job search

The magnitude of my spending is horribly out of proportion to the amount that I am making, so I have once again been job searching. This ad, in particular, intrigues me very much. 

"Must be able to carry out fine needle work type of operation on very small flower buds"

If only I could drive....

galatea of the spheres

I went to the Salvador Dali exhibition this morning (which was a journey through at least 6 or 7 rooms of work spanning from when he was a teenager to when he was an octogenarian - I was hungry by the end of it) and decided this was my favourite piece. It was inspired by his fascination with nuclear physics and atoms in particular. The idea of the world consisting of particles suspended in air, never actually touching each other, is beautiful and fragile. 

seldom comes

It takes me longer and longer to finish a roll of film. I'm not sure if it's because my 'creative eye' has become jaded and can no longer bother to find little gems in mundane life, or that I just put myself in situations where little gems are seldom. A question to all photography enthusiasts out there: do you feel as though your camera is obtrusive? I feel as though mine is growing larger and larger, so it stays on my shelf collecting dust for most of the time. Most people at university don't know I like taking photos, but then again I don't know them well enough yet to impose a lens in front of their face. I wish cameras were invisible, or that I could take screencaps from my retina and somehow transfer them onto something physical. A future project for bio-engineers perhaps?

Anyway, I'll stop contemplating now. Here are some photos from the start of May through to today.

I actually started this roll intending to finish it in one weekend. It was a camp I went on with others in my faculty. We had good weather, a pleasant surprise. 

Skipping rocks in the ocean is hard.


A starfish.

Alana on one of our brunch dates.


A quaint little shop which I insisted on furtively taking photos in. I later saw a sign saying "You are under video surveillance".

Alana said she had been pointing it out to me earlier but I was being non-responsive. We were not reprimanded though. The  old lady at the counter just smiled when we left sheepishly.

A coffee date with Maddy during a break between my exams.

Pretty rainbow thread from a sewing party I held.

Delicious cream cheese icing...

...with magnificently vibrant red velvet cake underneath! 60mL of red food colouring was sacrificed in the making of this cake. The process was rather macabre at times.

Coffee and dessert in the park after a satisfying lunch. Gabby is prying apart the pages which have stuck together. The books is new but 2nd hand, and it is of poetry by John Donne. We have extremely different taste in reading material. 

Oliver's pretty long tresses.

Sensuous reclining position...

I thought about rationing this roll of film and only posting a few pictures at a time, in weekly or fortnightly intervals, so that there wouldn't be such a long gap between photo posts. But that would just be silly.

things which make the past 48 hours pretty good

- Waking up at midday 

- Eating large juicy segments of pink grapefruit

- Listening to Louis Armstrong

- Walking to the tramstop in the sun

- Doing the above three simultaneously

- Finishing up a roll of film

- Deep pockets

- Hiding frilly socks under long jeans

- Recognising songs in movies

- Wearing the exact same outfit two days in a row

- Non-stringy fringe

- Changing to a better internet plan

- Enjoying a large cookie in the park on a sunny afternoon

yi yi

爸比，你看到的我看不到，我看到的你也看不到啊。我怎么知道你在看什么呢？

恩。。。你问的这问题爸比还没想到过呢。。。可是我们不是有照相机嘛？那我教你拍照你又不想学。

爸比，我们是不是只能知道一半的事情啊？ 

你在问什么？ 爸比听不懂。

我只能看到前面看不到后面。这样不是就有一半的事情看不到了嘛？

你问题好像太多了。。。

An excellent piece of dialogue between Yang Yang and his father from the movie Yi Yi by Edward Yang. Admittedly, I had only borrowed this from the video store because the title is the same as my Chinese nickname....Sorry, if you don't understand Chinese, but trust me, it's worth Google translating. 

cheap-ish perhaps, but never free

Maybe I am yet to be disillusioned, but right now I wish there was more truth to the statement "the best things in life are free". Hm...where is my sense of imagination?

florals

Anyone who has ever been shopping with me knows that I have an incontrollable attraction to florals (liberty print, in particular, cause the most volatile of reactions). I was just trying to create some order in my wardrobe when I realised that almost everything I own is either floral or a neutral colour. Yet even at this dangerous state, I still can not stop my insatiable desire to adorn myself in flowers, flowers and more flowers. One day I will be so consumed by this sartorial tendency that you will not even see me. I will just be a mobile humanoid flowerbed. People will hire me to be the organic entertainment of garden parties and I will create a great ambience.

analysis of two chicken cup-a-soup flavours

Creamy Chicken and Corn Cup-a-Soup is not really creamy at all. It is most similar to the consistency of Italian hot chocolate, but not nearly as tasty. The viscosity and blandness combined make the soup very difficult to swallow, the only motivation being the somewhat exciting rehydrated kernels of corn. Similarly, there is nothing Chinese about the Lots-a-Noodles Chinese Chicken flavour, but it is undeniably more satisfying than the Creamy Chicken and Corn. My biggest criticism would be that there appears to be bits of parsley present in the soup. An unfortunate faux pas as I'm pretty sure parsley is not used in Chinese cooking.

It would be impossible to rename the two flavours 100% accurately without causing an adverse affect on their sales, but an equilibrium between honesty to customers and profit margins could probably be reached with names such as Chicken and Sweet Corn instead of Creamy Chicken and Corn and Hearty Chicken and Noodles instead of Lots-a-Noodles Chinese Chicken. Whilst the corn kernels are only sweet if you let them linger in your mouth for long enough, it is at least a more truthful promise than "creamy". As for the Hearty Chicken and Noodle, images of rustic hearty stews do conjure in my mind when I see the satisfyingly plump rehyrdrated noodles float to the surface when hot water is added. My conclusion is that the marketing directors of Cup-a-Soup need to focus more on the strengths of their soups' flavours, rather than just throw in any adjective that may sell the product. I think good parenting should reflect a similar approach.

another way of making online communication more confusing

A "like" button next to people's names on their facebook profile page. 

a precariously perched crown of five orange plaid butterflies

I really like to make bows.

activities which cancel each other out

- Sucking on a lollipop whilst exercising

- Staying up late when sick to drink chicken soup

- Eating ice-cream with the heater on

- Buying new clothes to get more wear out of old ones

- Wearing a scarf and sandals at the same time

(I am guilty of all 5)

7 things i procrastinate from doing

1. Using the bathroom

2. Sleeping

3. Getting up

4. Deciding on what to eat followed by eating it

5. Putting on a jumper when it's cold

6. RSVP-ing

7. Indulging in hobbies

R.I.P

Last night I had a dream and Michael Jackson was there, dancing to Thriller. I woke up to a text saying "OH NO>> no.. Oh no manfuck. Michael died. No."

sun dial

My desk is a gratuitously large piece of furniture positioned in front of my bedroom windows. The two windows are very much like the desk in that whilst they are impressive in size, their design can only be described as simple and practical. From where I sit at my desk, I have a full view of our neighbour's backyard and the position of  the sun. 

Something which always overwhelms me is sitting at my desk for a long enough period of time to observe the gradual path of the sun across the sky (or the rotation of the earth around its axis if you want to be astronomically correct). In the mornings, the sun is positioned at the top right corner of the window on the right. As the day progresses, it travels west until it disappears past the top left corner of the window on the left. The 40cm section of wall between the two windows is a good indicator for time of day, as the sun is directly behind this region at noon. For as long as the sun is in the right window, eating breakfast foods is nothing to be ashamed of, and when the sun is in the left window, it's time to do some work if nothing has yet been accomplished.

On days where I am working towards a deadline, this awareness of the sun's position is a constant reminder of the hours remaining in the day and is thus a motivator to work more efficiently (like Monday for example when I had to learn half a semester's worth of chemistry in one day). But on relaxing days when I am just procrastinating away on my computer, the sun's position will intermittently scream "THE EPHEMERALITY OF LIFE MY NAIVE CHILD!" to my face in the form of violent beams of sunshine. Some philosophical thought on my behalf generally ensues. 


(I can't remember the source of the picture...)

stress

The magnitude of stress proceeding an exam is inversely proportional to the number of days remaining before the day of the exam. At the same time, the student's inclination to procrastinate, is the square root of the magnitude of stress. 

From this data, it is possible to set up an expression for the stress levels of a given student, prior to a major exam. We can then use implicit differentiation to observe the rate at which the student descends into madness, however, if I do this, we may have to multiply "inclination to procrastinate" by a factor of 3.