Aimee and I hiked around Sehome Hill today because it was sunny—-we found lots of pretty trails we hadn't ever been on before, and had fun making lame movies of balancing on logs and running through tunnels. Yesterday, Aimee, Chris, Katie and I went to Boulevard Park because it was sunny, but the fog was clinging to the bay and Fairhaven generally, so it was a bit cold.

For my anthro class, I have to write a paper about one aspect of globalization, and I want to do something related to globalization as a cause of epidemics, so I cracked open my textbook "Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism" to the chapter on disease. This book is something that gets me riled up ordinarily, but this chapter made me really upset. How can people be morally outraged that gay people want to get married when: women worldwide are forced into prostitution, a profession where the AIDS rate is estimated to be 90 percent in some places; 1 in every 10 South Africans has HIV/AIDS; American drug companies sued when South Africa wanted to import HIV/AIDS drugs "from countries with the lowest prices" or make generic versions; AIDS was originally called "gay-related immunodeficiency disease" despite evidence that heterosexuals were also susceptible, leading to further prejudice against gay people? Arrrrgh, it's very frustrating.

Happy Birthday Sveltron! :D

Killing time yesterday, I explored the new Comm building and discovered several Areas of Refuge.

I went to the library to see if they had Spirited Away, which I have been wanting to watch for 2 weeks now. When it was on the shelf I exulted. However:

Me: Excuse me, Madame Librarian, I'm having problems checking this DVD out.
Librarian, 3 minutes later, after helping 2 other people who weren't there when I asked: Oh, that's because it's on hold.
Me: Well, then, can I put it on hold for when it comes back.
Librarian: Uh, no, we don't allow people to put movies on hold.
Me: Uhhhhh...

OK, so a faculty member wanted it. But still--for it to be so close yet unattainable is very frustrating, especially compounded with just getting out of a very long and boring Psych of Gender lecture.

Despite being sick, I decided to head home for the weekend when I found a cheap flight. Took some Sudafed right before I started driving, which perked me right up. Had an awesome weekend.

Yay, I got into Huxley! Yay, I'm going home!

Today I drove 4 people to the bus station. I hung out with Aimee for a while, then came back for Bio. I thought I had read all my bio for today, but apparently I hadn't because I didn't know half the questions on our quiz. Oh well, he drops the lowest.

Last night, after dinner, all the people in my hall (ok, 7 of us, still...) played scrabble. My team lost, but everyone was bitter at us anyway because we took forever finding words. Then, pretty much right after, I went to bed and slept 13 hours (though I think I was awake, just laying there, from 1 to 5). At one point I woke up and was freezing, so I ripped all the blankets off Megan's bed and threw them on me, and when I woke up at 10:30 I was roasting. Can't win.

I discovered this week I can wiggle my ears.

Oh, the things people do for science... Perhaps this is why one of the professions I'm forbidden from is vulcanology...

At lunch last week, I ran into my anthropology teacher, which wouldn't have been so bad except he made me promise I'd contribute possible exam questions to our online discussion board, which wouldn't even have been so bad except that I haven't finished reading all our assignments (because he assigns five chapters minimum per week, ranging from 15 to 40 pages long :P). So now I've come up with a few questions, but I still need to read a bunch more.

Katie, from across the hall, decided we wouldn't be lame for Valentine's Day, so we went to a mini-party her friend organized, where everything was PINK and I had to wear pink too (I got away with burgundy.) We had a cookie-decorating contest and my cookie with the heart wearing a glittery frosting bow tie won second.

Yesterday my hallmate Aimee demanded that I draw her.

After that, my hallmates Katie, Chris and I decided that we were boring after we were blown off for Sailor Moon, so we ripped Aimee from her anime and drove around a bit. We decided we were hungry, so after I refused McDonald's and Denny's, we went to Shari's because I haven't read anything bad specifically about it (though I'd bet it's not much better than Denny's). In the hour and a half we were there, the waitress couldn't manage to make 2 shakes for us, so we cancelled them. Damn her.

Megan's at Berkeley, so I have the room to myself until Monday. I woke to sun, read biology (how did it take half an hour to read 10 pages?!), etc etc, and watched Sideways, which was definately not funny. Also got pizza somewhere in there.

Halfway through, my neighbor came in to convince everyone to drink with him, so we spent an hour brainstorming ways to get him and Aimee some alcohol (and failed), then went to the grocery store anyway, even though I went earlier this week. I got some sodas because I forgot to then and I like having individually packaged beverages and can't think of any purchaseable in bulk besides sodas and capri sun (which I hate) and juice boxes (which I feel bad using since I could just have a glass of OJ).

Then we finished Sideways, which reminded me of the movie Adaptation in a bad way, especially since I didn't like Adaptation at all. We felt gipped by that, watched some weird cartoons Aimee picked out, then watched the Terminal, which I enjoyed. By that time I was hungry again, so now I've eaten sushi and waaaay too many chips and am fully awake with nothing to do but homework, and I bet I won't do it.

Tonight was the Evolution and Creation lecture--I learned some new stuff. My bio teacher was doing the evolution part and he pretty much shut down the creationist. He had these cool photos of an experiment where a protein promoting eye growth in mammals was put into random fly parts and made eyes grow there, on legs and antennae and stuff.

Absolutely unrelated, I found this picture on National Geographic.com.

There is little better way to prompt the question, "Why am I here?", than spending twenty minutes bickering over whether bacteria grew on a test plate by examining the opacity and edge variations of a small squiggle--however, it's less of a philosophical "Why am I here" than a just-shoot-me-now kind of "Why am I here."

Yesterday I promoted the renamed Secular Student Alliance's program, "Evolution & Creationism," by sitting at a table for two hours. It was cold, boring, and there wasn't a chair for me, so I sat on a cart that rolled back and forth every time I moved, whacking against the edge of the fountain in Red Square.

Yesterday it snowed slushy snow, then rained, turning all the slushy snow into pure slush. I wandered up Sehome Hill to take photos of the snow on the trees and the trails. Today it's warm, so the snow has melted almost completely, except for on the grass, where it looks like foam on whitecaps in the bay or the ridges the wind makes when it blows across desert sand.

Random photos from this week.

The clouds let a little sunshine through today, so I decided to just drive somewhere. I wound up at a random trailhead and wandered up to Squire's Lake. Everything was green; even the path was paved with moss.

On Thursday night, I went to Chinese New Year's with Cody. The food was good, the entertainment mediocre. But it was so worth it because a lion dancer mauled Cody (see photos).

I finished my psych of gender test in 15 minutes--what a waste of valuable sleeping hours.

I got to play with something called a Vortexer yesterday.
It wasn't as cool as it sounds.