Fraud

I have a feeling my supervisors are starting to discover that I am a dud....

What do your emotional baggage contain - number 1

Never swing your emotional baggage around. People always say. Because you vent your emotions outwards and hurt the people around you - usually the people that you love the most, since they are the closest to you, hence within the danger zone. And when you hurt them emotionally, you hurt terribly too.

However, what's more important, is that the message you are conveying is absolutely distorted in that fit of emotional outrage. My recent torte bag of emotions contains the usual mix of frustration and depression. Upset by being neglected, crazily yearning for attention in a harsh other side of the world where people don't care for people who don't talk loudly and legibly, and most of all, disappointed with yourself for feeling so helpless, lonely and out of place and favor. And that nobody really understands what you want is just a little more care, concern and attention, and to feel that you ARE prized and a priority.

And then in an asinine and contemptible act of self-pity, I had decided the best way to garner attention is to the show the one that I love most what's in my bag, or rather, how heavy that bag was. Utterly pathetic and totally regrettable...

There was an instant retaliation. 

*Head buzzing

Interviewer: What did you expect? Acceptance and benevolence, when you shove volts of electric shocks down a throat?

Me: Well, I was kind of expecting some form of understanding and concern. Why don't people understand what I am going through?!

Interviewer: Because you shove it in their face. They can't see anything beyond, duhh..

****

Imagine throwing out tons of books from a bag in front of a friend all at once and ask him/her to look for your bookmark in each book....

And then imagine handing out each tome, one at a time....

So the next time, you think about lashing out all that's in your bag, remember that you have accumulated enough to feel heavy. Instead of throwing them out all at once to let people know how heavy it is, why don't you empty the bag AS it gets heavy?

This is a queer way of a self-reminder to remember never to do this again. To everybody I love that have taken a hit from me, and understands and yet never fails to love me back even more, I love you guys, I apologize profusely and I will keep checking myself, so that I don't do it again.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

---Agatha Christie

GA rox

I decided that I still love Grey's Anatomy...

The more we are willing to accept what is and not what we thought, we will find ourselves exactly where we belong.
-- Meredith Grey, "Second Opinion"



Sometimes, we live in the shadows of other people's expectations. Try to stand in the sun. Then you can project your own shadows.


Start breathing, but not like an anxious hyena...



-----------------------------
random text stream:
sandra oh
William Daniels as Dr. Craig Thomas^[

Don't be crass. Women of your generation are graceless. It's an affront to nature...
-- Dr. Craig Thomas, "Beautiful Doom"

Crashing.

No sound from HP ENVY 14 Beats Edition laptop

No sound came out from my HP ENVY 14 a week ago. One day it was there and the other day, there was nothing! And I was back in Singapore. Not wanting to deal with this hassle yet, I stalled it till today.

HP 24/7 online support seemed to be aware of the problem: a recent update caused this. So, the technician did this:

1) Go start > control panel > programs and features
2) Uninstall 'IDT audio' (this should be the updated version and causing the problem). Do NOT restart your laptop.

3) Start > search for 'recovery manager'
4) Click on 'Driver and Application reinstallation'
5) Click on 'IDT audio' and install it.
6) Reboot after installation.
** For some reason, after I rebooted, I got a message saying that the program didn't run correctly. Ignore this...

7) Try playing your music - it should work perfectly

NOTE THAT:
Reinstalling the original driver from here DIDN'T work for me. There was an error message saying that my hardware detected is not supported by IDT software...

Hope this helps some people!

Of presentations and writings

The more you do, the more practised you are. You will feel inadequate initially, but as you gain experience through these embarrassing moments, you will also gain confidence.

Onwards to becoming a better scientist and communicator!

Subtleties

I like the subtleties presented in the new Glee season. The new Rachel in the making versus the next 'Rachel' in the making. The huge parallels and similarities between the old and the new and the future that holds for them all - huge potentials.

A little disappointed Quinn Fabray (Dianna Aggron) will be showing up less and less. I have always been a bit piqued by the fact that her role is being suppressed - she has a great voice and character.

Teenage angst lots. But I think the first 2 episodes hit me right, and of course, the songs and covers and renditions are superb. I am looking forward to better episodes =)

Acknowledgements

Sometimes, even before a journey ends, I start counting my blessings - who should I include in a final acknowledgements, if I ever were to give one. I realize this can be a very difficult decision.

People move in and out of your life. They touch yours and you touch theirs. Sometimes, you never really know the full impacts of those who briefly pass you by until much later and those you felt had a huge impact might not mutually feel the immensity to the same degree.

"But who am I to tell fate where it's supposed to go" - Colbie Caillat, "Brighter than the sun"

And who am I to judge whether it's "to the same degree", or whether to discount those impacts any more than the meaning than they ought to have. But again, what is the "meaning they ought to have"? Every now and then, you stare out into space right into eternity, and think of all the uncertainties that swirl around everybody. Everybody is a walking maelstrom of changing possibilities!

The same thing done today if performed 4 years ago on the same person can have a randomly different effect.

That's when the power of logic starts fading, but memories, the heart and the intangibles take center-stage and supplant your line of thoughts.

I guess then, it will not be until the day before making those acknowledgements that I will realize who I should include. Even then, it will only be a snapshot of my gratitude. And I come to a conclusion that acknowledgements are timepoint-dependent, not a full recount - I think I will feel a little more balanced in this realization whenever I see the next acknowledgement slide.

Fuzzy versus probability

I think this is a pretty neat article on this discussion.

http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath/2011/02/02/fuzzy-logic-vs-probability/

SpeakEasy transfer of recordings

I am currently a TA for a class and recently had to help a student record a lecture because he wasn't able to attend. I know, such a good life, students nowadays haha.

But it is also relatively simple with today's technology that is available to the world. It all hinges on the iPhone. I originally got an app called SpeakEasy, about a year ago, so that I could record lectures too. What I did not realize was that there isn't a straightforward way to transfer the recording OUT of the phone onto your computer - because I did not see the need to do that before.

Now that I need to transfer the recording on a class wiki for the student, I decided to find out a way to get around it. People spoke of a wifi function (nope didn't see that) that you could transfer to your PC, also a SpeakEasy Connect software that is nowhere in sight, and to ask the maker of this app, Zarboo.com, but their website has been down for ages it seems. All bummers.... Big time....

My backup plan was to play the lecture again and then do a second recording on my PC.

But I wasn't ready to give up yet - and I got lucky. Chronicling this will allow me to acknowledge the sites I went to as well. I got my first inspiration from this site, which documented a way to transfer files recorded with SpeakEasy from iPhone to PC WITHOUT SpeakEasy Connect via an iPhone file browser. It could have been easier but, I was averse to the word "jailbreak" which the author seems to allude to in the description. But I was sure one of those myriad of iPhone apps out there will be able to peruse files in iPhones without having to do something drastic and illegitimate. Then I found on one of my favorite sites: Life HAcker.com, my solution, introducing me to i-FunBox. There install this, and find your file under "User Applications">SpeakEasy>Documents!

It will be in AIFF format. To convert to MP3 or other formats, use iTunes =)

Open multiple windows for EXCEL

Found a microsoft fix-it to open EXCEL in multiple windows. This is especially useful if you are using multiple monitors and/or require side-by-side comparison of some documents.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2636670

Note that it requires changing some bits of your registry. I used the Fix-it link, which works like a charm, so I would recommend that lest I mis-perform a step and mess up my registry. Especially since I am doing this in the morning, with a tad of grogginess.

Naruto

"九喇嘛。我們上吧！！！"
--漩渦鳴人

"你和我一樣，都是在虛僞世界裏行走的人“
--鼬

虛僞的不是世界, 是行走在世界裏的人. :) 只要你的世界裏没有虛僞的人, 那你就不用感慨他人的虚伪. :)
--Soon J FF

Text-enhancer ruining my blog!

Unfortunate events come in a series and I must say irritating events too... The double scroll-bar first then when I am documenting things on my blog, "text enhancers" start smearing my blog and every other blog that I visit with ads and "text enhancers"! *roll eyes*

Seriously man... 

I scoured the net again and found these remedies:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/blogger/J4AcyHBeFfw

http://support.text-enhance.com/entries/20352211-disabling-text-enhance-links

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/887190

Putting things together, I came up with a little protocol:

1) Go to "Wrench">Settings. 

2) Scroll all the way down to "Show advanced settings", click to open.

3) Find "Privacy" (first one), click "Contents Settings">Cookies>Manage Exceptions.

4) Add "textsrv.com" and BLOCK it.

5) Next, back up one level, on "Contents Settings">Cookies>"All cookies and site data", search for "text" and delete anything suspicious.

6) Go "wrench" again and Tools>Extensions. Disable anything weird.

7) Go to http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/887190, opt-out...

Hopefully, these will work... *cross fingers*

Double scroll bar on Chrome

Notice the double scroll bar to the right. The squishing is hard to make out but it makes highlighting and clicking on hyperlinks extremely difficult since despite everything being skewed to the left, somehow the cursor doesn't register the skew when you highlight... Discombobulated.

For some reason, recently, I have been getting this VERY IRRITATING double-scroll-bar-squished webpages from my Chrome browser for non-Google pages. This makes surfing an extremely painful experience, unfortunately, especially with all the Olympics going on. I didn't want to give up on Chrome yet.

1) So I reinstalled Chrome --> didn't solve the problem.

2) I search deeper and found this:
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/Q3bCcMuDGTo

Follow the steps here:
a) Go to "chrome://plugins"
b) Click on "+" sign next to Details at the top right to expand all the information about the plugins.
c) Under "Flash" (which is the first one for me), search for the Location that ends with "...PepperFlash/pepflashplayer.dll" (use the search function, or it's the first one for me too) and DISABLE it.
d) Re-start the browser and the problem should go away!! Hurray!!

UNIX wget fetch equivalent of pdb files!

Wanted a very easy way to grab PDB files like the 'fetch' command in Pymol.

Found this gem:
http://nsaunders.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/rapid-command-line-access-to-the-pdb/

I tried and it worked:
 wget http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/files/1LZW.pdb

I am so gonna put this into a simple shell script.

i m so exhausted...

Of Gothic and Vintage

Recently got hooked onto "motifs". Not only that it's part of my scientific work, but also my own leisure art.

Apart from my usual doodles of leaves, grasses, rocks, snails, butterflies and random borders, I have a little added gothic and vintage motifs to my (limited) repertoire...

Some of my inspirations (the websites that these originated are awesome, click on them to go there):

Now with my trusty black marker, I decided to put my brain and hands to work:

As people can see, this is really a sketch on a piece of rough paper.
Right after this I decided to dive right in...

Took me a while but not too long. It didn't seem too bad LOLX

Successfully gave my brain the little break it needed. Unexpectedly, I think taking that shot above made inadequacies really apparent. Some fine-tunings need to be done!

Last tip of the day: Google Image = best friend in searching for images - it can use keywords like Google, or you upload a picture and voila, images just roll in!

Mendeley Bibliography Vancouver format

For some reason, the Vancouver format given by Mendeley does not seem to be exactly Vancouver at all. I had to make drastic changes to the CSL file to tailor it to a journal's requests.

In any case, I made these changes to the original Vancouver:
A) square brackets in bibliography and in text
B) et. al. beyond 3 authors
C) et. al. italicized
D) remove website, access dates and some other junk
E) journal abbreviations

Let me document how I made those changes.

NOTE THAT for all changes to occur, Mendeley has to be closed and reopened. If you are using the Microsoft Word plugin, Word does NOT need to be closed, only Mendeley, then just click "Refresh" in the plugin in Word.

1) Start "Mendeley Desktop", press Ctrl+Shift+D, click on "Open data directory".
2) That will lead you to this folder "C:\Users\<.username>.\AppData\Local\Mendeley Ltd\Mendeley Desktop\citationStyles-1.0". (Replace <.username>. with your username)
--- Note that this is where Mendeley will look to find your edited versions. The default citation styles (those installed from Mendeley) are stored in another folder - "C:\Program Files\Mendeley Desktop\citationStyles-1.0". For a detailed description (especially on OS-specific issues), look here.

3) Copy Vancouver.csl from the default citation style folder to this folder, and name it Vancouver_new.csl in this folder. Open in a text editor. The Citation Style Format is in XML format, so preferably have an editor that preserves formatting (not Notepad).

4) Go to container <.info>. (somewhere on line 3), under tag "'"\<.title>."'" (line 4), change that to """Vancouver_new""".<./title\>.<./info>.

5) To use square brackets in both text and biblio, go to about line 132 and 168, change """(""" and """)""" to """[""" and """]""" respectively. The first one changes the brackets in the text, and the second in the biblio. So if you require any other variations, you know where to change.

6) To change to et. al. beyond 3 authors, go to line 136, change both the numbers after """et-al-min=""" and """et-al-use-first""" to 3. I read on some forums, sometimes this doesn't work. So play around with the numbers. Having both as 3, worked for me though.

7) To italicize et al. in the biblio, look under the macro container for """author""" or """author-short""". The command tag """et-al""" is provided by """Name""" (or cs:name), so you need to look for a line something like this:
<.blockquote class="""tr_bq""">.
 <.span style="""font-family: "'"Courier New"'", Courier, monospace;""">.<.name sort-separator=""" """ initialize-with="""""" name-as-sort-order="""all""" delimiter=""", """ delimiter-precedes-last="""always"""/>.<./span>.<./blockquote>.

and insert this line AFTER this """name""" tag:
<.span style="""font-family: "'"Courier New"'", Courier, monospace;""">.<.et-al font-style="""italic"""/>.<./span>.

So finally it should end up looking something like this:

<.blockquote class="""tr_bq""">.
<.span style="""font-family: "'"Courier New"'", Courier, monospace;""">.<.macro name="""author""">.
<.names variable="""author""" suffix=""". """>.
<.span class="""Apple-tab-span""" style="""white-space: pre;""">. <./span>.     <.name sort-separator=""" """ initialize-with="""""" name-as-sort-order="""all""" delimiter=""", """ delimiter-precedes-last="""always"""/>.
<.span class="""Apple-tab-span""" style="""white-space: pre;""">. <./span>. <.et-al font-style="""italic"""/>.
<.span class="""Apple-tab-span""" style="""white-space: pre;""">. <./span>. <.label form="""short""" prefix=""", """ text-case="""lowercase"""/>.
<.substitute>.
<.names variable="""editor"""/>.
<./substitute>.
<./names>.
<./macro>.<./span>.<./blockquote>.

8) Removing all those what I call "junk",  requires going to the container """bibliography""". Remove things like these: <.span style="""font-family: "'"Courier New"'", Courier, monospace;""">.<.text macro="""accessed-date""" prefix=""" """/>.<./span>..

Similarly, junk are also found within the """journal-title""" container, such as <.span style="""font-family: "'"Courier New"'", Courier, monospace;""">.<.text term="""internet""" prefix=""" [""" suffix="""]""" text-case="""capitalize-first"""/>.<./span>.

Remove as many of these as you want.

9) Journal abbreviations. Procedure on how to do this is found here. I provide a more succinct description here.

--- Ctrl+Shift+D, click "Open data directory"
--- Create a folder called "journalAbbreviations"
--- Within this folder, create a plain text file called "default.txt". This is a tab-delimited 2-column text file. First column is the full journal name or the name it is printed in your bibliography (case-sensitive, e.g. American Journal of Human Genetics and American journal of human genetics, are 2 DIFFERENT THINGS, so you need to have 2 lines for these). 2nd column is the journal abbreviation.

--- A great start for "default.txt" is found here. Right-click and save as "default.txt".
--- In Mendeley Desktop, when you change to a new style, the default.txt file will be read and the abbrevations will be used since the Vancouver style specifies form="short" for "author".<./title>.<./info>.


*EDIT: If 'refresh' doesn't work, try switching to other styles and then switch back.

ADD1) If you want to get rid of et. al. in the bibliography, set et-al-min = 3 and et-al-first = 1

Tick Tock

Most of the time when I am alone, I can't shake off the feeling that I am being watched constantly. Like somebody will creep up behind you and whisper death in your ears.

I remembered after a few months I was conscripted into the army, my platoon sergeant once asked the platoon cynically if anybody in the room actually imagined the worst scenario unfolding. I was probably the only person who answered yes. I remembered I told everybody I imagined myself being shot in crossfires or me shooting somebody else and how much of the gore and how painful of a gunshot wound might come after.

Sometimes I feel as if I wander at the brink of depression.

Safe and sound: the Hunger Games

I finished the entire trilogy of the The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins over the weekend and watched also the movie.

For some reason, they struck chords in a way deeper than I imagined. An unknown dystopian future, where people are unjustly oppressed, mercilessly tortured and children (CHILDREN!) fight to their deaths for the pleasure of the "elites". A mix of Greek/Roman mythology with shadows of other stories with similar genres (1,2), the characters and story kept me wanting more. Perhaps it's the melancholic (with a tinge of self-deprecating humor) narration by protagonist Katniss Everdeen, that brought out the imperfections and complications of human nature. The perplexity of being human.

I particularly like the characters Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark; their relationship with Haymitch Abernathy and their love story. Also, Primrose Everdeen, the story embodiment of 'delicateness and goodness', she is arguably the most important character in the story. I feel also that Suzanne Collins gave her some of the best lines. I wonder if it's these poignant pieces that make me connect and resonate more with the series.

In any case, it's not an upbeat book, even till the end, it feels more like a beginning than the end. But it got me addicted and constantly reminded, that choices come with sacrifices and that people are forever the victims of circumstances. And that scars fade, but never totally.

For some reason, the juxtaposition of the Capitol and District 13 reminds me of Singapore.

“Deep in the meadow, hidden far away

A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray

Forget your woes and let your troubles lay

And when it's morning again, they'll wash away

Here it's safe, here it's warm

Here the daisies guard you from every harm

Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true

Here is the place where I love you.” 

― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Don't you dare look out your window darling
Everything's on fire
The war outside our door keeps raging on
Hold on to this lullaby
Even when the music's gone. Gone. 

Just close your eyes
The sun is going down
You'll be alright
No one can hurt you now
Come morning light
You and I'll be safe and sound
― Taylor Swift, Safe and sound

"My children, who don’t know they play on a graveyard. Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that will make them braver. But one day I’ll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won’t ever really go away. I’ll tell them how I survive it. I’ll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I’m afraid it could be taken away. That’s when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years. But there are much worse games to play."
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, Epilogue


Unfortunately, humans can't seem to break out of this ("repetitive") game.

No more Harvard Debt

I found my friend reading an article (http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/16/student-debt-business-school/) featuring this blog: http://nomoreharvarddebt.com/

Found it interesting and perhaps I could pick up an idea or 2 for myself on improving my own financial management - not that I need drastic adjustments but a few tips on personal finance don't hurt.

It bugs me though, having to pay off loans that gargantuan. I heard from my friends from the US: medical students, college loans, MBAs etc.... It's a very typical phenomenon... In comparison, I feel extremely fortunate.

Trivia

3M = Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
brainstorming <- Alex Osborne (1940)

Backing up Sticky Notes

I haven't found an app that allows me to "scribble" easily.

In the meantime, I find the in-built Sticky Notes of Windows 7 serves its purpose fairly well so far. But there is an issue when you start scribbling things and notes start piling - backing up becomes a necessity.

So here's a website that I found showing me where the sticky notes are housed on the Windows system:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic256692.html


Sticky Notes is actually housed here:
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Sticky Notes\StickyNotes.snt


Just copy that file into your backup vessel.

Realization

Suddenly I realized my job is to shape nebulous things, make them less amorphous...

Just a thought.

But somehow, those things are making my brain all mushy and gooey...

Food names

This entry is for my own (and perhaps) some of your educational purposes on certain food terms. Just in case we might encounter this on food menus.

All courtesy of a very good and knowledgeable friend, GG. And seriously, the idea of this entry and the future ones to come stem from the numerous eclectic discussions that CT, GG and I always have, online or offline. Haha, such fun indeed =)

WORD NUMBER 1: quinoa (pronunciation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa
- it's like wheat
- there are quinoa muffins
- very peruvian
- supposedly the next in-thing: chia seeds... because of their superb nutritional value... Not sure if it's overrated

http://cleananddelicious.com/2008/02/06/quinoa_muffins/

WORD NUMBER 2: coq au vin (pronunciation)
-  a classic French cuisine
- essentially chicken with red wine
- complete with sides - pearl onions, mushrooms, petit pois, and parsleyed noodles
- Julia Child's recipe is very good
- good with souffles (pron) as dessert

http://www.paradoxplace.com/Photo%20Pages/France/Cistercian%20France/Pontigny/Pontigny.htm

Downloading PDF in Chrome without the PDF viewer

M wanted to download PDFs immediately, instead of viewing them in a browser and then saving them anyway and then viewing them - it just seems to him extremely illogical.


In any case, thought I would just pass this simple steps on to people using Chrome and who are having a similar preference.


1)      Type in chrome://plugins to access the plugins in Chrome.

Disable all PDF viewers. There should be only 2 that I know:

--> Chrome PDF Viewer (Disabled)

--> Adobe Acrobat - Version: 10.1.3.23

Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape 10.1.3


2)      Disable them both. 
3)     Try downloading a PDF. It should go straight to a download instead of a viewer now.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

This song is just so emotional/motivating/inspiring that makes me want to cry every time there is an awesome rendition on it.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Stand a little taller!.." Before I get lost in crooning.. Let me introduce 3 of those:

1) the original - none other than KELLY CLARKSON! She rox truly!

2) Glee cover - Complete with dance moves! Naya Rivera's voice rocks my world! Amber Riley and Heather Morris! Girlpower totally lolx

3) Sam Tsui - his singing prowess and versatility is really awesome!

Craigslist SPAMMER

I posted an ad on Craigslist and got an email that looks like it's a computer-generated spam. After my episode with that hack-fraud case last year (he sent me a similar threat mail), my mental alarm went blaring crazy, mostly because of the capitalized subject title and horrendous English punctuation. Thankfully, I did not provide any details whatsoever, and as my roommate intelligently pointed out, "That name does not sound Finnish at all!!!".

People out there, be careful!

Google:

chrmc children's hospital seattle staff quarters

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23987992-Scam-Craigslist-rental-scam

http://parishousingscamwatch.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/sandrarolandscammer/

http://scamvictimsunited.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=5591

Compare those with this original email:

Hello
My name is Lyne ,I am looking to rent a place to live. I am a young professional and will be  needing to move ASAP. I am willing to pay first and last months rent .I am very responsible and open to any kind of lease. I am an Humanitarian worker and was posted on a new job to your area.I will be glad if i could hear back from you sooner.
 Thank You

When you reply, you get back this:

Hello,
Thanks very much for e-mailing me back.. I am Lyne Jones by name and live in Seattle, WA. I would have been kind of happy if we can meet before making any plans, but am very busy and i have a lot of things to do right now.. I will really appreciate it if you can tell me more about the place and tell me little about you because my uncle is presently very sick, and i have to travel to Finland to see him but i want to secure the place down before going. He was involved in a car crash with his new car some weeks back and now ill seriously, I need to check on him and take good care of him. 

I am staying in CHRMC Children's Hospital Seattle staff Quarters now The address is below:
4800 Sandpoint Way NE Seattle, WA 98105 

I am moving cause of my job, am a medical Humanitarian nurse for united Nations. I work for CHRMC Children's Hospital in Seattle but will be working in a local clinic over there, More about me, am a neat type of person, honest, humble and responsible. I like honest, responsible and hardworking people while i hate the lazy, messy and uncaring people....well am a quiet and gentle going person to live with....I am 26 yrs old female, 5.4 in height ,i like tourism and i don't keep late at nights neither i will have overnight guest around but am ok if you do.. 

I was born and brought up in Finland, i studied there i had my university education right there while staying with my uncle.. I lived all my life in Finland before coming down to Seattle, WA have been living with my uncle from age 13...Then i was member of the Red Cross Association it really sounds interesting for me...Am sure You 'll really like the person that i am ,because i will also do the dishing if you like I work when i am to and relax when i am to,I also like sharing my thoughts also....paying rent on time will not be a problem as i will also be making the rent fee before the month ends....I do not have any pet, i really like dog and cat but have none of it now, so there is no problem about that. 

I must confess am comfortable with the price and I will want to secure the place down before my arrival so i will want you to tell me all about the place as i can't see it before my arrival but the pictures...I also will want you to know that i have my car that i will be coming over with little of my furniture. 

please let me know if there will be room for them. With all that I've said above I have told you more about me and more picture of mine will be attach in the next email Let me also know how i can go about securing the place down before my arrival as i will also be busy from next week and let me know if you can take off the ad off the site as i am going to secure the place with a deposit 

Feel free to ask me any question and as I've said i am looking to move in by the availability of the place but want to secured it now

Never mind, you can be B*Star...

http://gardenofpraise.com/bibl14s.htm

Frankly, I am still a little sore from this. How is this "NEVER MIND"?

She might be the ambassador to where and where, but that doesn't give you the right to make that kind of comment, even if it's supposed to be one of those "smart-alecky" remarks. Sorry, we might have the same nationality, maybe fostering familiarity in a foreign land, but I don't know you that well for a jive like that...

This just rubs off as an elitist mindset that some people have. Those eugenics, those purists, those oh-so-mighty people who stood at the top of the worlds. Seriously, get down that throne and walk the earth.

That said, this ambassador did make a few compelling points about "democracy, globalization and competitiveness" of our dear island-state. I would prefer though, if she could cut down on the verbose self-glorification. It sounds too much like propaganda and a little excessive. But I did like the way she answers questions and I did learn some stuff.

Did you know we can actually bring in gum but just not manufacture or sell them? In any case, I think I have been rewired so much that I don't care much for gum. And I did have a slightly broader perspective of how intertwined we are with other nations of the world that previously were more murky in my head: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia (Arabs respect Arabs), other Gulf states, African states, the Maldives (~300K people, wow) and how we are viewed by many. We are about the size of Chicago (really?), top 20 smallest countries in the world, >200 million Muslims in SEA (never fail to mention the fact we are surrounded by them) etc.

Habibie coined us the "little red dot" in 1998/9. I guess people will always be interested in the story of "David and Goliath". The story of survival, against all odds.

Us against the world. Nice thought.

Guild Wars 2

I found a great site that talks about the imminent release of the game. One of my fav MMORPG of all times!! Just look at those screenshots!!

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/guild-wars-2-mmorpg/

A beautiful life

I am going to carve this little space in my heart and start to bury the pride that I have for this game. A game that have kept me believing that I could do well in other more strenuous arenas.

Perhaps it's time to melt the hubris away, little by little, bit by bit.

I think I might find a whole new world when that completely caves in and gives in to something else.

Life's beautiful. And it never fails to amuse. SMILE! =)
http://www.corrinnemay.com/

Dedicated to every single family, friend, and you

An email from a great great friend, triggered this entry. I thought I would share my heartfelt response for the world to see, to celebrate a gesture of a friendship that I hold so dear to my heart =) And to G, if you are reading this, this goes to you. 

...I am hanging in here haha. There is really nothing much I can do otherwise, really, but to live life to the best that I can. It’s a struggle sometimes (to be 9496 miles away from all my loved ones), but I think that all the more hardens my resolute for the future. 

And every day I feel my life is so blessed, to have so many people that care so much – my family and friends back home, amazing friends I have met and came to accept me for who I am, like you and a partner like her (X) that stands by me all the time – that’s enough motivation to keep me going  =) Sometimes, I feel I am so undeserving of all the overwhelming love - it serves as a constant reminder.

J

To my X, like you, to me, you are neither friend nor family, because you are BOTH. And much much more =) Looking forward to the day I hold you in my arms again...

Febreze - Odor remover uncovered!

I thought this is a simple but concise article on how Febreze works. Good to know!

http://chemistry.about.com/od/cleanerchemistry/f/how-febreze-works.htm

When you spray Febreze, the water in the product partially dissolves the odor, allowing it to form a complex inside the 'hole' of the cyclodextrin donut shape. The stink molecule is still there, but it can't bind to your odor receptors, so you can't smell it. 

Memory leak

I wonder if there are genes for a leaky memory... If my brain is a huge plastic bag and memory is water, then it's probably a bag full of holes with water oozing out at a constant rate.

Good thing it gets filled everyday.

TEDxYale

Inspired from the Morse Code, co-invented by Samuel Morse, a Yale graduate.

TED = Technology Entertainment and Design

TEDx 

TED grants licenses to third parties to hold free TEDx events in cities around the world.^[29] These one-time only licenses are free, but franchisees must be approved by TED and agree to adhere to a strict set of rules including format, duration, limiting the number of invited guests to 100 people and agreeing that half day events show "A minimum of two official, pre-recorded TEDTalks" and that all-day events "at least 25% of the total number of talks must be official, pre-recorded TEDTalks." Speakers are not paid and they must agree to give TED the right to edit and distribute their presentation. According to TED these franchised events were "created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level...TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis." As of 2010, some 750 TEDx events are scheduled to happen in over 60 countries.

--wikipedia.com 

If any of you happen to miss some of the speakers at the latter half of TEDxYale, and if they actually put them at good resolution online (http://www.justin.tv/tedxyale, I was told this is not a great stream), I recommend the following talks by:

1) Rebecca Ringle - music & neuroscience
2) Keith Chen - languages & behavioral economics
3) David Bolinsky - medical illustrator
4) Brad Rosen - privacy laws
5) Bob Casey - http://www.yourenew.com/
6) LaTisha Campbell - being a radical
7) Vikram Mansharamani - 'foxy' thinking, on being a generalist
8) Sarah Parcak - an exemplary of TED's belief in twists of fate
9) Yael Zinkow - a jewel among them all =)

Enjoyed myself thoroughly. Even though there were more logistical problems than I would have hoped for, I think it's a commendable effort on a first at Yale. Looking forward to listening to more exciting "ideas worth sharing".

No good deed goes unpunished...

What an attention-grabbing subject to put on an email... LOLX

It also puts you in a position of indecision - to laugh or not to laugh... lol

Will start writing again.

Caught in this limbo state of past holiday moods, present predicament and worries for the future.

My mind's a mess.