Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in Dank's LiveJournal:

Saturday, November 21st, 2009
4:44 am	ThingThing When does easter come around? I miss the cadbury eggs. I watch too many youtube videos. Kittens, babies, ninjas. What's become of my life. My bike keeps breaking down. The spokes pop out. Once one spoke pops the rest become even more likely to break even if they are repaired. I'm going to have to pay for some better wheels. My room mate called me out tonight for having a lot of high fructose corn syrup in my diet because I buy lots of Walmart "Great Value" products. I countered with the fact that my salt is name brand Mortons. Speaking of Mortons I've always liked their iconic girl in rain boots spilling salt in the rain. I wonder if that's where I began liking girls in rain boots. To me a girl in rain boots signfies a person who is willing to go out even though it's raining. And not just go out, but jump in puddles and have a good time. I had to write a paper in my Immunology class proposing a novel research project in the field of Immunology. I chose to write about a small change to an alternative treatment method in Lung Cancer. It's probably one of the most fun projects I've done but I'm really dissappointed in myself for not giving more time to write the paper. I might have fully read 30 papers and skimmed over dozens more while picking the topic and researching the field. Writing in science-ese turned out to be more difficult than I thought. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
12:41 am	1st time seeing Jenny's Dad 1st time seeing Tinsley's Dad 1st time in the 40 watt 1st time being at a music concert with Tinsley? (to her credit, she didn't dance.  A woman of principles) 1st Halloween as a 21 year old 1st time seeing Anna Fleming as a married person (missed the wedding because I was in India :/ ) 1st time watching Monthy Python and the Holy Grail in one sitting (Only saw it in segments before.  Got a great costume out of it.) What a great October 31st (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
7:36 pm	I wonder what it would be like to have forests where trees grew so large that you couldn't see the tops.  Mountain trees trees that grew half a mile into the sky. Would get a better view of the clouds from living up there. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 22nd, 2009
12:51 am	Tummy Aches and Funnel Cake I stepped outside of my house with the intention of seeing how far I could run.  I ran one direction and then ran out of road that would be safe to run on.  I turned around and then ran the other directions as far as I could and ended up running out of road that would be safe to run on.  It was dark by this point and beginning to drizzle so I turned back and ran home. When it was all said and done I had run 8 miles and still felt like I wanted to run some more. Feeling restless I then went back out in the car to rent a movie and get dinner.  The restaurants near by were closed so heading back on atlanta highway I saw the traveling circus in the mall parking lot.  Wanting a funnel cake I squeezed into the first available parking spot between a piece of crap honda (it was really old) and a brand new KIA (that mileage flier 17 street 24 highway was still in the passenger window) I slid out the door using my fingers to clasp the edges to prevent the piece of crap honda (it was on the drivers side) from getting scratched.  I got the funnel cake (covered in powdered sugar) and then hopped onto the roof of my car with my legs dangling off the back.  Picking at the crispy edges of the funnel cake I watched the circus wind down and close.  The cake was so hot when it was put in the box that oil droplets had burnt holes in the styrofoam container.  I might have been eating cancer cake if the styrofoam had melted onto it but it was still delicious. I continued to eat my way into the center of the cake and watched as two families had to squeeze past my car to get into their own.  It served them right for parking so damn close to the line.  The funnier squeeze the family into the car act was the kia because they had a freaking huge teddy bear to get in.  Also, the dad made these grunting squealing noises as he slid into the drivers seat.  He wasn't even overweight. After finishing half the funnel cake I went to sonic and used my coupon for a double cheeseburger combo with a cherry limeade and tots.  $3.99 and delicious.  If I hadn't run 8 miles earlier I might have felt guilty.  Maybe I still do since I ate ribs for lunch. Chomp chomp chomp. I guess that's why I have a tummy ache. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
11:23 pm	Amoeba A grad student in my lab gave me this interesting paper on evolution patterns of little things (parasites and stuff) and I remembered a project I did in 2nd grade.  We were supposed to research any type of animal that we wanted and write a paper and have a project to accompany it.  My class mates did dolphins, elephants, and dogs.  I did amoeba's. Of course my dad the scientist doctor helped guiding me to Encyclopedia Britannica articles (using books to research...pretty wild huh?).  I pretty much just summarized passages about how Amoeba's envelope their food (bacteria) by surrounding it with their tentacles and then digesting.  I put in all these color photos that used up my printer's ink.  Also, I wrote about how some Amoeba's could make people sick : / For the project part, I made a replica of an Amoeba out of homemade play dough with my Mother.  It was mainly flour, water, and lots of salt which we cooked in a pan.  After it was finished my mother took a small bit and ate it telling me, "MMMMM! This is SOOOO GOOOD! You should eat some :) :) :)"  Of course, being the gullible second grader, I took a huge bite and started chewing it.  Needless to say I felt betrayed.  My mother had a good laugh and told me how my grandmother in India had done the same thing to her when she was little with a bitter salty Indian food that you have to acquire the taste for. I wonder how I'll be with kids.  I should probably have the requisite two, just so our species doesn't disappear. Looking back, I didn't feel like my parents pressured me at all into making a animal research project about Amoeba.  It wasn't one of "those" projects where everyone knew the parents had worked all night on it and it was way better than the kid could ever had done.  The amoeba wasn't anything spectacular at all and the paper was pretty crap I'm sure.  I just remember thinking how cool it was that whole worlds existed where we couldn't even see. I knew in Kindergarten I thought a CEO would be a cool job.  In 1st grade I really wanted to be a Marine Biologist at Sea World with my crush who I drew pictures of dolphins with.  I guess 2nd grade is where I realized how dumb it would be to sit at a desk all day.  Sea World isn't that great either.  Amoeba though, they rock. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 26th, 2008
10:23 pm	Trees For a long time, when I was a kid, I thought that trees could live forever.  Sure, I knew that they could die from diseases, or fires, or be eaten by brontosauruses, but It never crossed my mind that trees aren't all that different from me. I found out that they could die when some nature person mentioned something like "And these trees can live up to 2000 years.  That means some Red Woods in California have the same birthday as Jesus."  Instead of awe, I was utterly crushed.  This was more shocking to me than when I found out Santa Claus was fake.  I know this because I don't even remember when I figured out my parents paid for my presents rather than some from of elf labor that probably breaks every international labor law. I guess I felt so sad because, more so than religion, nature accompanied me in my early life.  I spent all my summers out in the woods building forts, climbing trees, or playing ninjas.  Then during middle school up until high school I would go camping 7-8 times a year with my scout troop. As for religion, I only went to church once a week and got the occasional pedantic religious lecture when I misbehaved.  These days I suppose it's not so bad that trees don't live forever.  As least it makes logging and single-sided printing seem like lesser sins than I once thought they were. (Comment on this)
Monday, October 20th, 2008
5:33 pm	Things Done I think this is a good place to record what I've accomplished.  I have another list of "Things to Do" in an entry that is private.  I'll add to the list whenever I remember something I want to read, listen, watch, or just in general accomplish.  When I finish things on that list, I'll  take them off the list and post them here. I hope this turns out well :3 Things Done (Comment on this)
Monday, May 12th, 2008
12:18 am	The Office I finished the last episode of The Office before the writer's strike nearly in tears.  I generally don't cry during work's of art, t.v. shows, piano, paintings or otherwise.  I most often get to the point where I am nearly in tears.   Not something I worry about or am ashamed of, though slightly off the topic. I thought the show would never return with such a long gap.  The writer's of the show left the characters in a state of misery.  Looking into the future, where would all of these character's end up?  They work for a paper company.  All of them hate both, their jobs and their co-workers. Even though, as individual's, they possess a elegant humanity, when put together in an office environment, more often than not, they come off as ugly.  Yes, even Pam and Jim.  That's why I love them.  They are so realistically portrayed that I can feel safe connecting to them.  I don't have to cut through they layer's of business suits and briefcases.  The trusty, shaky, quick panning camera, shows each character at their weakest.  I don't think any of them have really hit a high point in their lives. I sat in my room, my first night back from Washington University.  I had quite a bit of free time so I went to hulu.com to watch the five new episodes that had been released since after the writer's strike broke.  My expectations for the show were quite low.  Most of the story lines had reached mini-climaxes and soon would grow stale.  Within the first two episodes Michael and Jan broke-up.  I appreciate the writer's ruthlessness towards their characters.  On a sit-com comedy such as Friends, you can't write out Jennifer Aniston, even if all of her story lines are washed up and old. I guess on these cheaper productions, actor and actress contracts are more disposable.  It lends itself to better writing.  Anyways, most of the actors and actresses on the show are making successful cross-overs into movies.  It took me a long time to get into watching t.v.  I generally can only watch one or two seasons of any show.  They grow old.  They grow predictable.  They become fake.  I don't expect art to be realistic in any manner, but art loses its ability to communicate a fundamental and human message to its audience when continuity (and thus money) become the motivating factor. I guess I still feel pretty miserable about where I am in life (or where I am not.)  I really appreciate that The Office can prompt active thought about where I am headed.  It's one aspect of how I relate to the arts. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
8:43 pm	Pumping gas I went to the gas station tonight to pump some gas.  As I stood at the nozzle, enjoying the greasy smell of the gas station, an old memory drifted into my consciousness .  I might have been between the ages of 6-8, but definitely quite young. I was on a trip with my family driving somewhere, and we had pulled into a gas station.  My parents had just gone inside to pick up some snacks, and pay for the gas. This was back in the day when people didn't pay for gas with credit cards because it didn't take 50 dollars to fill up a tank.  At the station in front of me was a hot red sports car with a guy filling up the tank.  Standing beside him was a woman wearing a leopard print dress. I couldn't help but stare at the lady.  She was something else.  Not attractive in the least, but definitely an oddity of the world.  As young as I was, I still knew she might be a woman of ill repute.  As if trying to confirm my suspicions, the lady began to make out with the man pumping the gas.  Horrified, I hoped my parents wouldn't come back.  I wasn't worried that I was seeing these two people making out, but I knew my parents would be concerned for my well being if they realized what I was being exposed to. I must have been gawking, because the lady turned and caught my eye.  I might have imagined her grinning, but regardless, she resumed, even more furiously than before, her impromptu make-out session.  Caught in the act of voyeurism, I tried to shrink down into my car seat.  Luckily, my parents came out of the gas station store.  The lady jerked away from he lover, and flattened out her rumpled dress.  As my parents got in the car, the lady once again resumed her nonchalant pose against the car. To me it seemed, in that leopard skin dress, she was just waiting for an opportunity to pounce. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 19th, 2006
2:15 pm	Rome Observations http://www.xanga.com/TheLastRaven http://www.livejournal.com/users/valium_teka/ - Jet lag wasn’t a problem seeing that Rome time is nearly similar to Ankur time. - Saw the Forum, Colloseum, Pompeii and all that cool jazz but it made me miss Latin and Mrs. Polk…well not really miss since it was always good times all around. - Catholicism is a lovely religion, but mainly for its large churches. I <<<<3 bigness. Monday evening mass in St. Peter’s basilica was a bit awkward not being catholic and all but attending was worth it. It’s just so big. I want the church all to myself. With a piano. Really though, I would just be satisfied whistling in it if it were emptied out of all those annoying tourists that dampen the echoey acoustics. - Contrary to popular belief, one CAN’T eat too much gelato…mmmmm - While walking down the street, I saw this in the brief glance (5 seconds) as I went past a small shop front…I man was talking to a very pretty girl(22-26) in a very normal tone of voice (Italian, mind you.) I then noticed this girl was crying, scept there was no sniffiles or other sorts of things associated with a sad person, just a steady stream of tears with a blank face. The odd thing was this girl just continued to make the waffles the shop was selling, scept her tears were dropping into the waffle that she was making in the waffle iron. Nobody likes salty waffles. But I suppose if something really sad was happening in your life and it was in the middle of a huge crowd, making waffles would be the best way to deal with it. - On the train to Pompeii, this girl directly across from me in the seating booth was listening to her ipod. Every once in awhile she would start singing to the Italian songs in broken measures without realizing it. You people know you do that with your ipods…yeah you…don’t deny it, it’s just a reflex…we all can hear ya. - While in the Sistine Chapel, I observed a gaggle of demon hobbits living in a hobbit hole at the bottom of the Last Judgment quite separate from the pits of hell on the lower right corner…sorry Tolkien but Michelangelo really did think of everything we know and love today. It would be quite easy to miss these hobbits due to a very anatomically correct crucifix with candles surrounding it placed directly in front of their burrow. Art is Da shit. - Attended a HOT! chorale concert in one of the large churches that had a ceiling painted by Michelangelo. Stupid people mic’d the soloist singers and instruments. During solo parts the forte’s crackled. It’s a freaking stone church. Sound travels. Don’t mess it up with a mic. - Italian women ages 17-20 are the most beautiful women on the planet in terms of the elegant European style of dress and the attractive angular features. After that though…I would go with American girls as a whole. It’s the smoking. They get’em while there young. The older ones are all shriveled up…ew. - Speaking of girls, lovely girls seem to come in groups of three. Due to the socialist culture of Italy, trains don’t run through the night. This left me at the airport from 11pm–7am. Turns out these three Japanese girls with the same situation were chilling in a booth of chairs next to me. All three were in there second year of community college in Nebraska and one of them while in high school had done a year exchange in America with the same program I used to go to Japan for 6 weeks. They definitely made the night more bearable. Japanese girls on average are all pretty, very few are what I’d say, “outstanding.” Japanese boys know this and absolutely love American girls. *this next one relates I swear, just keep reading through* - The longest I’ve ever stayed awake is 42 hours which occurred during my travels back to the US from Japan. I had a meal of sushi in the first few hours then subsisted on a large bag of gummy worms and water for the rest of the time. I can’t eat airplane food and fly, and I was broke so couldn’t buy a real meal. From Tokyo to San Francisco, I passed the time with another lovely group of three Cali gals, so no sleep there. But SanFran to Atlanta, sleep wasn’t an option since I couldn’t sleep sitting up. I could sleep crammed into any another other position just not that one. My Junior and Senior years have helped me master the art of sleeping while in a chair. With the mastery of this last sensual somatic position, travel was enjoyable. However, Rome-France-Atlanta on Air France was much better than Atlanta-Cincinnati-Rome with Delta - One of the movies I saw on the plane trip was Le Petite Soldier. An astoundingly beautiful movie, not because of plot, acting, or effects. All these were only good. All the good came together to make something special. The movie was just real. Movies reveal and/or explain life. This one was one of the best. - Thank God for this trip. It’s the first weeklong break I’ve had since the end of my junior year due to constant lab work, college apps, etc. While I enjoyed the work, I do know I almost burned out for the first time in my life just before spring break. Earning 6 study halls between two days highlights that. I was moving sloooow. This trip was a good time to just chill and get my head out of my arse. Also it was a nice to think about more important things not relating to school since my parents don’t bother me so much any more about not talking. Its interesting that the institution supposed to promote education often hinders it. But I’m ready to go back to get ready for leaving. Ciao. Current Music: NewGrounds (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 19th, 2005
1:23 pm	a series of odd events... http://www.xanga.com/TheLastRaven http://www.livejournal.com/users/valium_teka/ ser•en•dip•i•ty (s r n-d p -t ) n. pl. ser•en•dip•i•ties 1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. 2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries. 3. An instance of making such a discovery. Dear Internetophiles, As you, all know I generally shun the idea of putting my thoughts on the web due their general unimportance. However something happened last night/this morning (it was like 1 something) that I consider to be one of the most important things to ever happen to me. I’m being serious; Hence, I am posting this both on my Livejournal and Xanga. Its importance comes not from the fact that the event was of such grandeur that it immediately changed my life, nor was it some tragedy from which I emerged stronger; Rather, that this event has taken place over ½ of my conscious life (awareness of my existence beginning at age 3 on to age 17/18 at present) is what makes the event so wonnerful. Seven years ago one Sunday evening in my room I flipped on my radio, a small white box that fit neatly in my hand (excellent for curling up with late at night, as I would later find.) School was the next day and I had wasted my entire weekend of freedom. I hoped to catch the short NPR news segment that came every hour on the hour. 8:17. I had missed the news. Instead, some radio personality droned in the background. I finally figured out that he was telling a story. The story followed a man who lived in an apartment across from a mob club. He related his experiences living in such close proximity to the new York mob. From his vantage point he could see the cat and mouse games that unfurled between the gangsters and the feds. The feds would mike the club and get a few members convicted. Then the gangsters would catch on and go outside to hold there business related discussions. Then the feds would start parking cars outside that were wired. Thus the paranoid members learned to stay away from cars, lamps, street lights etc. when they were discussing business. 9:00 the story finished and I realized my weekend hadn’t been a waste. The program turned out to be selected shorts. From that there I promptly fell asleep. I can’t do the story justice with my summary, but to this day I hold it as the most precious work of short fiction I ever read/heard. Waking up in the morning, I discovered I had not caught the name of the story or the author. I had missed the first 10 minutes of that story and regardless, I wanted to hear it again. From the internet, I found they didn’t keep records of stories they told. Next Sunday I eagerly tuned in to selected shorts wondering if they might do a re-run. Then the next Sunday…and the next…it turns out that I listened to selected shorts on a regular basis for the next three years of my life, always with the hope that I might hear that story once more. The stories were thrilling, sad, witty, but never as good as that first story. It’s funny how things work like that. You can never be sure whether the thrill of doing something for the first time is what makes something fun that would ordinarily be quite boring. Then you must account for the weight of time that molds events into objects unrecognizable from their original state. I don’t think I did that. Listening to the radio I discovered new shows, the two most important being Love line and This American Life. Up until my junior year in high school, I listened to these shows religiously. I would even go so far as to say that the radio has taught me more about the world than 12 years of sitting in a classroom. This brings us to last night. I watched The Chronicles of Narnia with my family. It was excellent but lacked the incredible depth of LoTR. Its Christmas break, I haven’t listened to the radio all semester due to the hellish schedule I kept with lab work and then with 12 colleges I’m applying. Schoolwork has been the easiest of three. At home my nightly ritual began. I yawn, act tired, and then lock up the house and go to bed. My mother stays downstairs for 10 minutes to make sure I’ve gone to sleep. From my bedroom I hear her walk up the stairs and go past my room. The bedroom door creaks and I know she’s inside the room. I put on socks *they are much more silent.* I creep outside. I step only on the edge of the stairs because that is the only part that doesn’t creak. I lean from the last step to the edge of the carpet to avoid the wooden floors which also creak. I travel along a diagonal path on the rug to avoid the older boards underneath to the computer room. I check one last time to see if anyone is stirring. All is silent and I can begin my night. On the way back from the theater, I turned on the radio I realized that This American Life was playing. My Dad promptly turned it off because I was driving. No problem. I go to the web to browse through the archives of This American Life. One catches my interest. The Mob. The first part of the hour-long show follows Sarah Vowell who explains why she watched The Godfather everyday while she was in college and what happened when she finally traveled to Sicily. Act II is about the daughter of a mobster and her experiences. At this point, I began to doze off into my large headphones that I have plugged into my computer. Act III first begins with a detective describing the decline of mob activity in New York and then moved into the experiences John Wilkinson who discusses a photo his wife took of his old neighbors, the Gambino crime family. He lived across the street from John Gotti's mob clubhouse, on Mulberry near Prince, in New York's Little Italy. This sounds familiar…John Wilkinson was the reader of the story. As he neared the end of the story he began telling about the attempts of the police to tap the mob members. He ended the story describing how he called the police to complain about a few younger mob members setting of fireworks in trash cans. The policeman on the other end of the phone merely answers “The mob doesn’t exist.” I finally understood I had just heard the story again from 7 years ago. The author used that same mysterious ending for what turned out to be a non-fiction short story. I guess at that point I began to freak out. Well, you couldn’t really call it freaking out since if you had seen me, you wouldn’t have noticed since I still continued to doze off with my headphones on. It turns out that this show was repeat of its original broadcast in 97. The story was probably picked up a year or so later and read on Selected Shorts. Then last night, since the show was repeated last week, I found it near the top of the archives. It’s strange. Every single time I’ve ever listened to these radio shows in the gut of my stomach a strange feeling has always been nagging me with the faint hope that I could hear this again and finally put closure onto the mystery that surrounded the origins of the story. The only reason I ever found the numerous radio shows that I have listened to was because of that one story seven years ago that played on a boring Sunday evening. Seven years later on another Sunday, this moment of ultimate serendipity blessed me. What a tiny event in the universe, in my life, in that day….yet, I still cannot explain why it makes me feel so good. comment if you please, comment if you don't please (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 18th, 2005
9:49 pm	favourite prime: 41 Current Mood: around Current Music: nG (10 Comments |Comment on this)