nathan wolfe hunts for the next killer virus

it's raining outside. i've been really hoping for some ridiculous pour-age. i need to do some work, i want to read a book, and the best time for that is when there's a thunderstorm and massive downpour of rain. and you're dry inside, all bundled up and watching it from a window.

and it's supposed to be thunderstorms today :)

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/nathan_wolfe_hunts_for_the_next_aids.html

i just watched this clip -- it's only ten minutes long (give or take) so if you're interested you should definitely check it out. i think this was what i initially thought i was going to get into when i started thinking bio-engineering. this is the kind of stuff that inspires. it reminded me a lot of working at lohitash's lab -- except there was nothing like this in lohitash's lab. i think what got me about this particular lecture were the pictures in it -- there were some familiar scenery, despite the fact that i think the pictures were from cameroon (and i'm from zambia). i found myself actually hoping i could go back to africa to do something like this. by doing so, yes, i realize i have joined the thousands of naive, and inspired hopefuls who believe they can change the face of africa.

but first... veterinary school.

i think goal one i've discovered is to work back at the same vet clinic i first worked. it was the energy and atmosphere of the place was so amazing. i worked there almost everyday for 8 to 10 hours, after working at USAID for four or five hours. by the time i left last summer, i was dreading going to work every morning and left the clinic happy, but exhausted. satisfied. sharing a beer with dr. julie. playing with her dogs yogi and mattie. listening to her stories of vet school while she does surgery (and talk about how she'd love to listen to rock and roll while doing so, but dr. liza disapproving of the "devil's music." lawls). getting to know the dogs in the kennels, and the cats. the only thing that killed me about working there was (a) it was completley voluntary, so my being there for 8 to 10 hours got me no money, which was actually ok, and (b) my lack of background in the field. so hopefully after this year, maybe i will have gained something more. i'm hoping i can get back for a week in august and help around again after summer classes end.

while i'm there, i also hope that i can catch up on some tennis with the matero boys. which will be good, hopefully. i feel like i've managed to maintain playing tennis this year so far. which has been great.

gradewise this semester:

sys phys tests: 70 (av. 61), 85.5 (av. 70), 42.5 (av. 51), test 4?
inorganic tests" 70 (av. 70), 32.5 (av. 51), 66 (av. 59)
statistics: 70 (av. 71), 66 (av. 67)
bmed 2210: 72 (av. 73)

so... sys phys has been decent. te rest have not been so, really. i think i'm looking at B's in 2210 and inorganic (hopefully), and sys phys i think i'm looking at a low A. i really want that A in physiology considering the amount of efforti've been putting into it (aside from the 42.5 and 32.5 -- that was just a really bad weekend for tests).

i'm really looking forward to this semester being over.

blurb

i woke up this morning at 7 am and continued studying for inorganic.

...wasn't all that exciting -- i'm glad that's done with, though that test could go both ways. ick, inorganic. not that i'm looking forward to organic, though i heard it's more interesting. and biochem......? sys phys has been going pretty well, its' helped to study with a group for that class. i've found that class to be pretty interesting, though lecutre's a bore. statistics is really frustrating at this point... and 2210 sucks up way too much time for it's worth.

still haven't skipped a class this semester. woo!

i did decide (this morning), to listen to some music in the past 24 hours that i've realized were helpful for studying.

1. "kanashimi wo yasashisani" little by little
2. "secret of my heart" kuraki mai
3. "wind" akeboshi
4. "just communication" two mix
5. "melissa" porno graffiti
6. "undo" cool joke
7. "rewrite" asian kung fu generation
8. "haruka kanata" asian kung fu generation
9. "xtc" psychic lover
10. "more" matthew west
11. "dare you to move" switchfoot
12. "everything" lifehouse

funnily enough, a lot of them (so far) are japanese -- all of them opening or closing themes from anim... but expanding to the english rock songs i've grown to love. "more" was a very christian inspirational song. very catchy.

Take a look at the mountains
Stretching a mile high
Take a look at the ocean
Far as your eye can see
And think of Me

Take a look at the desert
Do you feel like a grain of sand?
I am with you wherever
Where you go is where I am

And I'm always thinking of you
Take a look around you
I'm spelling it out one by one

(Chorus)
I love you more than the sun
And the stars that I taught how to shine
You are mine, and you shine for me too
I love you yesterday and today
And tomorrow, I'll say it again and again
I love you more

Just a face in the city
Just a tear on a crowded street
But you are one in a million
And you belong to Me

And I want you to know
That I'm not letting go
Even when you come undone

Shine for Me
Shine for Me
Shine on, shine on

i think it summarizes christianity in a nutshell.

pandora's great. and (knock on wood) i still haven't gotten any of those advertisements that people complain about. so i really don't know what to think about that. though it certainly could be annoying. i've been hunting for "break" by two mix ... can't find it. driving me crazy.

trying to figure out housing arrangments for summer. at this moment, it's looking like aaron + friend + kevin at north ave north? still not sure about living over on east campus over the summer... though it'd make things easier for living in the fall once again.

anyway.

i must p

type that on google, let it autocomplete. the strangest thing will come up.

i died this morning (laughing).

this i found out when i got on facebook this morning, and stalkerbook told me what one person wrote to another. (click the first link that pops up after google autocompletes this search-- i just had to try from there.). you will go into the history of cpr. strangely, cpr has only been around for less than half a century, which we all take for granted in this day and age.

silhouettes of construction workers by my window are obnoxious. i'm ready to start chucking crap at them if only my window would open (which it no longer does).

another thng that happened yesterday:

for the first time i actually took a side about jimmy. my mom wrote an entire essay on it, my dad wrote the shortest e-mail ever. whether that was because he actually had to go or not i'm not entirely sure. i'm not sure what made me write the email in the first place. but, what's happened has happened. and so, i'm done with that.

i'd like to write about chicago at some point, but when i have the time (and when i'm not dying). i do have to say though, it was definitely a great trip. it was great to see janet, and it was nice to meet matt's friend and matt's friend's roommate. anyway. will write more later. hopefully.

also: purchased the cheesiest phone ever. possibly the smartest decision on cell phones i have made in my entire life. all it does is text, and do calls... amazing.

WE'RE SEEING JANET TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JANET BAO^2 HERE WE COME!!

JANET ARE EWE READY????????????????????




JANET BAO BAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

long post -- smorgasbord

great word, first of all.

things haven't been too shabbeh...

last week saturday -- jca live! very enjoyable. definitely some awesome skits were done. made me happy :) i discovered switchfoot's "dare you to move" from it. they had a really awesome skit from it. there was a cameo (?) of "stranger than fiction" for one. there were a lot of creative ones, and i enjoyed the fact that you really didn't have to be christian to enjoy them. it reminded me a lot of high school plays and skits that mrs. dice used to have us do once or twice a month ("wednesday night live.") good times.

last thursday was pretty good. the weather suddenly got better, so i got my racket out and played tennis for three and a half hours. i got to play with wes, who i hadn't been able to play with for a couple weeks or so. he's the nearest thing to the zambian tennis i used to play. a lot of the club players that i've played with either are (a) below my skill level, (b) way above my skill level and i feel bad for playing with them, or (c) total jerks. i'm pretty sure he's better than me, for sure, but he's pretty chill and i feel like i play my best against him. he's the only person on the club that i play on a regular basis (fairly regular i guess), and it reminds me of playing back at home in zambia. against philsky, against the matero boys, against hector, everyone. anyway, i was definitely hitting pretty well for a couple hours -- and paid the price for it an hour and a half later when i felt like my arm was about to just fall off. the weather was great, and i got some decent tennis playing in sunlight. phenomenal.

friday, edgar worked the crap out of us during lifeguard workout. it was the stupid lunges... and probably the after effects of tennis the day before. afterwards, went and saw "watchmen." i really had no idea what the movie was about going in, but came out thinking the movie was phenomenal. aside from the gratuitous sex and violence that they had, it was interesting to portray superhero characters in a different light -- with more emphasis on darker human qualities. aside from the cheesy lines here and there, most of the movie was definitely original. i think a lot of the appreciation that i had from the movie came from my general enjoyment of watching superhero movies, integrated with... darker characters. kind of kill bill-esque in the whole integrating "asian" film-styles to... that. vol. 1 particularly to japanese cut-em-up movies from the 80s. i'd like to watch watchmen again soon, but that probably won't happen. so i'm looking forward to owning that on dvd. also enjoyed having dinner at rocky mountain for the first time since i'd been at tech. it was a reasonably cheap eat, and was fairly decent...

looking forward to: x-men origins, star trek, terminator salvation...

movies that should be burned before it comes out: dragonball z. good god, who's ever heard of goku as white!? and chow-yun fat as master roshi? don't get me wrong, he was awesome in bulletproof monk. great movie considering how cheesy it was. but still:

"!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

saturday was a very slow day. i think the original plan was to get a lot of systems physiology studying out of the way... that didn't happen. i'm fairly sure my day involved of sleeping around, and playing guitar hero. watched "a few good men" with tom cruise. got stedman to actually like the movie (successful attempt out of 3 failed attempts...).

sunday: went to jca -- which was something i hadn't done in a couple months, i think. with karen and hibisca. i enjoyed the sermon a lot, talked about noah and the flood. i like the way pastor matt speaks. he's a very conversational guy, and very entertaining in the sort of dorky manner. he's a really introverted character i found when talking to him one on one. it was really funny to find that he actually had a clue as to who i was. called me sean, but i think that just has to do with my name. he wanted to know stuff about me, wondered if i was christian or not. fairly legitimate question. i told him i wasn't sure, hadn't decided. he asked what was stopping me from making that full commitment, and he listened very closely. he wasn't very invading at all, he was quite the listener. i think what got me off guard the most though was how quiet he was, compared to when he's speaking out. it was a nice experience. and for a little man, he sure looked big and intimidating up close...

...yeah.

also:

i can't remember when this actually happened, but lauren called me one weekend, and she was very upset about her love life. i think for the first time in my life i didn't hesitate to tell her that this guy that she was so hung up on wasn't worth it. she liked him for years now, since freshman year of high school, and he's been off and on in her life. it had been a lot of fast and loose between them, if that makes any sense. he'd come into her life, and then leave just as quick. and i think she'd been torn about him for so long and... now she'd fallen in love. not that i know anything about it, but i wasn't particularly convinced by this, particularly since that word has been a song played on repeat (like karen's last.fm music habits) for years with me. so i actually tried reasoning with her... and gave her a different perspective. i got her to realize that she'd essentially had a crush on him since the moment she saw him. when she was just going from 8th grade to 9 th, when hormones were going all over the place, and she'd known him since boys begun to really start liking girls. or started learning to. and that maybe, just maybe, after such a long time, it was sort of a pavlovian response. that this was the only way that she had been conditioned to think about it... the whole liking him since the hormones started raging linked with liking him deal. and... she actually realized. discovered. that maybe, just maybe that was the case. and i was surprised that i convinced her. it was... a weird parental feeling. or maybe big brotherly feeling.

which then leads me to this final thought of...

afterward, lauren said that nina and her had talked about me. about how i was like a big brother, like i had always been like that. i guess i never really thought about how i acted among people in high school, and made me wonder what other people said about me. it wasn't a self-conscious paranoia sort of deal -- just a faint curiosity. it's not something i'd really like to find out. but i wonder -- when we die, will we be able to see all the truths that have been hidden from us for so long? wouldn't it be nice, at that moment of death, to have all the answers to the questions unanswered, the truth of all truths...

wow. this post. so long.
(that's what she said.)

so messy.
THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

sigh.

late

late waking up, late for class, late for life.

gtg holmezzzzzzzzzz

seriously.

..zzz