Rantings of a Diseased Mind

I was thinking about this on the walk to the lab the other day.  I was thinking how grad school is like that bubble trap from the movie The Prisoner.  It's easy to get in, once your in it's like time stops, and it's almost impossible to escape from (or at least that's how it seems to me lately).  Since most of the people in grad school are essentially the same as they were in undergrad it seems as though time stops for them.  When I think of people outside of the sphere of academia I picture them as they were in fourth year; this is the fundamental reason why I have such issues with my highschool friends getting married and having kids.  Because I haven't matured into those things I assume no one has and am constantly surprised by life's progression outside my bubble of existence.  To me time is standing still until I finish school, for others I'm sure it's barreling by at an ever-increasing speed as relationships continue and kids get older.  At times I stop and think "What am I doing with my life?"  I'm getting closer to 30 than I'd care to admit and have nothing to show for it!  No serious, stable relationship, no kids, no real "adult" responsibilities of any kind.  Nothing except the lab and all its time-sucking glory.  There are exceptions to this however, a few friends have managed to go and get themselves married during school and fewer still (only one that I know personally) have managed to pop out a kid during the last years of their schooling.  I am unreasonably jealous of these people.  They've managed to complete grad school and beat the bubble.
 Somedays I just feel like this:

5f23_081

You scored as Friedrich Nietzsche. You are Friedrich Nietzsche.  You are a sweet philosopher who belived that humans are caught up in "herds" and need to break free and be individuals.  Also, there are no standards to judge against, because "God is dead."  You also probably suffer from a mental illness, probably due to some form of an untreated STD, and will most likely suffer a mental collapse. Friedrich Nietzsche 86% Albert Camus 75% Martin Heidegger 71% Soren Kierkegaard 50% Not An Existentialist 39% Jean-Paul Sartre 32%

Which Existentialist Philosopher Are You?
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I like diving.  Not from platforms but the kind that uses air tanks and regulators.  SCUBA.  The kind that allows you stay underwater for hours.  Ok, not hours (unless you have the two tank dealie) but for an hour, depending on the depth.  I love the weightless, slow motion of the whole process, the applied physics and chemistry.  The extremes: the clunky, slow moving, noisy diver versus the elegant, swift moving sealife.  The silence.  It's quiet down there.  Sometimes you hear boats passing overhead but mostly there is just the sounds of the water.  You can always hear your breathing, the bubbles being ejected from the second stage regulator (the bit that goes into to your mouth and delivers that oh-so necessary air) and the subsequent hiss of air rushing into your mouth, the sound of the diaphragm in the regulator snapping closed again.  Watching the bubbles drift upwards to break on the surface is one of my favourite things.  Apart from the fish, and the plant life, and the silence and the feeling of flying.  This, my friends, is the real reason I dive.  To soar over the sea bed, gliding over the bottom like some ungainly bird.  Watching your shadow drift beneath you.  In this there is such a feeling of peace and serenity.  I find diving to be therapeutic that way.  I have never been sky diving so the next statement is merely conjecture but I imagine it has none of the peace and quiet that diving has.  Plummeting towards the ground at ever-increasing speeds does not sound like a good way to relax.  At least not to me anyways.  Perhaps hang-gliding would be more my speed although I imagine the landing to be a tad stressful.  In diving there is no harsh meeting of body with ground.  There is only the slow rise of your body to meet the surface.  It's important to go slowly, slower than your bubbles, never faster.  If you do rise too quickly you risk having the dissolved gases in your blood come out of solution, into tiny bubbles, wreaking havoc on your organs and joints.  A condition known as "the Bends", which nobody wants, unless it's the Radiohead album.  If you remember the rules of diving, which are mostly common sense, then you're fine.  You'll be fine and you'll experience something truly peaceful and wonderful.

I'm not writing this so you'll read it, in fact I sincerely hope you never do, but instead this is my way of getting these thoughts outside my head.  I'm tired of them rattling around in there distracting me from the more pleasant things in my life, such as the beautiful weather and Ottawa's playoff performance thus far.  Go Sens go!
After much thinking, and discussing among my friends and family, over our last 5 emails, which I've forwarded to others in order to get their opinions, and the last morning I have come to the following conclusions:
- Yes, I probably am a bit selfish and I'm working on that.  In my defense, one does not complete a graduate degree without having to be at least a little selfish.  It's not an easy thing to do, my friends and I are living testaments to that.  Living on one's own doesn't help either, you get accustomed to thinking only of yourself and it's hard to get out of that mindset.  But I don't think it's something I can't fix, it just may take some time.
- There is a strong aura of insincerity about you.  This is the reason I never felt fully at ease during our relationship.  You did all the right things but it never felt, to me anyways, that you meant them.  More like you were just doing them because it's what was expected of you.  People can sense that, not just me.  Maybe that's why you've had trouble keeping a girlfriend in the past.
- Your arrogance is an issue I think you seriously need to think over and address.  It is a very negative thing to have associated with you and is another reason why you haven't had much luck with longterm relationships, at least in my opinion.  It's also hard to grow as a person when you already believe yourself to be best that you be.  You're not the best you can be but you could be.  It's easier to learn when you're humble.  Try it and see.
- You're also a very cold-hearted person.  Actions displayed on Sunday revealed that me; have you ever heard the adage "actions speak louder than words"?  Twice in our relationship, and thrice that day, there was simple things you could have done to make things better but purposefully, again in my opinion, you withheld them (how is a hug ever too much to ask).  Why?  I don't know and I don't really care to find out.  I imagine it's because you're trying to exert a form of control over me.  And, or, you're afraid of providing solace to another individual, that makes me pity you.  It must be lonesome to emotionally isolate yourself from others like that.   At least I have my friends and family to turn to when I need them, and they're always there when I need them and nothing is ever too much to ask.  Not even a hug.
Well, that's it.  That's all I have to say to you.  You're stuff is in the mail, I didn't piss in box, I didn't even stomp on it though I really wanted to.  The Tina Vance picture is not included.  I like it and am keeping it, too bad for you.  I'd also like the other pair of Dravens.  I can't imagine you know anyone with size 5 feet who would wear shoes adorned with skulls, panthers and knives dripping blood.  I sincerely hope you get everything you want out of life.
Best Regards,
MLS

Ok, I got one.  What is the deal with women's purses?  I have a whole bag of purses, bags, satchels, etc. that I use for a while and then stuff into storage never to be seen by human eyes again.  In fact, I just purchased a new bag, a giant blue leather beast from Danier Leather that was to be my "final" bag, that is now not meeting all of my bag requirements.  Thank God it was on sale.  How have my bag needs changed so drastically in six months?  Well, for one thing it doesn't have a shoulder strap.  Just those little loopy deals that almost fit onto your shoulder but are too long for hands-only holding.  Hands-only doesn't really work for me anyways as I am notorious for needing to touch everything when I'm out, this means the bag gets put down and forgotten about.  Not good, especially when my entire life's worth of ID is in that bag.  So, all this means that shoulder straps are becoming important criteria for my next bag.  I went through the bag of bags on the weekend only to realize that every bag in there doesn't quite meet all my needs: too small, too shallow, strap too long, strap too short, ugly, wool (therefore itchy in the summer), not enough pockets, tin (and therefore loud - I prefer to operate in Ninja Stealth Mode), material too thin (feels like all my junk is gonna fall out) and so and so forth until there are no more bags to choose from.

The best bag I think I'd ever owned came from Old Navy and was some army ripoff thing.  This bag was the perfect size, had a couple pockets and the strap was fully adjustable, although it was a tad on the ugly side.  I also had a great pin to go with it that stated "Bush is a terrorist" in bold lettering, got a lot of flack for that pin from overzealous Americans but it was worth it just for the reactions.  The army bag eventually developed a few too many holes and had to be put to rest.  Now I'm wishing I had repaired it instead of just chucking it.  Live and learn.

This leaves me on an eternal quest for bags that don't suck, look interesting, right size, adjustable strap, a few pockets but not too many and are cheap given that my history with bags could be described as "flighty".  Here's a tune about a bag.

12 Little Green Bag

So, for those who are interested, I am still alive.  Recently, I have been going through "a thing" and have not felt like posting but the "thing" is pretty much over so I will think of a lovely and entertaining something to rant about, will write such rant and post for all the world to see.  Not that I think a lot any people actually read this, it's still nice to know there could be people reading this, caring what I write and thinking I am the bee's knees.  No, I will not be writing about the "thing", suffice it to say it's a common occurrence and I got over it surprisingly quick.  That doesn't mean it still doesn't bother me but I realize that it was probably one of the better things that could have happened to me at this point in time.  Now, you can draw your own conclusions from these two statements and make up some wild stories that are probably ten times more interesting than the real story.  Imagination is a God-send that way.

Ok, the rain has let up so I'm gonna make me a dash to the lab for some sciencey fun.

Its My Life (CDS)

...Need your help!  This has been occupying far too much of time:

Cows!

So far I've made it to level 16, some of the levels are ridiculously easy, some require a lot of fiddling around to get the sequence of arrows just right.  Either way, it beats playing WoW with respect to using one's brain meats.  I fear my meats don't get as much use as they should.  "Thinking gives you wrinkles!" as goes the popular quote.  Ok, so it's not popular but it was on a popular TV show.  Can anyone identify the show and the character that said it?  If you can I will be mightily impressed and disgusted.  Disgusted because there will be at least one other person on the planet with as much useless knowledge in their meats as I have in mine.

I'm good at trivia though, so I guess it's not all bad.

In my experience I have found almost everything to be cyclical, not just the obvious stuff like the seasons or the rising and setting of the sun but things like lab productivity, relationships and video gaming.  I find things seem to wax and wane on their own schedules, moving around me as I float on through the ether of my life. 

There is an example of evolution itself being subjected to this phenomenon.  Somewhere outside of London, England there lives a mottled, light grey species of moth whose name escapes me and colour enables it to blend in perfectly with the trunks of the trees there.  During the Industrial Revolution, when factories were pumping out enough coal smoke to turn the surrounding tree trunks black, this moth became easy for birds to spot against the blackness of tree trunks, subsequently its numbers began to decline.  In response to the increased predation, it evolved to a much darker, almost black, mottled grey.  All the better to hide from the birds and the species recovered.  As the use of coal subsided, the trees began revert to their original trunk colour of light grey and, eventually, so did the moths.  Just as a little coloured moth on a dark background is easy to spot so is a dark moth on a light coloured background.  So clearly this cyclical pattern of events is not limited to occurrences in my own little world.

The cycle of result-obtaining in the lab was the first example of this I noticed following an almost sinusoidal cycle of "things working" then "not working".  For months experiments fail to work, cells randomly die or become contaminated and even the simple prep kits cease to work.  Then, seemingly at a random point in the time and irrespective of circumstance, the flow reverses and things start working, growing, whatevering.  Months with not a single, usable result erased in a torrent of activity yielding several results and as mysteriously as the good fortune began, the tide shifts yet again, back down into the trough of non-productivity and unusable results.

I've noticed friendships following this trend as well, and would say this was the second example to enter my consciousness.  Long periods where I like the person and am able to deal with all of their idiosyncracies without so much as batting an eye then a phase where the person morphs into my kryponite, where I become, in extreme instances, unable to tolerate even being in the same room as that individual.  There is no event to trigger this change, something in me just decides to ebb instead of flow.  I try not to treat the object of my tidal affections any differently but simply try to distance myself ever so slightly during the down times.  As with the lab, this eventually rights itself and, hopefully as it is never anything they've done, that person is none-the-wiser.  I have wondered if this happens in the relationships of other people.  How then do their two respective Sine Curves of Tolerance match up?  Do they overlap with both parties experiencing ebbs and flows at the same time?  What if both parties are in a trough when an adverse situation arises?  Will they be able to deal with the situation and their relationship simultaneously or will they simply crumble?  What if the curves are exactly offset with one party at a peak while the other is in a trough?  What then?  Doesn't seem fair that one party should always be slightly irritated with the other.  I would think this causes undue strain, again leading to failure of the relationship.  So is the answer then that, ideally, the curves should be slightly offset? Perhaps by (1/4)lamda?  This way one party is in the downward process while the other is entering the  upward phase?  I would think this is best if forced to choose from the three but I really couldn't say with any certainty.  If I was writing an exam and had to give an answer I would say the best situation is where one person stays constant while the other is free to oscillate.  These would be the most stable, longest lasting relationships in my opinion.

In video games the trend dictates how much I play it.  Am I consumed by the game, constantly playing it and ignoring all outside stimuli or am I dead sick of it, unable to touch the thing yet alone immerse myself in it.  Blizzard's World of War is the specific example I am referring to.  I have gone through the cycles of can't-get-enough-have-to-play-or-I'll-die and good-Lord-I-don't-want-to-even-think-of-this-game-or-I'll-vomit-everywhere.  In the case of WoW though it seems to benefit.  Having well-rested characters means that when I do start playing I am able to level up quickly which usually begins the all-consuming-game-play phase so the cycle continues.

I'm assuming I'm not the only one subjected to this phenomenon, that others have cycles in their lives.  Now that I've become aware of them perhaps I can use this knowledge to predict when they will occur and prepare myself accordingly.  After all, isn't that the first step?  I hope so.

I don't post here as much as I would like to.  I would love to be able to come up with interesting and entertaining posts but when I sit down I find my brain empty, devoid of anything interesting or entertaining.  This is odd as my brain is usually quite busy, I have issues turning it off at times especially at bedtime.  The first urge is to simply write about whatever situation I find myself in but this would truly be an online diary and not a repository of interesting thoughts.  Who wants to read about grocery shopping, my ridiculous new landlord or what new devilry is afoot in the lab?  Well, now that I write it like that it sounds much more interesting than it really is. 

What I had originally envisioned this page as was more of a place to put the rants that my friends find so entertaining.  At least I think they find them entertaining, they laugh when I rant.  I hope it's not that uncomfortable laughter.  I should ask them.  Instead I haven't done that but have only written about actual events in my life and not the thoughts that go through my head.  The act of writing is cathartic in itself so I guess that's what this page is really about.  It's the place in which I can spew the troubling thoughts from my head into the ether of the interwebs where they degrade into nothingness and are purged from my life.  I guess that means that I will have to relate the bizarre antics of my new landlord, Tom.  Perhaps tomorrow, or the next day.

So, that's what this page will be...my catharsis, meaning this page is more for me than for the followers of my life.  Sometimes I find the thoughts getting tangled in the neurons in my brain so I will use this page as a pensieve (if you haven't read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire you won't know what that is).  I could unburden myself on friends and family but that becomes draining on them after a while.

Well, this thought has been purged.  Over and out.

Phew, I'm bad at this remember-to-blog business but here we go.  This weekend I took a trip up to Ottawa for the sole purpose of shopping at the Ikea store.  It seems that everytime I move, which as a student tends to be every couple of years, I require a visit to this store in order to buy things that are needed, wanted or will help better organize the new place.  This visit was no exception.

In the needed column were knives, measuring cups and spoons, a wok, a small rug to go by the front door and a shower organizer.  The want column only consists of two items: a neat-o lamp that hangs on the wall and a silicon ice star tray.  I say ice star because the shape of the ice is that of a five pointed star and not a boring old cube.  For the low, low price of $1.99 I think it will totally worth it come the summer when everyone is commenting on how much cooler (no pun intended) my ice stars make one's drink. Well, at least I'll be thinking that, I have no idea what other's will think.  Probably won't even notice or maybe wonder why my ice has sharp corners?  The only items purchased for organizing were a shelf to go in the bathroom, a cutlery tray and a little set of hooks for a wardrobe door.  I own plenty for organizing now so there wasn't much point in buying more.  Well, not at this point in time anyhow.

There was one other item, with a rather hefty price tag, that did not fit into any one of the above categories (it fit in two) and that was a 170cm x 230cm purple wool rug.  I need it because it will help cover the floor and keep my feet warm.  I want it because it's wool but it didn't need to be wool, acrylic would have sufficed.  I wanted it to be wool, I love the feeling and smell of wool.  And purple but not a sickening shade of purple.  With yellow leafy-type outlines on it.  It's pretty.

I don't know what it is about the Ottawa Ikea but everytime I'm there it's always packed.  Like it's the last Ikea on earth and everybody just got giant new houses packed.  It's a giant pain to find a parking spot that is closer than a 5 minute walk from car to store and the store is so full of people that it's nearly impossible to not bash with them with your overloaded buggy.  That doesn't mean I haven't hit people.  It's hard to miss people when they stop directly in front of you and your buggy contains about 500 lbs of cheap housewares.

Ikea seemed to be designed to be a baffling shopping ordeal.  Firstly, there's the maze-like main aisle that meanders its way through the different sections: sitting, lamps, shelves, kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, wardrobes, kids, office, etc.  I say meanders because it really does resemble a river, a river of flesh and winter coats, but instead of flowing into the ocean, it flows to the cash registers after traveling through the delta that is the warehouse.  It's quite hard to go against the current of humanity, say if you forgot light bulbs for your new light fixture, much like paddling against the current in a river is.  Second, items aren't necessarily in the section you'd think them to be in. Case in point: garbage bins.  There isn't one section for garbage bins but instead there are bins in each section of the house where you would find a bin such as a bathroom, kitchen or office.  The bins found in each section differ but if you just went in for a garbage bin you would have to travel to three different parts of the store, taking into account that it will take you ten times longer because of the meandering.  And Lord forbid if you should have to go against the flow to get the bin in Kitchen because you liked it better than the one in Office.  There are these little alleys designed to be shortcuts to different sections but I find these to be even more confusing that just going with the flow until you eventually reach your intended destination is my preferred method of travel.  Very much the same idea as river tubing, you'll get there eventually but not anytime soon so just relax and enjoy the Swedish-inspired scenery.

Oops, timer went, no more for today.