developmental Biology and critically analyze present and future prospects in that field.

PSL440Y1
Neuroscience I: Systems and Behaviour

Introduction to systems neuroscience. A review of basic neuroanatomy and physiology followed by in-depth study of selected sensory and motor systems. Students with an elementary neuroscience background progress to reading neuroscience literature on their own.

PSL444Y1
Neuroscience II: Cellular and Molecular

Overview of the fundamentals of cellular and molecular aspects of brain function. Course material is updated yearly to reflect the rapid evolution of ideas in Neuroscience.

(PSL = physiology, BCH = biochemistry, CSB = cell and systems bio)

In which I serve up some TMI

2009-04-08T22:36:00.008-04:00

Anyone who has an aversion to discussion of feminine hygiene can skip this post.

This month I managed to quit tampons and pad. No I haven't gone into very, very early menopause or decided that free bleeding is a great idea. What I did was finally give into my curiosity of menstrual cups. I'm sure you're all intelligent enough to pick up on the environmental benefits and supposedly there are health benefits (via reduced chances of TSS). Whatever, the real thing the convinced me was the idea that I wouldn't have to be running to the bathroom every 4-6 hours to change products.

I bought my Diva Cup a couple of weeks before my period to do a "dry run". This was an interesting experience in alternating anxiety and relief:

Remembering the good old days on LJ, I find a community dedicated to menstrual cups where I read up on how to put the goddamn thing up my vagina. Apparently there are about 50 million ways to fold the thing so it fits in. and apparently everyone has a favourite.
After trying a couple of folds, I'm not getting them to open up in my vagina (anxiety, maybe I suck at this or my vagina is sentient being all of its own that dislikes my environmentally friendly menstrual product).
Success! I felt it "pop" open and twisted it around to confirm (relief).
Next comes the removal and a fuck-tonne of anxiety. HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GET THE FUCKER OUT?!?!?! The thing is now basically suctioned to my vaginal walls and doesn't want to let go. FUCK!
Okay I just need to calm down. If worse comes to worst, and I need to get it removed at least I didn't stick something embarrassing up there like a pickle or a dildo on a power tool.
After waiting 30 minutes, I manged to relax and make another attempt to rescue the silicone cup from the jaws of my rabid sexual plumbing. It is successful and I can now relax until my next attempt to repeat steps 1 through 6.

Having now also tried it while on my periods, I'm fucking sold. Even on my heaviest day, I manged to go 12 hours between changes and aside from the incident where I dropped a cupful on my bathroom floor (if I ever need to stage a miniature massacre, I now know what to do) I had no leaks - a huge change from the usual.

My Commenting Policy

2009-04-08T18:09:00.004-04:00

I never thought I would have to write a post like this, but due to recent wank and accusations of censorship I'm guessing it might be a good idea to clear up my comment policy.

Comment moderation is a hassle and I don't want to do it. It also disrupts the conversation since sometimes I can go offline for hours or days. I'd like to keep my door open to anyone: anons, pseudonyms, and even those crazy people that use a real name. I'd also like that discussions continue whether I'm here or not. What I don't like is people coming and shitting on my carpet. Since I can lock them out with comment moderation, I damn well will when I have to. I'll try to avoid ever doing it, but if I see trolls, people completely derailing conversations, or paranoid-delusional wackos coming to rant about the SciBlog hivemind I will turn on comment moderation because I like my carpets clean dammit. This will be temporary until the idiot I'm trying to rid myself of is gone.

As for actually not publishing posts or deleting them - well, that's something I feel really uncomfortable with. I won't delete comments once they've been published no matter how dumb, trolltastic, or useless they may be. I will, however, keep comments that contribute nothing to the discussion and don't pertain to anything said in the post or other comments from being posted by using comment moderation. This will only happen if I even deem it necessary to turn on moderation again. Hell, I'm even loose with that. I'll let through blatant trolls and other undesirables if they're not repetitive and are entertaining enough because I love laughing at you.

I think this pretty much matches what I did in the post linked above. None of the posts by YouKnowWho and their various aliases have been deleted after they were posted. I only kept one comment from being published because it contributed nothing but a "you're lame" and would have futher derailed shit.

To make it clear I will NOT delete comments for disagreeing with me unless they contain absolutely no content. I'm open to arguing and discussing something pertaining to my post even if you disagree. I'm not open to trolling, raving about a blog-conspiracy, or any obsessive loons using my comments to continue a tirade about other bloggers. To continue my analogy, you can come in smelling as if you've been rolling in garbage or Chanel No. 5 (read:vile) and I won't be happy, but you don't get kicked until you start shitting on my carpets because I like my carpets clean dammit.

Morgan's Flies

2009-04-05T11:47:00.003-04:00

[HT: Toronto LJ Community]

2009-04-02T16:46:00.003-04:00

I wasn't planning on writing about the sexist comments made toward Sheril Kirshenbaum on the Bad Astronomy Blog since other people have written some very good commentary on this shit. But after reading and commenting in the post on CPP's blog (which is filled with awesome commenters, trolls, and clueless fools), I decided that I had some things to say that are probably a bit teal deer for a comment. I'll probably be repeating some things mention in the posts linked above.

Point #1: This whole issue to me isn't simply about people commenting on/judging Sheril based on her appearance. Because while that is admittedly a shitty thing to do, I think there is a deeper issue with the with the comments. The problem I see is that too often the metric for judging women is attractiveness ( defined: How much men should want to stick their penis in a particular woman).

This kind of judgement is often made based on what a woman looks like (it was in this case), but it's not exclusive to appearances. Commenting on how sexy a woman is based one her intelligence, interests, hobbies, or a particular personality trait is not as widespread, but it happens and it's still unacceptable.

I've mention before some of my interests. Most of the people who share these interests tend to be male and this means that if I want to talk about them the community I'll be joining will be made up of 90% men. And such was the case on one forum where I post. Of course, I post under a pseudonym and it happens to be a masculine sounding pseudonym. This made a lot of people assume that I a man and I was treated as decently as anyone there can expect to be treated.

After a month or so of posting for whatever reason, I can't remember, it came out that I was a woman. The response that followed was interesting. There was the expected reaction; some people insisted that I must fit their stereotype of a woman and therefore I would infect their precious community with feminine shit. There was also a response I did not expect. I did not expect to receive come-ons that ranged from the almost innocent to the obscene. These were from people who had no clue what I looked like and only knew that I have an interest in certain shows.

This doesn't happen as often in real life, as it's much easier to sexualize based on appearance, but it indicates that the problem with how many men treat women as sexual objects extends passed just finding them physically attractive. And this is what I find offensive about the comments. It's that a women was treated as if her first, if not only, role is to sexually please a man. This kind of treatment denies us the ability to be fully human. This is even more troubling in the context of the history of women's oppression. For thousands of years women have been treated as if their only possible role was to breed and be mothers.

Point #2: Some comments were made indicating that we where just overreacting to an innocent complement. I hope the above convinced you that the comments, while possibly made innocently, are not at all innocent. But lets assume that those comments are harmless. Lets assume that we are living in a historical vacuum. Even in that case I think that the people defending them should apologize and shut the fuck up.

Why? Well, that involves trying to understand what a goddamn compliment is. A compliment isn't simply saying the X is a good trait of Y person. When I compliment one of my aims is to make the person being complimented feel good. I think that's the more important part of compliments and that's why I try not to offend people with inappropriate praise.

Now, if you read all the follow-up to the comments, you'd have realized that quiet a lot of women found the comments offensive, including Sheril. So your compliment failed. All you did was offend the person you wanted to compliment and therefore you should apologize and STFU.

Point#3: "When is it appropriate to comment on a woman's attractiveness?" you ask.

I would say the best guidline is to think, "Would she want to know or care whether I want to bone her or not?" It's really as simple as that. Well, unless you think that every woman is here as as your personal cockwarmer. But then you're an irredeemable misogynistic waste of air.

The post where you all get to laugh at me

2009-03-26T21:25:00.003-04:00

I've been shit with posting the last week or so because I've been busy writing lab reports, assignments, and memorizing the fucking nuclei in the brainstem. So as penance, I'll post this gel from two weeks ago:

I my defense:

I wasn't the only one responsible for this mess (four pairs of hands are rarely better than one)
It was my first time pouring a gel
I hadn't slept the night before.

Happy pi day!

2009-03-14T19:48:00.003-04:00

I know it looks like a bloody massacre, but we made delicious delicious strawberry pie for Pi Day.

The crust is the same as the one for the pineapple pie

The filling:

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs strawberries (sliced)
juice from half an orange
1/3 cup of honey
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp cornstarch
1 cup of water

Mix sliced strawberries, orange juice, honey, sugar, water, and vanilla. Let sit for 1 hour in the fridge
Pre-heat the oven to 400 F.
Drain the liquid from the strawberry mixture into a sauce pan.
Heat the liquid on medium heat and add cornstarch. Mix until it dissolves and forms goop.
Lay the strawberries down in the pie crust and pour the strawberry goop on top.
Bake for 40 minutes or until the crust has browned.

How to recover from a bad midterm mark

2009-03-06T19:27:00.003-05:00

No, I haven't failed my midterms. With the exception of one mark that hasn't been given back, I haven't gotten anything below an A-. I did however notice that a few people landed here using that search term and while I'm not an expert on most things, I sure do know something about bad midterm marks.

So here are my tips for recovering from a bad midterm mark (some are more serious than others):

Develop a relationship with alcohol. Out of all the drugs out there that can "help" with feeling shitty, alcohol is the only one that's legal. And as an added bonus, if you drink a half a bottle of 80 proof alcohol you can count the next day as a suitable punishment. My personal preference is this vodka straight out of the freezer.
If you aren't up for cirrhosis, then try to find some way to get your mind off of it. You can do something nice for yourself like buy some yummy cheesecake, take a relaxing bath, go out with friends, or sleep.
Remember that your midterm probably doesn't count for more that 30% of your mark (unless your professor is an asshole). This means that if you get a 50% on your midterm you've only lost 15% of your final mark. You might still have time to study your ass off and get a 90% on your next midterm/exam. I've gone from a C on a midterm to an overall A- in th course. It's not easy, but it's definitely possible.
If there are other issues that may have led to your fucking up, go talk to somebody. You can go to your university's counselling services (if you're at UofT, that's CALSS) or your registrar. Hell, your professor may even be sympathetic depending on the issue.
It might not be to late to drop the course.
If you're doing badly in a lot of classes, it might be a good idea to take a year or two off. It could help if you have personal issues you need to deal with or if you just think that maybe you're not cut out for university.

March 1st

2009-03-01T02:08:00.003-05:00

I've opened a bottle of Italian Merlot and I'll try to write this post. This is probably the hardest post I'll ever force myself to write. Part of the difficulty is that I've very, very rarely talked about this subject and part is that, despite know how awesome the few readers I have are, I still fear that your opinion of me will change for the worse.

March 1st is Self-Injury Awareness Day. It's not officially recognized in most places, and even on the internet it's not really talked about. But since I am someone who has self-injured I feel like I should write something about it.

Self-injury is generally defined as the deliberately damage of tissue without suicidal intent. This can mean everything from cutting oneself to ODing on drugs. I'm too lazy to look up statistics, but if I recall correctly the lifetime incidence is anywhere from 10 to 25% of the population depending on the study and country. It's more common for females to self-injure than for males and most people start in their teens. The reasons given for this behaviour vary and include: controlling negative emotions, self-punishment, and stopping feelings of depersonalization or dissociation.

There are a lot of misconceptions about people who self-injure. One such belief is that it's a failed attempt at suicide (see: jokes about "down the road and not across the street"). Although some people who self-injure have or will attempt suicide, the very definition of self-injury excludes suicide attempts and some people even report that they use self-injury to prevent suicide. A second common myth is that we're all doing this just to get a bit of attention and sympathy. While some people do it for attention, most self-injurers tend to hide their problem and feel shameful about what they do (I can count on one finger, the people in my life that know). And even if one does it for attention, at the point where you hurt yourself for it, it's still a problem.

The lack of understanding and awareness can cause a lot of problems with family and friends, but self-injurers can also run into problems when seeking medical attention. If you're cutting or burning yourself on a regular basis, it's likely that at some point you're going to need medical treatment at some point. Going to an ER you expect to be treated like any other injured person, unfortunately that's often not the case. Talking to people who self-injure, it's not unusual to hear stories of doctors not providing a local anaesthetic for stitches (because if you self-injure, you must like pain) or refusing treatment until the person promises to stop self-injuring (Ok, since you ask really nicely doc -- I'll do it!). It's not right to treat people who self-injure as less then human or as if they're a misbehaving child.

I'm not going to talk about my personal story because I don't really know if anyone is interested and I feel it might be a bit self-indulgent. However, feel free to ask questions in the comments or e-mail me if you want to talk.

Sometimes I feel like giving up

2009-02-23T18:07:00.002-05:00

I've been feeling like shit for the past couple of days.

The past week I've gotten a break from school, which was appreciated after a week of midterm hell. However, this break also meant that I had a week of doing basically nothing*. Doing nothing sounds like a lot of fun, but indolence always manages to bring out the mental anxiety gnomes that that keep whispering about all the new things I should worry about. And thus I spent all of Reading Week worrying about the future, whether I did well on my midterms, and whether my GPA is total crap or not.

Today, I got one of my midterm marks back. By all objective measures it's a very good mark and I should be happy. But I can't help being disappointed because I thought I did better. I just feel so stupid and I keep wondering if maybe I totally screwed up on my other midterms. Maybe I'm not half as intelligent as I think I am. And maybe I should just quit now and find a job where I can come in, do my work as a good automaton, and go home to drown my sorrows in crappy reality teevee.

Sigh. Is this the sucky undergrad version of teenage angst?

---
*Going to work doesn't count because it's been a hell of a lot less taxing than school lately.

Variegated Rose

2009-02-14T01:34:00.001-05:00

Variegated Rose, originally uploaded by aplysia_06.

Happy Valentines Day! And Happy Reading Week for anyone at UofT.

Mmm...Cake

2009-02-11T21:05:00.001-05:00

Mmm...Cake, originally uploaded by aplysia_06.

One more midterm...Maybe I need cake tomorrow to celebrate.

Picture post of a post

2009-02-10T19:59:00.001-05:00

Post
Originally uploaded by aplysia_06

More photos from the summer to remind me how much I miss sun, warmth, and lack of midterms.

I'm done my first midterm, and I'm pretty sure I aced it (fuck yeah physiology!). Now I have to continue studying for my neuroanatomy midterm by trying to remember the over nine thousand nuclei in the brainstem. This makes me sad enough that I might just take a nap and ignore it for a few hours.

Butterfly on orange

2009-02-09T20:53:00.001-05:00

Butterfly on orange
Originally uploaded by aplysia_06

I'm pretty busy with midterms this week so I'm unlikely to have time to post. And even if I did, I'd likely have nothing to post about except how terrible it is to memorize crap for neuroanatomy (fuck you magical sulci that I still cannot figure out on a real brain) or how my diet has become nothing but chocolate raisins and gummy worms. Instead of making you suffer my whining, I'll post photos I took over the summer when I had no tests to worry about.

Carrot Loves You, Yeah!

2009-02-06T21:35:00.000-05:00

I got tagged by Eugenie!

The Rulez:
a) Put your MP3 player, iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle
b) For each question, press the next button to get your answer
c) YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS
d) Tag at least 5 people
e) Everyone tagged has to do the same thing
f) Have Fun!

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
"Does He Love You?" (Rilo Kiley)
I'm a bitch like that...

2. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
"After, In the Dark" (Yoko Kanno)
Sure I'll describe myself...After in the dark ~~naked~~

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"Almost Crimes" (Broken Social Scene)
At least I don't go for people with actual crimes, right?

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Friends Will Be Friends" (Queen)

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"When the War Came" (The Decemberists)

6. WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
"You're the Reason I'm Leaving" (Franz Ferdinand)
Blame everything on others: best strategy ever or bestest strategy ever?

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"For the Price of a Cup Tea" (Belle & Sebastian)

8. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"60 Revolutions" (Gogol Bordello)

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"I Slept with Bonhomme at the CBC" (Broken Social Scene)
This is a stuff of nightmares. In case you have no clue, here's a Google image search of Bonhomme

10. WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"Sunshine" (Regina Spektor)

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"Good Day Sunshine" (The Beatles)

12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Kesenai Tsumi/Inerasable Sin" (Nana Kitade)
A bit harsh ;_;

13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Natalie and Effie in the Park" (Of Montreal)

14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Pancakes for One" (Of Montreal)

15. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"Ghost City" (Kenji Kawai)

16. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"Thoughts of a Dying Atheist" (Muse)
This is somehow magically appropriate

17. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Interception" (Kenji Kawai)

18. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
"Pierrot the Clown" (Placebo)
Clowns are scary. Mmmkay.

19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"In My Room" - The Last of the Shadow Puppets

20. WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
"Dreaming Man" - Neko Case

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Falling Through Your Clothes" (The New Pornographers)

22. WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
"Carrot Loves You, Yeah!" (Megumi Nakajima)

I'm not going to be able to pull off 5 tag, but Pyth and Caz better give this meme a go.

sigh

2009-02-03T20:05:00.000-05:00

Dear D. melanogaster,

I really do like you. You`re a pretty cool model organism. You mutate and you don`t afraid of anything. However, it would be really nice if you were bigger. I`m not talking Godzilla-size bigger. Something along the lines of a small rat or a mouse would be nice. Your distant cousin the Coconut Crab can get pretty large (see below) so it isn`t as though it`s impossible, you just need to try harder.

Love,
That biology undergraduate student whose eyes hurt after two hours attempting to count antenna duplications

Lazy evening is lazy

2009-02-02T21:17:00.000-05:00

I'm cold, I can't stop shivering, and I don't feel like I can manage anything remotely approaching productive studying for next week's midterms. Instead of even trying, I've decided that I'll just curl up in bed with a metric shit-tonne of blankets and catch up on the Blu-ray releases of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. I forsee a lazy evening of tea, warmth, and PEW PEW LASERS.

Happiness is...

2009-02-01T18:56:00.000-05:00

...most definitely not waking up to discover an empty bottle of vodka, a half empty bottle of rum, and that strange feeling that you're still not quite sober at noon*. Despite this *minor* set back in my Sunday, I managed to be quite productive when I sobered up at 3 pm. I found a $25 gift certificate for a clothing store in last weeks mail and hatched a plan to buy some new jeans and get myself into the gym for the first time in a month**.

As you can guess from the photo above I was successful on the jeans front. I also managed a full hour on the elliptical***.

* I need friends who don't encourage silly drinking games.
** I also need to stop making silly excuses for why I'm too tired or busy.
*** As a completely off topic question: Can someone explain how people manage to walk/run and read? It would be super useful, but every time I've tried I get motion sick.

But it's too hard...

2009-01-22T21:02:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday, I attended and event hosted by the Hart House Debate Committee on the friction between science and religion. The format was good, and I might steal it for a future events I plan, but otherwise it was boring. One of the two speakers on the religious side, Yiftach Fehige, was possibly the most vacuous person I have ever heard speak. Seriously, he had about as much content as cotton candy (i.e. sugar and air, lots and lots of very warm air).

From what I understood, the event was not planned as a debate, but even as a discussion there was way to much backing down and nothing remotely provocative was said by the speakers. The audience was a bit more daring in regards to provocative questions. When to topic came to the curriculum and what should be taught in schools, everyone agreed that science should be taught in science classrooms. One audience member, however, suggested that maybe when it comes evolution the topic is to "complicated" to teach in schools and so we should just stick to easier topics in science.

Personally, I call bullshit. School and learning, in general, are not about what's easiest. Yes, evolution is not the simplest topic, but that argument could be used for not teaching anything harder than arithmetics. In fact, I've seen it used to argue that calculus, amongst other topics in math and sciences, shouldn't be taught in high school.

Furthermore, I don't think the problem is that it's too hard to teach the basics. In my experience, the problem is that many teachers are ill equipped to teach evolution. If you don't understand it yourself you're hardly in a position to teach it, right? But then the solution to this type of problem isn't to take the subject away. Not teaching evolution in primary or secondary schools will just mean that the next batch of teachers will know jack shit about it too.

FUCK YOU.

2009-01-19T20:26:00.000-05:00

Dear self-centred asshole in an SUV,

I know you you equate pedestrians to a telephone pole. They're there and you'd rather not hit them, but otherwise who cares. That makes you self-centred. What makes you an asshole is your insistence on driving REALLY fast, REALLY close to the curb when there are pedestrians nearby (possibly waiting for a streetcar). I know you might not understand how this is possible, but this pedestrian is not a telephone pole and actually minds having to dodge the tsunami of slush you direct at her. She also mind the fact that even after dodging most of it, her nice pants were covered in disgusting brown water from the knee down.

Next time, please try to drive further away from the curb. But if you must have one wheel dragging in the puddle of muddy slush, please slow the fuck down.

Sincerely pissed,
LostMarbles

---

Now that I've vented, here's an awesome two board scrabble game I played on Saturday.

I should be asleep now, but....

2009-01-16T02:36:00.000-05:00

I've been out drinking with friends tonight*, and here are some though from a brain transitioning from intoxication to moderate sobriety:

20 below zero weather and drinking is not a fun combination. I wore so many layers of clothes that when I had to do my bathroom run I was worried that I'd burst before getting my wool tights off.
I love talking about science with people. I spent a large portion of my 30 minute taxi ride home talking to the cab driver about the cool research I do at work. I was a bit drunk and may have forgotten a few details, but it was fun.**

---

*If you're in Toronto and feel up for a drink sometime the University of Toronto Secular Alliance has pub nights every once in a while and you should check them out
** For some reason I often get into interesting conversation about my work or what I'm studying with complete strangers. I don't know why.

Pie-napple Recipe

2009-01-10T17:06:00.001-05:00

Due to Scienceblogs' temporary downtime PhysioProf has been hosting a party to keep the Sb addicts happy which somehow became a "post your pasta recipe" party. I've already posted a pasta recipe, but since some people have started in on dessert I decided that everyone needs to know about the awesome pie-napple (not to be confused with pie-nipples) my friends and I baked for Christmas.

So here is edited copypasta of my friend's recipe recipe:

Crust
* 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 Tablespoons sugar
* 3/4 cup (a stick and a half) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
* 1/2 cup of all-vegetable shortening (8 Tbsp)
* 6-8 Tablespoons ice water

Mix flour, salt, and sugar. Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture. Toss to coat the butter with a little of the flour. Cut butter into the flour mixture. Add shortening (a tablespoonful at a time, not one big hunk of shortening) and cut into mixture.
Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of ice water over flour mixture. Fold into dough until it sticks together. Add up to 2 more tablespoons of ice water if the dough will not come together. Divide the dough into 2 balls and flatten each into 4 inch wide disks. Dust the disks lightly with flour, wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 2 days before rolling out.
After the dough has chilled in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, you can take it out to roll. If it is too stiff, you may need to let it sit for 10 minutes at room temperature before rolling. Sprinkle a little flour on a flat work surface and the top half of one of the disks of dough. Roll out one of the disks so that it's big enough to cover the bottom of the pie dish.
Put the rolled out dough in the pie dish.
You'll have a second disk of dough left over, which you can either use to cover your pie (not recomemnded as the pineapple filling is better if it gets a bit brown on top) or you can make another pie and/or decorations (like we did).

Filling
* 3/4 cup brown sugar
* 3 tablespoons cornstarch
* 1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
In a medium saucepan combine sugar, cornstarch, and pineapple with juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened, then allow to boil 1 minute.
Cool slightly and pour mixture into pastry-lined pie pan. Place in preheated oven and bake for 35 minutes.

Last step: cool, cut, and eat.

Learning from other people's mistakes

2009-01-07T21:54:00.000-05:00

Lessons learned from mistakes have always stuck around in my memories the longest. A lot have been mistakes I made, but seeing other people screw up is also a great source "what not to do"s. This is especially true when you have to work with the results of the fuck-ups.

I spent most of my summer at Research Organization trying to clean up the ugliest database ever because the person who made it was really, really incompetent (Seriously guys, if you're collecting data electronically you should never, ever let people enter whatever they want. Even [Especially?] if said people have an MD). I managed to clean it up well enough that we've already got 2 abstracts accepted for a meeting and there was talk of writing a manuscript. Along with these easily quantifiable achievement I also learned a lot of shit. I learned how to work with a particular statistical package that isn't SPSS, ethical data cleaning, and how to politely tell people that they're fucking nuts. However, the things I will remember forever and will hopefully never repeat in my own work include "Why yes, enter whatever you wish for the units" and "Hmm...contradictory information, nobody would ever enter that so why should we create measures against it?".

Over the break, I started and almost finished making data entry forms for a different study. They're nice, shiny and they are made to be as idiot proof as possible. But again other people screwing up is fucking with my work. This time it's not the kind of mistake that leaves me with lots of interesting work and amused frustration at incompetent people, it's the kind of fuck up that will most likely render 3 weeks of work a complete waste of time.

The gist of the problem: pretty science isn't always practical science.

The study is a clinical trial looking at a novel use for a very common medication. The scientific justification is so simple and sensible that even a person with just a little background on the disease (me) can understand it easily. The study is also well designed for the most part. However, the problem is that the protocol requires a super strict time frame that allows for very little time between an occurrence of the medical event in question and seeing a specialist. This makes some sense as it would make the science better. However, the time frame is so ridiculously ludicrous that at the rate the PI is enrolling patients we're probably going to have a case study rather than a clinical trial.

God, I hope that if (when?) I ever have to plan studies or even simple projects I'll have the foresight to be able to tell when my plans are fucking impossible.

P.S. If none if this makes sense or follows a logical progression, I blame anger and Jagermeister.

2008-12-17T21:33:00.001-05:00

I’m a huge geek, and what my geeky heart loves—in much the same way that a heroin loves their syringe, needle, and some good tar—is mecha. Mecha is often used refer to a genre of Japanese animation (anime) involving giant, and sometimes not so giant, fucking robots. Giant fucking robots are truly a marvellous thing that greatly pleases this blogger and one particular mecha franchise I love to bits is Gundam. I’ve watched most, but not all, the shows. Along with watching the anime I also got into building models called Gunpla (portmanteau of Gundam Plastic models).

So this weekend I got a very belated birthday gift that made me all happy and sparkly. Here is the completed model:

My lovely 1/100 scale Gundam Exia. Ignore the sexy shoes and bra, they're there as an inside joke

Accepted

2008-12-16T14:52:00.000-05:00

I got up this morning bright an early after 3 hours of sleep (entirely my fault)and reluctantly dragged my ass to work. I expected I would spend several hours sleepily attempting to read up on how to program something I was asked to do. I got a pleasant surprise upon opening my email, 2 of the previously mentioned abstracts that I'm an author on have been accepted! This is my very first piece of published science.

Needless to say, I'm now awake and ~~stupidly~~ excited

Important life lessons

2008-12-14T18:01:00.000-05:00

When somebody tells you that they know how to get to a particular address, never ever fucking trust them. What they actually mean is; "I've been there before and I know there is a right turn involved".

I think I just drove through every dinky, little residential street in a large suburb trying to get my friend to her relatives' house.

Someone is wrong a fucking dumbass on the internet

2008-12-12T21:56:00.000-05:00

I’m exhausted and I barely did anything today. I woke up, cleaned my room, and did a few other trivial things. Then I got on the internet...

...and spent a substantial part of my day arguing with misogynists on the internet. I don’t mind most internet arguments, but arguing with women hating syphilitic cum buckets leaves me utterly emotionally exhausted. I’m pretty sure this is partially to do with the fact that the arguments get pretty heated but are completely devoid of any intellectual stimulation. I like getting in debates where people can barely hold themselves back from shouting, but when the other side is can do is produce neanderthalic grunts about how poor, weak women need to be protected I lose my shit.

Should I even bother with GREs?

2008-12-11T23:12:00.003-05:00

For me, "more free time" usually means "more time to worry about the future". I have a lot of things that I've previously put off worrying about, but now I have the time to worry about them. I need to book my driving examination because my licence expires in September. I need go to an optometrist because my prescription seems a bit off. I need to learn a particular statistical test so that I can wave possible results at my supervisors and possibly move along the writing of a manuscript. But lately what I've been thinking about the most is GREs.

I need to do the General GRE soon, probably in the spring. That means I have to start studying and setting deadlines to motivate myself (I can't pick a specific date until I know what my exam schedule is like). I also need to start thinking whether I should do a Subject GRE. This is more problematic because I really don't know if it's worth bothering with. I'm confident that with a bit of prep I can do well on the General GRE, but I'm not so sure I can manage a decent score on either the Biochemistry, Cell, and Molecular Biology or the Biology test without a lot of studying. I've looked at past tests and the amount of detail that I would have to relearn is staggering. Additionally, I would need to learn about subjects that I have barely touched previously and will probably never really look at again in greater detail. None of this is that objectionable in principle, but the time I would have to put in is insane. It is especially insane when I my plans for the summer include doing research and taking a course.

Taking a Subject GRE seems even more pointless when most of the schools I've looked at in the US only recommend taking one but don't require it and Canadian schools couldn't give a rat's ass about GREs at all. What I want to know is if there is actually any significant benefit to taking a Subject GRE and doing well. And if there is some advantage, does it outweigh the cost I pay in time and anxiety?

Right now I'm leaning towards not bothering, but I'm open to changing my mind.

Challenge

2008-12-11T12:24:00.001-05:00

I've been keeping somewhat off the internet for the past 2 weeks due to assignment and exam insanity. Now, I'm officially done with this semester. This means that, aside from the 12 to 20 (+ 4 to 9 hours it takes to defrost the car, dig it out of the snow, get to the subway, and finally arrive at work) hours a week I spend at work, I'm free. I'm not quite sure what to do with all this newly found spare time, but I've come up with one plan to occupy some of my time: I'm challenging myself to make at least one blog post a day.

So far I haven't posted much and I've used the excuse of not having time when the problem is that I'm not in the habit of actually thinking about blogging or even remembering to post. I'd really like to get in the habit of posting because I like it and I have gotten some good advice in previous posts. So hopefully, forcing myself to do it for the next 3 weeks will work.

On a slightly related topic: I'm trying to find a decent blogging client. This is the only thing I've missed since I made the switchover from Livejournal* and I can't find anything that looks good and is free.

*Lies. I actually really miss the drama and the trolls and the amount of insanely stupid people posting

CV woes

2008-11-25T21:06:00.000-05:00

Confused about CVs? Well, so was I the first time I had to write one. After writing, re-writing, and updating my CV several times, I think I have more of a clue as to what I’m doing. For the most part, I’ve figured out what sections work for me and what to write in each one. But, there is still one part I do spend quite a bit of time agonizing over: Lab skills.

It shouldn’t be hard. I’ve taken 1 lab course and 6 courses with lab components, so I do have things to write down. I just don’t know how much of it needs to be written down. My peers have told me that I should write every goddamn thing I can come up with and even marginally justify writing down because getting that lab position is a goddamn competition and I need to be as impressive as I can manage. I’m not quite sure this is the best way to about things and at times it would probably border on lying. Sure, I got to do Technique X one time in my Biology of A class, but that doesn’t mean I could actually do it again independently. I would have no problem writing this down if I knew that whoever is going to be looking at my CV reads it as “LostMarbles has a clue about Technique X and has tried to do it.” But I can never be sure, which makes me question whether I should add certain things.

Another thing that I worry about is listing skills like pipetting. Yeah, I can do it, but so can every other life science undergrad past their 2nd year. An isn’t it implied that I can pipette if I can list techniques that obviously require it? It seems like a waste of space. On the other hand, whoever is reading my CV is probably scanning for keywords, and that might just be one.

tl;dr version: I wish I knew how Professors look at undergraduate lab skills sections on CVs. Anyone feel like helping me out here?

As an added bonus this year, I also get to agonize over whether I should list the 4 submitted meeting abstracts that I’m an author on. And if I do, what section should I put them on.

Faust

2008-11-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

While a sizable chunk of the 12 to 25-year-old female population probably went to see Twilight this weekend, I decided that I’d skip the sparkly vampires and go watch some opera.

The Metropolitain Opera does this really cool thing, were it broadcasts their operas live in HD to some movie theatres. This is pretty goddamn awesome as it cuts out all the things that make me not go to watch opera (dressing up and cost, but I also get subtitles which is a huge plus).

Today they were showing La Damnation de Faust. I can’t comment on the music or the quality of the performance in greater detail than to say that it was enjoyable, OMG was Susan Graham amazing as Marguerite, and the amount of choral music was a huge bonus. What I can talk about is the amazing staging of the opera, particularly in regard to the technology used.

The stage was set up as a multi-storey grid of sorts with projections. During the intermission they gave us a quick rundown of how it was all done, which is where it gets really cool. They set the stage up so that there are two “walls” with images projected onto them and the singers in between. The projections would change in accordance to the movement of characters and the music, but it wasn’t some preset sequence. No, according to the explanations given, they used infra-red detection among other things to actually have the projected images react to the body heat of the singers. This was used to very good effect after “Nature immense, impénétrable et fière” when Mephistopheles tells Faust that Marguerite killed her mother. The scene has a background of trees and as Mephistopheles approaches Faust the trees lose their leaves and die. Really ominous looking stuff and very fitting.

Situational Awareness and Snow

2008-11-20T22:00:00.000-05:00

We had our first real snowfall of the season last night, but i didn't get to enjoy it until the morning when I was done with my lab reports and was getting ready to leave. Looking out my window I noticed everything was white and pretty.I grabbed my camera, opened the window, stuck half my torso out, and snapped a few photos.

Then it hit me. I was wearing nothing but a bra. Situational awareness, I need me some of that.

I survived?

2008-11-20T20:02:00.000-05:00

I wasn’t planning on writing anything as I’ve been “awake” for over 36 hours, but I managed to catch a nap on the bus ride home (before the burly transit cop woke me up to check my ticket). My week has been pretty hellish, but it’s over and I managed to pull it off.

Monday started off with the first of my two presentations. I managed not to have a nervous breakdown and I was told my presentation was good, but I remember nothing between when I tripped going up and when the question period began so I can’t comment.

Tuesday was my second presentation. Unlike Monday’s presentation, I can actually remember this one. Not to say that it was that bad. As presentations go for me it was actually pretty good. I was too exhausted to actually be nervous and due to a fuck up with the projector remote I got to present from off to the side near the projector.

I also got asked a fucking stupid question. It wasn’t even the usual stupid question were the person hasn’t been listening to anything you said and wants you give your talk again in the minute or so you have to answer. No, it was the kind that made you question whether the person managed to pass first year biology. Grr!

As, to why I didn’t sleep... I had two lab reports to hand in today :(

But I’m done. I’m done. I’m done.

Now all that’s left to do is:

Lit review for writing class: draft needs to be finished by Wednesday and it’s due December 1st
Paper review for developmental biology: due December 2nd
Anthropology paper: due December 2nd
Study for anthropology test on December 2nd
Microarray poster: draft due on December 1st, poster session on December 4th
Study for my one exam

I can manage, right?

Mmm...Dinner

2008-11-15T22:52:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged

2008-11-14T21:10:00.000-05:00

...by Eugenie

The rulez:
~Complete meme and post.
~Email the person who tagged you to let them know it's up.
~Tag 5 others and email/comment to tell them so.

5 things I was doing 10 years ago: (I was 10! How am I supposed to remember this?)
1. Playing Pokemon
2. Collecting Pokemon cards
3. Adjusting to my new school
4. Starting to think chemistry was cool
5. Not doing my homework -_-

5 things on my To-Do List Today
1. Finish slides for Monday presentation
2. Get through at least 4 of the 20 articles I need to read
3. Finish introduction for the lab report I have due on Monday
4. Try to download the results of my microarray lab
5. Get more than 6 hours of sleep

5 snacks I love:
1. Dry crushed ramen noodles with a bit of the seasoning sprinkled in
2. Dark chocolate M&Ms
3. Smarties
4. Tangerines
5. Ketchup chips

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. I’d stop worrying about money
2. Travel. I’ve never been to Europe (excluding Russia) for more than 2 days.
3. Own more cats
4. Donate what I can to interesting research
5. Buy a place to live, preferably not a house.

5 places I've lived:
1. Leningrad/St. Petersburg, Russia
2. Rehovot, Israel
3. Some kibbutz in Israel
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Suburb of Toronto

5 jobs I've had:
1. Worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario keeping little kids from swallowing beads and eating plastacine
2. Tutoring grade school science and math
3. Intern at a Clinical Research Organization, doing bitch-work and playing solitaire
4. Research Assistant in a Developmental Psych Lab (where I realised that all the cool psych stuff in the world could not compensate for a lack of cool bio)
5. Research Assistant in statistics at Clinical Research Organization

5 people I'll tag:
:( I'm not sure I could manage 5 people, so I won't even try :P

Things that make me anxious and sad

2008-11-14T15:38:00.000-05:00

I’m not generally a very anxious person. I’ve learned not to worry about things I can’t change and to do something about things I can. However, no matter how hard I try, there’s at least one area where I have trouble applying this: public speaking. I’ve tried almost all the advice given to me (practice, move around, DON’T USE NOTES) and while I’ve probably become a much better speaker than I was in my high school days of stammering and “umm”-ing, I still can’t stop feeling nauseous or keep my hands from shaking. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I have two short presentations to give next week. I’m not at all excited. I’ve jokingly told my friends that I’ll need either plenty of alcohol or a valium to get through the two presentations without at least one session of huddling in the bathroom crying, but I’m not sure I was just joking.

And just to keep this post from being all whiny and annoying, here’s an article from The Onion that one of my professors posted after we finished two weeks of rodent behaviour labs yesterday.

In which I butcher Comrade PhysioProf’s recipe

2008-11-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

As lazy as I am with food on weekdays (1), I try to make an effort to cook decently on weekends because I enjoy it. So when my mom bought some salmon yesterday, I decided that it would make yummy food, I must cook it, and I’m tired of my usual soy + lime + red pepper preparation. I also remembered Comrade PhysioProf’s really awesome sounding fish course from his and Dr. Isis’s Recipe War.

However, being that I’m not particularly fond of following exact recipes (2) and I’m using a different fish, I decided that I could just fuck around with the recipe a bit.

Ingredients

Salmon:
3 250 - 300g salmon fillet (3)
3 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. grated ginger
3 tsp. sesame oil
½ cup white miso
¼ cup mirin
1 tsp. orange zest
2 tbsp. orange juice

Noodles:
100g dry soba noodles
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
6 Tbsp. mirin

Instructions
Combine all the ingredients listed under Salmon in a bowl or other vessel to get the following:

Marinate, in the fridge, for at least 30 minutes. I’m sure Comrade PhysioProf would suggest drinking, but it’s 2 in the afternoon and I already killed my weekly allowance of heptaocytes yesterday (4). Instead, I was treated to half an hour of a Russian Cash Cab (5).

When half an hour ~~of torture~~ is through, take your salmon fillets and spread them out on a foil covered baking sheet (6).

Broil it at 450 ⁰F for 10 minutes on the middle rack and then for 5 minutes, or until slightly charred, on the top rack. You’ll get the following:

For the noodles, just follow Comrade PhysioProf’s recipe. Soba and somen cook the same way, but soba is yummier.

Enjoy! And don’t forget to go thank Comrade PhysioProf for a simple recipe that still works after fucking with some of the ingredients.

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(1)I’ve lived close to a week on instant ramen, even when I wasn’t broke
(2)Exceptions are made for baking, as I’ve seen recipes get fucked by stupid alterations.
(3)Skin on would be awesome, but not necessary
(4)I might write more on this later, but it a bit embarrassing and involves me being a total geek
(5)This is not a pleasant experience. In fact, there are very few things on Russian TV stations that is pleasant.
(6)Seriously, use the foil, it makes cleaning up a million times easier.

Blood

2008-11-07T15:02:00.000-05:00

I mentioned yesterday that I was planning to take a short trip. I did and it was a very short trip. In fact, it was only about a kilometre from where I’m sitting at right now at Gerstein Library. I went to do something that, to my great embarrassment, I haven’t done until now: donate blood.

It was neither as time consuming or bad as I imagined it would be and I think I might start doing it as often as I can ~~remember~~.

If you’re in Canada, check out Canadian Blood Services to find out if you’re eligible to donate and where you can do so. It’s pretty important that people do give blood and it’s a good way of helping someone out even when you’re an almost broke student. Plus you get juice, cookies and an awesome pin (as pictured below).

Should students have their marks publically posted for thier own good?

2008-11-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

I’ve been a bit remiss in regards to posting because I’ve had a lull in school work and I’ve been catching up on sleep. However, when catching up on my blog reading I ran into this post on Sandwalk where Larry Moran asks whether (ignoring the legalities) it would be a good idea to publically post student marks along with names.

His answer:

I like the idea of publishing student's names and grades because it helps make them take responsibility for their activities at university. Very few people agree with me. They all think that a student has a right to privacy.

I’m one of those people who disagree. And it’s not because I would personally object to having my marks displayed with my name. I just don’t see a good argument for doing it.

Larry’s rationale posting marks with names doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t know what he means by taking “responsibility for their activities at university”. What responsibility and for which activities? Based on the comments, I’m assuming that he means taking studies seriously and putting forth a decent attempt at studying. In which case, I’m not buying it at all.

I don’t buy that argument, mostly based on my high school experiences (yes, I know it’s just anecdata). My high school, while not outright listing marks, used to manage to get pretty close to publically announcing everybody’s grades. They did this by having an awards ceremony were students would be given awards for their grades. The awards were so neatly segregated and there were quite a few different one that you would know what everyone got within 5-10%. Additionally, since my school was so small everybody pretty much knew each other’s marks precisely. And, frankly, I don’t remember caring much outside the hour or so we sat through the awards (and even then not much). But this is just my experience, and my high school experience at that.

However, even assuming publishing student marks helped motivate people to be responsible, I don’t see why it should be done at university. I assumed that when I went to university that I’d become responsible for my own successes and failures (like any adult), but if Larry Moran is right I can’t manage that. No, I have to be socially humiliated and shamed (admit it that’s all this argument amounts to) into responsibility.

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P.S. I'll try to make a few more posts in the next couple of days. In fact, depending on whether I end up taking a short trip tomorrow I might have a post up in the afternoon.

Introductions make me uncomfortable

2008-10-29T11:34:00.001-04:00

I’m really very bad at introducing myself. I’m never quite sure what other people want to know about me. But since I don’t live my life as a hermit I’ve managed to pick up enough tricks to at least make an attempt.

The first thing I guess you want to know is my name, which is Lost Marbles. This is either a pseudonym or the result of having truly cruel parents, I’ll let you decide. Some other pertinent information is that I’m 20, female, and from Toronto ~~(do u want 2 cyber?)~~. I’m also a third year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto , studying life sciences (1). You should probably take note of that last one as it’s likely to come up pretty often at this blog.

This is probably also the point at which I explain why I’m keeping a blog. Mostly it’s to try and keep me writing. I’ve never really been confident in my writing abilities, but I have been told I’m not as bad as I imagine myself to be and after taking a writing course this semester I'm starting to believe that might be true. So, since I'm not so terrible that anything I write must not see the light of day and I remember a few cliches about practicing and perfecting things, I'm giving this a try.

Hopefully, this attempt at blogging will be more successful then past attempts. It would be a bit sad if I’m still as boring and filled with teenage angst as I was at fourteen.

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1. I’d be more specific, but I’d like to at least pretend that I can manage pseudonymity