trying to keep track of my life
all the crazy things i do
why did no one tell me! holy cow that’s cute. AND IT CLIPS! no longer will my mp3 player we swaying in the wind and messing up my style (seriously!).
i guess i’ll have to live without a screen. but DANG that thing is cute!
(and the way i found out is that i randomly opened on its page in the b&w catalogue!)
who knew i’d ever enjoy the company of a cat that much!
i made poached pears today. i keep forgetting to buy an orange to experiment with this, but essentially its 3 simple steps:
1. peel and core the pears while…
2. half a cup of sugar, 2 cups red wine, 1 cup water (more wine?), 3-5 cloves are coming to a simmer
3. simmer pears in liquid until desired consistency and color reached with lid on
(4 optional: to get a thick sauce to pour over the pears, simmer half the time with the lid off. or something like that. i just wing it, and it works.)
tasty, easy, and little effort, other than the peeling and coring, but i can live with that for the high class style of eating a poached pear off a tiny white plate.
Lawrence is doing well. cuddling on the couch is normal, he is sleeping ON the couch now, has a favorite chair (director’s chair), and rubs up against our legs regularly. he still bites and scratches in play, which makes me look like i climbed over chicken wire. but its a small sacrifice to waking up to a cat nuzzling at your chest!
also, i got an ear infection day before my first exam. i’m not really considering it luck as its (a) hassle (b) an extra exam to write at the end of the year, ruining my brilliant plan of having 3 exams per semester and graduating with 8 half credits (due to a full year movie course).
we adopted a kitten. tim and i came to the humane society, and after much deliberations picked a cat that fit our “numbers”: 1-4 years old, tabby grey/red, neutered/sprayed. Lawrence fit the numbers – when we tried to talk to him, he wouldn’t respond, and he just lay there, quiet, matted fur, unremarkable.
this was saturday, 7pm, when we arrived home, and took him out of the carton carrier that the society gives you. he was timid, timid to the extreme, and (in hindsight, foolishly), took him out ourselves. after a few timid steps across the floor, he found a nook next to the green chair, and lay there for a while.
(green chair on the right)
we did some research, showed him his litterbox, and straight away he timidly hid next to the shoe rack.
there he was until the end of the evening, when we took him on the couch with us to watch tv. every time we touched him from any point of the crate till now, he purrs, RUMBLE PURRS, non stop. so was that first evening on the couch – and suddenly, amidst the petting and the purring, he started stretching, and becoming more and more cute. as in, his fur became cleaner, his face became happier, brighter, and suddenly, he was adorable, adorable to a degree neither one of us saw before.
sunday morning, he was hiding under the couch. we let him be there for the entire day, and in the evening he came out and explored a bit in front of our eyes. for the first time he used the litter box with us there (he did before when we slept). he is cute, adorable, soft, fluffly, and incredibly pretty.
and he is the first cat ever that i am inlove with.
first cat that purred in my arms (that first evening when i picked him up). and last night, after hiding the entire night under the couch, he reluctantly came out from underneath to get petted, hiding back at any noise (tv, shoes shuffling, blanket moving underneath me). and this morning, he came out again, and right now, i am the happiest person ever, because this cat is obviously scared, and still obviously started trusting me. i have never formed a bond like this with anyone else, human or not. and all i want to do now, is to sit in front of the couch and pet him again and again as he comes out and then goes back under when he is not comfortable anymore. BUT HE COMES OUT! and each time it is longer, further, and more comfortable.
he is playful, cute, and really is coming out of his shell, but not yet, so i’m not sticking my camera in his face yet. sorry guys :)
i assure you, whenever he DOES start feeling like this is his home, and safe place, he’ll have nowhere to go to hide from my freaking camera.
did i mention he is a purring machine? all you have to do is put your hand near him, and he starts purring, even if he isn’t coming closer to it.
and humane society is an incredible place for animals, and a terrible place for animals. it is amazing as it is ridiculous how many they save. and it is terrible, because so many of them are depressed, and don’t have the motivation to do anything anymore – like lawrence. and the others, the meow, whine, bark, peep (depending on the species) to a heartbreaking point. there were cats there that pawed at people through the cages, and if you stopped and put your hands closer would rub up, meow, purr, and … ah, my heart breaks. i wish they all could be saved. what the volunteers are doing is incredible.
i think the notion of us being in a petri dish being equivalent to us being in a different dimension is erroneous. specifically, if we are discussing dimensions, universes are related on a subset level, not on an equivalent level.
if we are in a petri dish ran by mice, then we are still within that universe and dimension. the dimensions which we find within this universe exist for us as well as for the mice. a concrete example on which to compare:
say we have 2 universes – one, in which a baby becomes a painter and one where the same baby becomes a businesswoman. say both of these universes have the baby actually being in a world that is inside a petri dish. they are still in the same dimension! one dimension, but 2 possible universes with in it.
hmm, on rereading i guess i’m agreeing with scarf’s 2nd last paragraph precisely.
hesi, i mentioned this to you. everyone else, here you go, someone far smarter than us argues The Simulation Argument: Why the Probability that You Are Living in a Matrix is Quite High.
i don’t want to go into discussing that possibility, except to say that in my opinion the discussion of artificial life or intelligence does not relate to the notion of multiple dimensions and universes. it is a seperate argument, for the sheer reason that it is possible logically for any combination of ideas on the above to exist without being contradictory. since we do not have clear evidence for one particular combination of “we are a petri dish” + “there are no alternative universes”, it is out of bounds to argue that from one, the other can follow.
in other words, there is no correlation between the two questions.
while i cannot possibly say that i am able to explain folding back to anyone coherently, it seems to make sense to me to draw parallels between 2-3 dimensions, to 3-4, etc. i.e. the folding of time and space must be allowed if we even want to argue that there is such a thing as a 2nd and a 3rd dimension.
ha, didn’t expect this, did you :P
secrets don’t make friends
friends don’t make secrets
are you friends with your government?
(tim smith original)
well, we are in airlie beach, aka the area of whitsundays islands. can’t wait for our trip tomorrow, everything looks gorgeous.
we have safely made our way up the coast, with a large haul over 600~ kms from rockhampton to airlie beach yesterday. today, we’re just chilling in airlie – found wireless internet and so i bring you lots-a-photos!
sydney to brisbane (KOALA HOLDING IS HERE)
brisbane to fraser
fraser to day before yesterday (eurimbola national park or something like that)
australia is definitely looking more australian – we still haven’t seen any “real” big kangoroos, although hope is not yet lost. lots of wallabies by this point, which is really nice. on the drive to bunya mountains (it was on the drive that the above photograph was taken), we saw wallabies crossing the road, and when we woke up there was one right outside our door, munching on grass. snapshots are available on the first link.
queensland is supposedly famous for the red sand, which is also getting more common. i even got to hold a koala at this point! (as you might have read).
we tanned, i swam (in a lake, swimming in the ocean is too dangerous, there are small nuances like sharks and killer tides), and tomorrow more swimming shall be done at the reef!
highlights of the trip so far are:
now, fraser is a seperate story. we have shared a 4×4 car with 9 other people, and spent 2 nights and 1 whole day (and half another day in start and half another day in the end) on this huge beach dune which has awesome fresh water lakes (freezing, but gorgeous), and generally a very awesome natural landscape. the downside of it being a sanddune and sharing one car with 11 people is that SAND. GETS. EVERYWHERE. those of you who know how picky i am about my camera’s cleanliness, will know that traces of sand inside my LENSCAP mean it literally was everywhere. i didn’t even switch lenses (shot sigma12-24 and mini canon) the entire time.
on that note i should have more photos off the canon tomorrow.
we have bought food together, bought meat from the butcher offered by the place (koala adventures), and bought cheap liquer. oh. my. god. we have not eaten worse meat and drank worse alcohol in AGES. it was so disgusting! and it was such a joy to get back to normal, great-wine, great-food, no-sand world afterwards! but even despite that, fraser was pretty fun. pretty, at least :D
hi mom!
my new favourite song of the moment is modest mouse – float on. totally.
ai assignment has been submitted; 5 days to write an essay and prepare for an exam. i’m having a quiet evening in the super clean living room – kevin and smita cleaned it up while i was doing the assignment today. lesley ann, mike, and La’s friend cheryl left on a trip through the outback, and the apartment feels considerably more empty.
last night was a big out night – the last one with all the people that i have met here. james, a guy from wales has left australia, and he was one of the major people who we hung out with here. we ended up staying out until about 6am… and i finished the ai assignment in 7 hours today :)
it feels excellent to be done with classes. even though i still have 2 essays and 2 exams left it truly does feel like the semester is over. :D
(get a flickr account and let me add you as family to see above photos)
it is week 12 here in unsw there are 3 weeks left of studying, and then 2 exams, and then tim and i are off to drive up the australian coast.
hesi is arriving tomorrow! and so i will finally drag her and tim to see various sights around sydney and in sydney.
last night smita, lesley ann, tim, roshan and moi went out to sushi to some local place. it was the first japanese experience for lesley ann and smita – i was promising lesley ann to take her to sushi for a while and this was it. they both seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, liking the small rolls and nigiri sushi the most. (they did have problems figuring out how to eat the larger rolls – i’m still unconvinced, are you supposed to eat it in parts or just stuff it in?)
i realized i haven’t been writing much about my so called “australian experience”. to be honest, looking back at the past 3 months since tim has left it doesn’t feel like there was much of an experience, at least towards the beginning. the last month and a half were better in terms of fun as i have gotten closer with my flatmates, and thus ended up going out and doing interesting things far more.
the brighter experiences up until this moment was the day of the “races”, which i still failed to blog about. let me make a short attempt at it here.
the races
racing seems to be a huge australian phenonenon. apparently, there is this melbourne cup when the entire country shuts down to watch that race. of course, there is a huge race track just north of the university. and on one particular weekend in april, there was a large race occuring there, or rather a number of important races, to which barker apartment number 9 (that is the apartment in which i live) decided to head out to see. it was actually me, lesley ann, kevin (all of us from 9) and a bunch of other people who they have met from their earlier residence here in sydney.
in case you are not aware of the general things that happen at races, here is the approximate list of interesting and notable moments:
after returning home, we have ate, relaxed, and went out dancing! and as the tale goes, we danced the night away, and it was good.
st patrick’s day
while it was not any different from many parties i’ve been to, it was awesome because:
kevin’s party
one of the most notable things about kevin’s birthday party was that it was 4 days before tim’s arrival here. (and i think that sentence summarizes how i felt the entire 3 months he wasn’t here). of course the dinner, the drinking and the dancing was also notable – and a load of fun!
there were many other moments. i tried curry (made by smita) – she made some specially for me without the spicy part. and she used all authentic indian ingridients. tonight, she’s making curry again – and this time tim has a chance to try it too!
each monday night lesley ann and i (and lately smita too) watch desperate housewives while eating a shared dinner, and having dessert afterwards.
before i got really sick at the end of the vacation week (end of april), i went to the gym, loads, together with LA again. unfortunately it stopped because there were 2 bad weeks which i spent mostly entirely in bed. after a few doctor trips, everything is now confirmed as being fine, which makes me very, very, happy.
baking – bread, cookies, carrot cake, my mom’s apple pie.
i got everyone here hooked on “oladushki” – thin slices of apple dipped in batter made from my grandma’s recipe.
i guess food was a major part of this experience. i really love food and cooking now, and bubble over with excitement of trying new recipes. in the last 2 days i learned how to make a kick ass goatcheese salad (add small cubes of peeled apple), and fettucine carbonara.
and of course, today tim has been here for more than a week. while sharing a tiny room as opposed to a whole apartment is interesting, thankfully he doesn’t have much clothes (although now the whole closet is taken up, and not just half ;) ), and we’re compatible people.
i’m very happy. life is falling back in place again; the next 3 months look to be full of fantastic fun again (how’s that for alliteration). almost a month of study and party and fun in sydney; then almost a month of travelling around australia and 10 days in japan, and then a month back in toronto, together with my friends and family who i miss oh so much.