Saturday, December 30, 2006
Monday, December 04, 2006
I should put in an entry before the end of the year.
I’m sitting here in Pete’s comfy chair with my legs propped up against the double-glazed windows (lined with Christmas lights!) waiting for time to pass. (My iMac is so pretty....) I have got work to do but it can wait. I haven’t been to a formal on ages and tonight will be good fun. 11 of us hopefully sufficiently inebriated but not enough to cause a hangover tomorrow.
I’ve been MRI pulse sequence developing at work. I don’t think I go by one day without thinking how much easier it is to write code from scratch than to figure out what someone else’s code. Grrr. I guess that makes it even more satisfying *when* it works. I think the best part of my work is how my supervisor spoils me by agreeing to buy any book I want. And then the dual-core processor with two screens comes a close second.
Oh, and we’ve got fish! For any fish enthusiasts out there, we have a rift lake tank of Malawi Mbuna cichilds. And geeky us have set up a webcam so we can skype them when we are away on holiday!
This is early but I doubt I’d post again before the new year... Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
I’m sitting here in Pete’s comfy chair with my legs propped up against the double-glazed windows (lined with Christmas lights!) waiting for time to pass. (My iMac is so pretty....) I have got work to do but it can wait. I haven’t been to a formal on ages and tonight will be good fun. 11 of us hopefully sufficiently inebriated but not enough to cause a hangover tomorrow.
I’ve been MRI pulse sequence developing at work. I don’t think I go by one day without thinking how much easier it is to write code from scratch than to figure out what someone else’s code. Grrr. I guess that makes it even more satisfying *when* it works. I think the best part of my work is how my supervisor spoils me by agreeing to buy any book I want. And then the dual-core processor with two screens comes a close second.
Oh, and we’ve got fish! For any fish enthusiasts out there, we have a rift lake tank of Malawi Mbuna cichilds. And geeky us have set up a webcam so we can skype them when we are away on holiday!
This is early but I doubt I’d post again before the new year... Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Monday, October 30, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
boo
Brokeback mountain is so sad... I hate sad endings. =(
Boyfriend is away at a course this week so it’s just me and the walls and a large tank of water with some gravel/plants/bogwood in. I think we are going to have African cichlids from Lake Malawi and just them alone as they can be quite aggressive. Luckily they come in many colours so it’ll be pretty! Think it’ll be another couple of weeks before the water is steady enough for the fish... a lot of patience fish-keeping is....
It’s weird thinking how my life is going so slowly at the moment and it seems so easy to stay like this. But movies seem to make time go so quickly and how someone’s end can be so different to the start. I think more and more I would like to go back to Singapore and work at home for a while. More and more I feel nostalgic, childhood memories and all. It’s almost a desperation sometimes to share something that was once so close and familiar with someone else who understands. Perhaps it's the independence I once had and now am slowly losing. (I don’t know if this really is it - I have to think more about it.) But then again, I can’t bear the thought of leaving England and not seeing friends here ever again. Yeah I know it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Anyway, thoughts aside. Yay! My first year report/viva is done! The assessors seem to think that I’ve progressed well in the first year which is surprising cos IMO I’ve done FA compared to my fourth year project. And I’ll try not to write another report in .doc again.
Well, I’ve been up since 4am (when the radiographers aren’t shoving NHS patients in and out of the MR scanner) so I’m going to bed soon....
Oh well ;)
Boyfriend is away at a course this week so it’s just me and the walls and a large tank of water with some gravel/plants/bogwood in. I think we are going to have African cichlids from Lake Malawi and just them alone as they can be quite aggressive. Luckily they come in many colours so it’ll be pretty! Think it’ll be another couple of weeks before the water is steady enough for the fish... a lot of patience fish-keeping is....
It’s weird thinking how my life is going so slowly at the moment and it seems so easy to stay like this. But movies seem to make time go so quickly and how someone’s end can be so different to the start. I think more and more I would like to go back to Singapore and work at home for a while. More and more I feel nostalgic, childhood memories and all. It’s almost a desperation sometimes to share something that was once so close and familiar with someone else who understands. Perhaps it's the independence I once had and now am slowly losing. (I don’t know if this really is it - I have to think more about it.) But then again, I can’t bear the thought of leaving England and not seeing friends here ever again. Yeah I know it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Anyway, thoughts aside. Yay! My first year report/viva is done! The assessors seem to think that I’ve progressed well in the first year which is surprising cos IMO I’ve done FA compared to my fourth year project. And I’ll try not to write another report in .doc again.
Well, I’ve been up since 4am (when the radiographers aren’t shoving NHS patients in and out of the MR scanner) so I’m going to bed soon....
Oh well ;)
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
all mac-ed out
Been downloading software and burning dvds for the past four hours now. Dvd2one is great for anyone who wants to rip a dual-layer dvd (which most movies are these days) to a regular 4.7gb dvd.
First year report, almost done.....
First year report, almost done.....
Monday, July 31, 2006
THE DARK AGES by Kate Muir
It is reassuring when someone writes a book which confirms some of your own secret thoughts and vices. So when I got my hands on a early copy of Friendship: An Expose by Joseph Epstein, which is not yet out in Britain, I retired to Regent's Park to wallow in its wickedness.
Epstein, an American academic and dilettante, explains quite honestly that friendship just takes up too much time; friends require too much obligation and reciprocity; and some are so needy or loquacious that the returns are horribly limited. Epstein estimates that he has 75 friends, after pruning, and some that he'll never see again. One imagines that he will have fewer friends now he has written this book.
Epsteins describes himself as a "gregarious melancholic, a highly sociable misanthrope". His ego is not small. He considers himself to be a "trophy friend", one that lesser persons aspire to dine with. Celebrities tend to have trophy friends, because it makes them feel safer. Hence, for instance, the Hurley-Beckham-Elton John nexus.
Trophy friends are as disposable as back copes of heat, but can long-lasting friendships be deep without being obsessive? Epstein takes on the taboo subject of our social foibles and failings: "A friend, like a teacher or a clergyman, need not always feel that he or she is falling short of an impossible ideal."
The problem that we have old-fashioned notions of loyalty, yet the traditional parameters of friendship have been exploited by e-mail, text messaging and dirt-cheap flights. "Technology has brought friendships into bloom that might never have been planted 30 years ago," says Epstein. it is perfectly possible to count a hundred good friends in your address book, whereas a hundred years ago you might have had five.
Too many people assume that friendships are like flowers, needing regular watering, when in fact they can lie happily dormant. I find this with friends from America or France, who lead roughly parallel lives to my own. After a quick kid count, we can pick up exactly where we left off.
There are still those who have impossible high expectations of their friends, and once failure and guilt sets in, so does the emotional rot. "The standard of what constitutes a genuine friend has, I believe, been altered," says Epstein. Now, I think, one's friends need not be perfect in all situations, and vice-versa. Friends need not meet the standards expected of a live-in partner. For instance, I have a comrade who wears his father's old shirts, grime-rimmed at the neck. He is very formal and slightly whiffy in hot weather. Yet so long as you maintain a 2ft gap and a two-cocktail minimum, he is one of the most entertaining people out.
Friendships will tick along nicely - until someone shacks up with the wrong partner. You cannot believe they are this blind and stupid, and they can smell your repressed animosity. So old friends are reduced to lunchtime assignations, and then nothing. This happens to even the fanciest people: the writes V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux were friends for 30 years, and then had a break-up "precipitated by a new and hostile wife". Theroux wrote a raw, mean and very funny book about Naipaul afterwards.
I do not think friendship should be a moveable feast. Proper friends should last, like a good pair of Manolos. Epstein says the friends he keeps have a moral stance that he values above intellect - "kindness, generosity, amused self-deprecation". But it is true that the recruitment of new friends is limited by the shortness of time, both daily and in the carpe diem sense, which I like to incorrectly translate as seize the carp.
Once you've had friends for 40 years, you know what you like. A few months ago, two Americans moved into our part of town, and I could tell within minutes that their irony level was just right. Now if they come round, such terrible drunkeness ensues that I find myself waving a raw leg of lamb around at 10pm when we're meant to be having dinner. The new friendship is socially but not always gastronomically successful.
All is fair in love and friendship, and sometimes you, too, get the heave. If you have committed a crime, this is acceptable, but if it's someone for whom you feel deep affection, and there is no explanation forthcoming, it niggles painfully for years. Or as Beth Kephart write in Into the Tangle of Friendship: "I didn't realise that you can't make old friends, that you can only lose them, and in losing them you walk around with a void inside that you can never adequately explain."
I can't say how much I agree with this article and happy to have friends with the same sort of relationship. The ease of picking up the phone and have a guilt-free conversation despite being out of touch for months. It is true that being in touch makes it easier to stay clued in on what's happening, however like the article suggests, surely it's not a necessary criterion for a long-lasting friendship. =D
It is reassuring when someone writes a book which confirms some of your own secret thoughts and vices. So when I got my hands on a early copy of Friendship: An Expose by Joseph Epstein, which is not yet out in Britain, I retired to Regent's Park to wallow in its wickedness.
Epsteins describes himself as a "gregarious melancholic, a highly sociable misanthrope". His ego is not small. He considers himself to be a "trophy friend", one that lesser persons aspire to dine with. Celebrities tend to have trophy friends, because it makes them feel safer. Hence, for instance, the Hurley-Beckham-Elton John nexus.
Trophy friends are as disposable as back copes of
The problem that we have old-fashioned notions of loyalty, yet the traditional parameters of friendship have been exploited by e-mail, text messaging and dirt-cheap flights. "Technology has brought friendships into bloom that might never have been planted 30 years ago," says Epstein. it is perfectly possible to count a hundred good friends in your address book, whereas a hundred years ago you might have had five.
Too many people assume that friendships are like flowers, needing regular watering, when in fact they can lie happily dormant. I find this with friends from America or France, who lead roughly parallel lives to my own. After a quick kid count, we can pick up exactly where we left off.
There are still those who have impossible high expectations of their friends, and once failure and guilt sets in, so does the emotional rot. "The standard of what constitutes a genuine friend has, I believe, been altered," says Epstein. Now, I think, one's friends need not be perfect in all situations, and vice-versa. Friends need not meet the standards expected of a live-in partner. For instance, I have a comrade who wears his father's old shirts, grime-rimmed at the neck. He is very formal and slightly whiffy in hot weather. Yet so long as you maintain a 2ft gap and a two-cocktail minimum, he is one of the most entertaining people out.
Friendships will tick along nicely - until someone shacks up with the wrong partner. You cannot believe they are this blind and stupid, and they can smell your repressed animosity. So old friends are reduced to lunchtime assignations, and then nothing. This happens to even the fanciest people: the writes V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux were friends for 30 years, and then had a break-up "precipitated by a new and hostile wife". Theroux wrote a raw, mean and very funny book about Naipaul afterwards.
I do not think friendship should be a moveable feast. Proper friends should last, like a good pair of Manolos. Epstein says the friends he keeps have a moral stance that he values above intellect - "kindness, generosity, amused self-deprecation". But it is true that the recruitment of new friends is limited by the shortness of time, both daily and in the carpe diem sense, which I like to incorrectly translate as seize the carp.
Once you've had friends for 40 years, you know what you like. A few months ago, two Americans moved into our part of town, and I could tell within minutes that their irony level was just right. Now if they come round, such terrible drunkeness ensues that I find myself waving a raw leg of lamb around at 10pm when we're meant to be having dinner. The new friendship is socially but not always gastronomically successful.
All is fair in love and friendship, and sometimes you, too, get the heave. If you have committed a crime, this is acceptable, but if it's someone for whom you feel deep affection, and there is no explanation forthcoming, it niggles painfully for years. Or as Beth Kephart write in Into the Tangle of Friendship: "I didn't realise that you can't make old friends, that you can only lose them, and in losing them you walk around with a void inside that you can never adequately explain."
I can't say how much I agree with this article and happy to have friends with the same sort of relationship. The ease of picking up the phone and have a guilt-free conversation despite being out of touch for months. It is true that being in touch makes it easier to stay clued in on what's happening, however like the article suggests, surely it's not a necessary criterion for a long-lasting friendship. =D
Thursday, July 13, 2006
summertime
Been feeling a bit moody recently. A few deaths going on about. Not anyone I know personally. A wife of a guy who comes to the pub. A lecturer at Churchill. It scares me quite a bit when I think that I've not actually missed someone. That I've not attended a funeral of someone I knew. I wonder what I'll feel. I cry when I think of someone who's lost someone else. What will it be like when I'm one of them? Pretty depressing stuff huh.
Anyway, we're moving! Yippee. Out of Great Shelford and into Cherry Hinton. Gone are the cold winter months and freezing showers. We'll get the keys to the bigger and better located flat in early August. Pete's got a couple of fishtanks (one's 5 feet long!!!) off ebay. [note to myself: he must ask letting agency if it's okay keeping fish.] We had a really nice evening a few days ago, to celebrate us getting the new flat. Had steak and a nice bottle of champagne. Just us talking about us. Unconciously growing in this relationship. Considering what a mess I was before, I cannot believe how lucky I am. =)
Anyway, we're moving! Yippee. Out of Great Shelford and into Cherry Hinton. Gone are the cold winter months and freezing showers. We'll get the keys to the bigger and better located flat in early August. Pete's got a couple of fishtanks (one's 5 feet long!!!) off ebay. [note to myself: he must ask letting agency if it's okay keeping fish.] We had a really nice evening a few days ago, to celebrate us getting the new flat. Had steak and a nice bottle of champagne. Just us talking about us. Unconciously growing in this relationship. Considering what a mess I was before, I cannot believe how lucky I am. =)
Thursday, April 20, 2006
day off
Took the day off work today. I've got a bit of a sore throat and I don't have anything important at work anyway. Doing a further degree is fantastic - the flexibility of an academic life is very attractive indeed.
We went to Kit and Kuki's wedding last weekend, and also to New Forest and Stonehenge. Saw some deer (just found out that the plural of deer is deer!) and many free-roaming ponies in New Forest. It's quite cool how they have ponies grazing outside people's homes.
Here's a picture of Stonehenge
Finally got round to visiting this place after talking about it for such a long time. We weren't expecting much since someone else was really putting us off by saying how crap it was and how you couldn't go right up to the stones and walk amidst them. So we got there in nice sunny late afternoon and enjoyed the short audio tour around the stones.
Other than that, my flow phantom for my project is finally coming together. I've got this small but heavy servo-driven gear pump that is supposed to simulate pulsatile flow. Just have to make it work now *cross fingers*
We went to Kit and Kuki's wedding last weekend, and also to New Forest and Stonehenge. Saw some deer (just found out that the plural of deer is deer!) and many free-roaming ponies in New Forest. It's quite cool how they have ponies grazing outside people's homes.
Here's a picture of Stonehenge
Finally got round to visiting this place after talking about it for such a long time. We weren't expecting much since someone else was really putting us off by saying how crap it was and how you couldn't go right up to the stones and walk amidst them. So we got there in nice sunny late afternoon and enjoyed the short audio tour around the stones.
Other than that, my flow phantom for my project is finally coming together. I've got this small but heavy servo-driven gear pump that is supposed to simulate pulsatile flow. Just have to make it work now *cross fingers*
Thursday, March 09, 2006
nothing much
Nothing bad happening in my life so that's why it's been a bit quiet here. Yes, I'm happily going on with my research in MRI and trying to find something astounding so that I can win a Nobel Prize. Really.
So it should be fair that I give a brief account of what's happened so far this year (at least of events that I can remember)...
New year was fantastic at Alice and Dave's new pad in London - very posh with a 42 inch plasma, white sofas and full length windows. Then we went home to Singapore for Chinese New Year - my first one since forever. The stay was not long enough - I didn't catch up with everyone and with those I did, it wasn't "in-depth" enough! We went up to Pete's home in Durham and I'd put my new walking boots to good use on some distant cousin of the Pennines.
Well, guess that's all for now. I can't think of anything to say now. I miss home quite a bit and have more thoughts about going back to Singapore at some point. Then again, maybe not. I just hate paying tax.
So it should be fair that I give a brief account of what's happened so far this year (at least of events that I can remember)...
New year was fantastic at Alice and Dave's new pad in London - very posh with a 42 inch plasma, white sofas and full length windows. Then we went home to Singapore for Chinese New Year - my first one since forever. The stay was not long enough - I didn't catch up with everyone and with those I did, it wasn't "in-depth" enough! We went up to Pete's home in Durham and I'd put my new walking boots to good use on some distant cousin of the Pennines.
Well, guess that's all for now. I can't think of anything to say now. I miss home quite a bit and have more thoughts about going back to Singapore at some point. Then again, maybe not. I just hate paying tax.
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