On his mother's side he was more than mortal. He was the son of one of the Muses and a Tracian prince. His mother gave him the gift of music and Thrace where he grew up fostered it. The Thracians were the most musical of the peoples of Greece. But Orpheus had no rival there or anywhere except the gods alone. There was no limit to his power when he played and sang. No one and nothing could resist him.

In the deep still woods upon the Thracian mountains
Orpheus with his singing lyre led the trees,
Led the wild beasts of the wilderness.

Everything animate and inanimate followed him. He moved the rocks on the hillside and turned the courses of the rivers....

When he first met and how he wooed the maiden he loved, Euridice, we are not told, but it is clear that no maiden he wanted could have resisted the power of his song. They were married, but their joy was brief. Directly after the wedding, as the bride walked in a meadow with her bridesmaids, a viper stung her and she died. Orpheus' grief was overwhelming. He could not endure it. He determined to go down to the world of death and try to bring Eurydice back. He said to himself,

With my song
I will charm Demeter's daughter,
I will charm the Lord of the Dead,
Moving their hearts with my melody.
I will bear her away from Hades.

He dared more than any other man ever dared for his love. He took the fearsome journey to the underworld. There he struck his lyre, and at the sound all that vast multitude were charmed to stillness....

O Gods who rule the dark and silent world,
To you all born of a woman needs must come.
All lovely things at last go down to you.
You are the debtor who is always paid.
A little while we tarry up on earth.
Then we are yours forever and forever.
But I seek one who came to you too soon.
The bud was plucked before the flower bloomed.
I tried to bear my loss. I could not bear it.
Love was too strong a god, O King, you know
If that old tale men tell is true, how once
The flowers saw the rape of Proserpine,
Then weave again for sweet Eurydice
Life's pattern that was taken from the loom
Too quick. See, I ask a little thing,
Only that you will lend, not give, her to me.
She shall be yours when her years' span is full.

No one under the spell of his voice could refuse him anything. He

Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
and made Hell grant what Love did seek.

They summoned Eurydice and gave her to him, but upon one condition: that he would not look back at her as she followed him, until they had reached the upper world. So the two passed through the great doors of Hades to the path which would take them out of the darkness, climbing up and up. He knew that she must be just behind him, but he longed unutterably to give one glance to make sure. But now they were almost there, the blackness was turning gray; now he had stepped out joyfully into the daylight. Then he turned to her. It was too soon; she was still in the cavern. He saw her in the dim light, and he held out his arms to clasp her; but on the instant she was gone. She had slipped back into the darkness. All he heard was one faint word, "Farewell."

Desperately he tried to rush after her and follow her down, but he was not allowed. The gods would not consent to his entering the world of the dead a second time, while he was still alive. He was forced to return to the earth alone, in utter desolation. Then he forsook the company of men. He wandered through the wild solitudes of Thrace, comfortless except for his lyre, playing, always playing, and the rocks and the rivers and the trees heard him gladly, his only companions. But at last a band of Maenads [women] came upon him....They slew the gentle musician, tearing him limb from limb, borne along past the river's mouth on to the Lesbian shore; nor had it suffered any change from the sea when the Muses found it and buried it in the sanctuary of the island. His limbs they gathered and placed in a tomb at the foot of Mount Olympus, and there to this day the nightingales sing more sweetly than anywhere else.

Just thought I'd share it.

Yeah, it is really sweet, in a sad sort of way. To have been denied not once, but twice. And then to be ripped apart by a bunch of people. Man, that can't have been fun.

Announcement! I found out that Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is rated M18 over here. Fffffff-----

So instead...

Let's all go watch Jumper. It's got Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu in it. Spread the word.

Okay, great. I actually started this without a topic. Now I DO have a topic.

Sweeney Todd is rated M18 because of "excessive gore, cannibalistic themes..." Right.

Outrageous. "Gore" should never be used as an excuse for mature ratings. Believe me, I've tried, but I can't find a proper logical link between maturity and the ability to "handle" gory films. I mean, okay. Let's do Cause and Effect. A person sees a gory movie... Say, one of the Saw series. He goes "urgh, gross." But at the same time, the theme of the film is enthralling. It penetrates the exterior and hits home, accentuating our fears in the most primal way. After the movie, what happens? Nothing. Maybe he has a little trouble sleeping that night. The next day, he meets his friends and goes "Hey, I watched Saw III last night..." and they discuss the ingenious contraptions that sicko enjoyed using so very much. Same goes for most horror movies(which, for some reason, don't often get M18 ratings). Wonder why.

In the end, what has really happened? Nothing. No real impact on anyone other than that they've wasted 2 hours of their life which they could have used on something more useful. No difference for any other type of movie. In fact, I can think of a lot more features that are potentially more mentally damaging than guts on the floor. Take the Teletubbies for example. Quadruplets of the Anti-Christ, really. Come on, did anyone for a moment believe that those demonic biped midgets with completely wrong colours were ever harmless, even educational? Seriously, watching that show is excruciating. I'm glad I don't remember much of that 4 minutes of utter mental bludgeoning from so many years ago. I don't think I could ever relive it.

Yeah, and not to mention movies with extremely gay overtones. Like Batman and Robin, for example. The old movies. It's probably a good thing that most of us have learned to laugh rather than cry about their cheesy dialogues.

And gasp, Star Wars Episode IV. Does anyone still remember that scene where Luke and Leia made out on the Death Star? Oh, gosh. I mean, it was alright at that point of time, but then you watch the next couple of movies and find out that they were brother and sister.

Okay I think I've sidetracked a little here. My point is, people get too worked up over a pile of intestines on a dashboard, or a creepy lady cooking people for dinner. People see a pool of blood and hurriedly hide their children's virgin eyes. People see the word "virgin" and run away. Half a second of cleavage is shown on TV and everyone bawks.

Come on. It... Isn't real. Jack the Ripper was, but does anyone put an M18 rating on discussing him? No they don't.

Besides, if people don't see *stuff when they're younger, what difference is it going to make when they're older? None. They would be just as "traumatised". That is, apparently, what people seem to think. We get traumatised by viewing moving pixels on a damn television screen.

Yeah, I'm just saying all this because I'm not happy about not being able to watch Sweeney Todd. Effin'...

Once again, I find myself pulling out the last card in the deck.

People.

Are.

Idiots.

Yeah, that's all I'm really trying to say here...

Also, my internet connection has become bloody slow over the past couple of weeks or so. I need to go figure out why, and hope that I can leave that card alone this time.



Does Calvin realise that Hobbes is really just a stuffed tiger? I've always had the impression that he suffered from some sort of mental... Thing...

-Joe

TheQuaver.blogspot.com 1st Anniversary Party – The music in you (Theme).

The blog will be celebrating its first anniversary this coming July. To do this, we will be organising a party, sometime in June or July of this year. All readers and fans of the blog are welcome.

If anyone is interested in having some fun this year, please send us an email at phantom_crusade@hotmail.com
Kindly leave your name, contact number, and your date of preference for the party. If you've got any great ideas, feel free to give us a suggestion!

We will reply to all with more details closer to the date.

So, if you're looking to have some fun this year, why not give us a look-in?

-Shaun

Um. Ew. My mom made a soup that was creepily similar to the one we made at Seoul Garden. Because of the egg. At least there weren't green wormy things and maggoty-looking rolls. Just fishballs. But the similarity was uncanny. And it didn't taste that great, either. It wasn't really my type of soup.

I should totally have seen this coming. But I didn't. I was under the impression that they would all lay off and let me be once the JAE applications closed. What's going on? Well, after band practice today, they called a bunch of us out to meet the teachers. And why? Because we were intending to leave the band, in one way or another. One other guy was looking at the Photographic society. Another wanted to go to a different school.

So I left the band room to meet them. After listening to the teacher persuading the photographically interested(lol new term!), I wasn't feeling too happy. For one, I was supposed to be cleaning up my instrument. Also, I wasn't interested in being nagged at. But what could I do? I could probably have faked a seizure to get out of the "why you should stay here" lecture, but I didn't have a lot of experience in that. Instead, I stood there and listened to the sermon, occasionally saying "Um. Okay." in a dull and bored tone. Which basically ended up with me 'agreeing' to think about appealing back into AJ. Fingers crossed, of course.

But seriously, it's annoying. Very, very annoying. They're doing this because they don't want to lose a potential band member. Forgive me, but I know that they know that I'm good. I'm a precious commodity. Thus, they are now being very persistent at trying to sway my confidence. Again, I repeat, it's very, very annoying.

Why are they so worried, anyway? It's not like I'm the only baritonist out there. I'm sure more will join after the second intake. So yeah, leave me alone. They should consider themselves fortunate that I didn't ditch the whole thing right after my application to NYP.

All that this is doing is really just messing with my head. So I'm not going to listen to any more of it. Gah. I've got another 3 weeks to get through.

Crap. And I've been signed out of my Photobucket account for no reason. And I don't remember my password.

-Joe

EDIT: Found it.

Quest Log: Travel to IMM, locate Band World
Quest abandoned.
Put on hold for: 2 Years.

January 26 2008

We have been so close to that building so many times over the last couple of years. Mostly Science Centre trips. Yeah, we love that place for some reason. I personally enjoy the things that make most people puke/scream/suffer mentally. But today, we weren't going to the Science Centre. We were just bored. We actually planned to go to Island Creamery, or whatever that place is called.

But then in the morning, I overheard that my brother was going to the same place. So, we decided to explore the other side of the North-South line instead.

When we got to IMM, we were faced with the same problem as before: Navigation. I swear, IMM is a total four-dimensional space. You each corridor is a Mobiüs strip all by itself, riddled with wormholes and portals. This has lead me to believe that the Scrin themselves are using IMM as a base for their covert operations...

We traveled deep into the complex, trying, and failing, to find this fabled land. The Scrolls of Knowledge- Ahem, I mean, directory, hinted at a secret passage way located just beyond the reaches of the mead hall. Food court. However, we were denied access by a magical enchantment. Those cursed words "Authorised personnel only". Apparently, our understanding of the arcane ways of the Scrin were still not enough to penetrate their barriers.

Discouraged, but not defeated, we sought a new route into the complex. After numerous consultations with the sages. I mean, information counter, and not gaining a shred of wisdom, decided to explore a section of the building which we had not yet set foot. It was some sort of vehicle hangar. Alien spacecraft, disguised as human craft, of course. But we kept a low profile, pretending to be one of them as we strolled confidently past a group of smoke belching Defilers. And behold, another secret entrance!

We stepped on in, the spirit of adventure coursing through our veins. But alas, the rush of victory was soon extinguished, for now we faced a passage of infinite capacity.

What was worse, there were branches and forks everywhere!


Which way to take? It was frightening, yes, but with bold spirits we flipped a coin and journeyed on, hoping that we were reading the correct symbols. Along the way, my initial suspicions were yet again reinforced when we encountered a group of lost travelers. They were tired, hungry and desperate. Upon seeing us, their leader rushed to greet us and urgently asked for directions. Apparently, they had been wandering these inescapable halls for weeks! They used a strange, foreign language, but thankfully, Shaun was well-versed enough in it to reply. All the wanted was to know where to find some much needed nourishment, and we were glad to help. As they hurriedly ran towards the warp hole which we came in from, I prayed that we would not ourselves become lost in this labyrinth.

But I shouldn't have worried, for not long after, we stumbled upon the very location which we were looking for!
Quest Complete! Ding!

Still, something was amiss...
Damn them and their four-dimensional warps. In the process of physically walking that corridor, we went back in time!

Along that massive passage... There were numerous, strange panels. Each was spaced equally from each other, extending into the abyss of this backdoor to the world. My curiousity perked, I stepped in front of one, and behold...

A parallel universe! Like what?

If that wasn't creepy enough, then how about the fact that my alternate self reached through the barrier and gave me this doodle...

I will forever keep this doodle to remind me of my encounter with a parallel universe. Not that I would forget it anytime soon, anyway.

As I left, my mind was full of questions... What were they doing here? What was the point of this multi-dimensional labyrinth? Perhaps they were testing us, analysing our behaviour... But like some kind of telepathic transfer, I realised their true purpose...

They were...

DOWNLOADING THE INTERNET!

-Joe

OMFG?

Whaddya mean, a 2 for chemistry? I'm supposed to be good at that!

Apparently, so is everyone else.

Anyway, I hack the Matrix. Yep.

Now, to all my friends... Even if you did not do as well as you'd hoped, do not despair. I know that none of you did horribly, and I can assure all of you a bright future... Assuming you don't die prematurely, of course. Say you're not amongst those who I've mentioned... Well, everyone is talented. This is just the O' levels. It doesn't mean much. Polytechnic or JC... Don't think too much about it. That stereotype that was perpetrated by so many of our seniors, that people who go to polytechnics have no future. It's not true.

In the past, many people who chose not to take the straightforward path of junior college. They were not accepted into local universities, so they moved overseas. Goodbye Singapore. Singapore lost a lot of talented people. So Singapore universities began accepting poly grads.

So yeah. Don't worry.

We went for "lunch" at the Seoul Garden at Bugis Junction. During which we ate a lot of chicken. And beef. Then we um... Played with food. It was really funny when Leonard tried to hide an overcooked piece of beef inside a cockel shell, for some reason. Yeah, and we did that usual "dump the stuff in the soup" thing. It was pretty gross. And entertaining.

Can you believe that my mom said that it looked delicious? Well, she didn't see those maggoty looking squid-rolls, so yeah...

Yeah, and look at this!

lol.

Yeah, tremendous fun.



That's some of the class with our favorite teacher, the amazing A. Low. And he smiled! Like wow. Noticeably, and more than once!. Yaay!

I'm actually on the phone right now, so I'm not very focused... Gah. Oh well. I'm happy. And satisfied. Woot.

-Joe

Is it normal that I actually once wished I had heterochromatic eyes?

So I visited NYP with Jeremy and Shaun today. Well, interesting enough.

The receptionist person was... Not nice. She basically ignored all our queries and told us that we could only apply the next day. Great people skills.

Fortunately, we met an ex-Montfortian. Who also, conveniently enough, is taking the very course that I was interested in. So we set about to asking him questions and... Making him late for his lecture. He didn't seem to mind, though. It was very nice of him to hang back and talk to us. Basically, I found out that the polytechnic system wasn't that much different from a JC, with the very important exceptions that the main modules cover everything there is to that particular subject. There's still an elective thingy we have to do... But we get to learn a new language, or take some "Appreciation in health sciences or engineering" thing. Sounds interesting enough. Mostly because it isn't called "contrasting subject".

The main module has got these interpersonal skill thingies scattered around, along with a few mathematically related ones. According to our senior, it's some calculus and quite a bit of statistics. I suppose those are necessary stuff. If his information is accurate... It's O' Level calculus, and a bit more. Statistics... Well, I don't really know. But I can sorta get a picture from the name.

After apologising for making him late, we walked off to a certain area(which I'm not sure if I could find again) and noticed a bunch of lecturers gathering. They looked like they were waiting for a meeting(which they were), so we took the opportunity to ask a few questions. Coincidentally, the lecturer we approached was a biomedical guy, so he could give us a few distinctions between biomedical science and biotechnology.

And then we left, and discussed what we saw over pizza. Pizza which had a disturbing amount of oil. If you held a pepperoni pizza slice at an angle to the horizontal, you would have been able to see the effects of gravity on viscous fluids. Yellow, slimy, viscous fluids.

Putting aside oily pizzas... I'm not sure if the discussion we had was any use. I mean, what's the point of a discussion if we basically agree on everything everyone says? It's better to specialise if you already know what you want to do. Check. Proteomics is really cool. Check. Way-too-oily pizza sucks. Check.

Damn what IS it with this Firefox dictionary? They say that "proteomics" isn't even a word. Hell, they say that "Firefox" isn't a word. Brilliant.

Well, it's the big day tomorrow. Probably was the big day today, since it's like 11pm and I don't think anyone would read at this time. Well, time to put my hands in my pockets.

I love those pockets. They're huge. I used to carry my freakin' calculator around in them. But then I stopped doing that for some reason...

Well, a good day overall. I don't know if this is really a deciding a factor for me. I mean, the grass is always greener on the other side. How do I tell?

Or maybe I don't. Creativity will help me.

-Joe

Those people sure know how to make me exhausted. Monday ends with me being unable to move after last-period PE. Tuesday ends with me dizzy from band practice. Wednesday... Well, band practice again. But I've already arranged to visit NYP tomorrow, so I'm skipping practice. It's only sectionals anyway. And besides, what's more important, a Chinese New Year concert for a school I might not stay in, or finding out what I'll be getting myself into if actually do leave. That was rhetoric, if anyone was wondering.

Well, Thursday's the big day. I'll get to say hello to 4E1 once again. And I'll also get to find out if I actually do get my name on the wall. Realistically speaking, it isn't a good chance. But a man can dream...

I'd like to thank everyone for your nice encouraging comments! Makes me feel so much less worried.

Man, I can't believe they're making me go back for band practice on Friday...

My brain just hung. Oh, wait blue screen of death. Ugh. my brain is just crashing over and over right now. Can't think of anything...

Pie.

-Joe

I had no ideas of what to write for thequaver, but that is no longer an issue. As I was going through a list of my old msn messenger nick names I used, I realized some were meaningful, and others interesting to share with.

It is not a long list though. All listed are in sequence from the oldest.

1) •$17sobx Hell and fire •$37High School Musical ROX!•$44 •$17 "Perfection is only in the eyes of the beholder" ~~AZURE~~

This nick name came at a period which High School Musical was out. It was also a time when I thought only of perfection and the used the cliché phrase "Perfection is only in the eyes of the beholder". I remember during my orientation, a joke was made, what is in the eyes of the BEE HOLDER? It is a lame joke – PERFECTION is the answer if you haven’t figured out. The ‘sobx’ come from a period where the emo-ness in me was looming. If your wondering what’s ‘•$17’ is – it is a colour code for msn messenger plus an add-on program.

2) It possesses a nobility and grandeur to the highest degree; it has all the serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religious, calm and imposing accents to savage, orgiastic outbursts.

This is from the period when I was a TROMBONE enthusiast, and everything that matter was me and my T-BONE. If you don’t get this nick, I shall explain! It says that the trombone possesses a nobility and grandeur of the highest degree, with all the serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religious (means church music), calm (means soothing music) and imposing accents (means the tonguing crescendo and stuff) to savage (means brutal harsh phrases), orgiastic outbursts.

3) "Perfection is only in the eyes of the beholder". ====Carpe diem ====To succeed one must forsake his desire.

Another period when I felt perfection was only in the EYES of the BEEHOLDER. At this point, I’m practically insane. But it’s true, to succeed we must forsake our desire, for example, games, animes, toys and etc.

4) ~~!!A meaningless life on earth!!~~ Lower Wind S.L haiz..I MUST GET AN EDWARD BASS TROMBONE..Memento mori !!!!!

A trombone enthusiastic phase again, however, there is a twist, I find life meaningless now. This was the time when I gotten my band post, and eager to get my own bass trombone too. If I’m not wrong, I had chanced upon the word Memento mori, which is a latin phrase – a reminder that "Remember that you are mortal," "Remember you will die," or "Remember your death".

5) It possesses a nobility and grandeur to the highest degree; it has all the serious and powerful tones thats the Trombone~~

A repetition of my earlier nick, but a shorter version of it. ^.^

6) “Whoever teaches a student teaches that student's student – and so on until the end of man's generations.”

The old phrase of a teacher is a teacher for life. This nick of mine simply says that when you teaches someone, a student, you teaches the student’s student. Reminiscing the past, I had written this with the mindset that I have become a section leader in my school band, and what I teaches my junior will be passed on and on to the junior’s junior.

7) cherish what you have shore. First Love-Addicted to You!~

AH! This was the time I got to know First Love, a great Jap pop song. The quote “cherish what you have shore”, I probably have taken it from some where, but couldn’t seem to remember where.

8) 06/10/06 HAPPY Mid-Autum Festival!! Haiz the fond memories of childhood!

The Mid-Autum Festival, the time for mooncakes! I’m probably recalling my childhood when I used this nick then.

9) Draw the sword and stand once again for your belief, strength, honor or power, you will be able to resist the winds of destiny!

I think I had taken this quote from a youtube anime video I watched. It’s a really cool quote, inspiring too!

10) The hardest level of music is to make an easy song sound hard, and a hard song sound easy.~!

Another time of bandiness! A statement that music making is not easy, because you need to make easy sound hard and hard sound easy. I’m not discouraging you or anything, music making is not easy. You need determination, perserverance, hard workingness and interest.

11) (Sod's Law :The natural tendency for things to go wrong whenever possible.) The law that governs our life!

I chanced upon this in the dictionary. You might as well find out the indeptness of this law yourself, because if I tell you what I think the law is saying, I may go wrong. I do not want to go wrong here, when there is a law!

12) " Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we aren't able to please every one." said me.

Ever feel that you can’t please anyone, then this quote in my nick describe the situation your in perfectly! We do not fear inadequatecy, a kind of thing that we can change in due time to adequatecy. But we can never please every one we know! The lion, Leo:Rahhhh!!!

13) The fragrance of a wet forest or a beauty of a field of wheat swaying in the wind.~

This is the last of my recorded nick names for msn messenger. It is the ‘chimmest’, the hardest to grasp or understand. If I recalled correctly, it is about city life versus country life. The city life is like the fragrance of a wet forest dense and stressful, whilst the life at the country side is free and easy like wheat swaying in the wind.

That’s the end of all my recorded nick names over the span of 2 years, 2006 & 2007.

Like Joseph who always end a post with a picture, I’ll let you on a glimpse of a picture I took on my New Zealand trip.



-Shaun

Heh. Posting frequency is not directly proportional to number of responses. There's a limit to how much I can write. Maybe I'll draw another graph relating the quality of writing.

And nice one on the inside leak... Unless it's just another rumour! And the 24th is a Thursday. Isn't it customary for it to be on a Friday?

Whatever the case, it'll have to be out by next week anyway. Do I want to know? Yes, definitely. And not just because I'm hoping for my name to be engraved on the wall.

Right now, I'm faced with a dilemma. Should I carry on here in AJC, or go to a polytechnic? These words make the whole thing look a lot less serious than it really is. To most, it would probably be an obvious choice. I can already hear everyone yelling at me “Forget poly! Stay with a junior college!”, and yeah, they do have some good points.

One, it's definitely the fastest way into a university. No doubt about that. As compared to me having to be in the top 5% of the cohort if I choose the other option. Given that I do want to end up in a university eventually, the smarter choice would seem to be JC.

But then I look at it... And it's not so welcoming. Maybe I'm worrying too much, but it just doesn't feel right. There's geography, maths... Chinese... Ick... Okay, geography's all right. Never liked maths, but it is important. Chinese can go jump into a drainage ditch.

Okay, great. Now it's starting to look okay. But there's always that issue... That is that I can't know something unless I've done it. I don't feel like I've done anything in JC yet. I'm not in it yet. I feel like I'm just looking at it through a glass window. Surface details. Nothing inside. How am I supposed to make my decision when I haven't actually properly tried it? Same goes for polytechnic. Why isn't there another little period of time when we get to try it out before the permanent posting? This is worse than playing Russian Roulette. At least there if you get unlucky you don't have to deal with it.

From this current point of view, polytechnic still looks great. I get to specialise in what I want to do. I basically learn all the skills that I need for a profession is this area. It may take three years, but it certainly does look attractive...

I keep telling myself and other people that I can make it into the top 5%. At those times, I sure felt pretty confident of myself. But how do I know that I'm not really deluding myself? I mean, there are a lot of people. I'm smart, but am I smart enough? Am I good enough with my hands? Am I really meant to take this up in the first place?

I don't know. Genetics is still my favourite discussion topic. With anyone that would listen, anyway. I love reading about the little stuff that goes on in our cells. But is that enough? Do I have what it takes to be professional in this, or am I merely interested? How do I know?

And it works for JC too. The whole, “am I thinking right?” thing. How do I know that I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I can handle JC properly? As I've said earlier, I've only experienced... Half the tip of the iceberg. Or maybe not. Again, how do I know? It's impossible.

And no, no coin tosses for me this time. Because a coin toss is never fair. If you spin a coin in exactly the same way, it will always land on the same side. If you don't, then it's not a uniform test.

What I need is a time machine of some sort...

That actually brings me to another issue I'm facing. People don't want to talk about genetic mutation, apocalypses, time travel, logical paradoxes, the implications of when goats are capable of making spider's silk, when jellyfish become capable of walking on land, how to assault a small town using only biological weapons, whether or not it's possible to throw an object in a circular motion around you... And all the other bullshit that I can come up with. They don't care what would happen if Darth Vader were pitted against Optimus Prime on board the USS Enterprise, while explosive decompression simultaneously occurs with cheetos popping into existence randomly around.

It might actually be that they don't think of explosive decompression occurring very often.

The closest I get to any of that is in KI classes, where I get to tell everyone that none of us really exist and that we're all actually a computer simulation, without having anyone go “that's impossible” at me.

Whee.

Macdonalds... With child abuse!

-Joe

Well hello everyone. I haven't posted in the last... Six days or so, not because I've been really busy or anything, but rather I've been tired. And I couldn't think of anything worth posting.

Oh, yeah. Um. Girls do have sideburns. Lol. I was never sure until I came to JC.

And any of Shaun's new friends, if you're reading this... Well, I'm not Shaun. Just thought it would be better to clear that up first.

Which brings me to my next point. Who the hell reads this again? I mean, other than me, when I want to see what I was thinking a few weeks ago. I'm not even sure if Shaun looks at it. Again, I say, we still have snow and Christmas music. Oh well. Snow is nice.

Rain is also nice. Heavy rain with strong winds.

The sun is not nice. The sun burns.

Look, people. Give me more comments. Typing up an entire post on eugenics and getting zero replies is not motivating. I don't just write for myself, I write for others. That means you, if you are reading this now. And if you are reading this now, thank you for your time.

Look, here. I give you proper data.

Okay? So please? Try not to make me feel like I'm talking to no one. Because that's what insane people do. I am not insane. I am only... Not insane.

Kapeesh?

Damn, I'm tired already. And I've got band until 8.30pm tomorrow. Whoop te doo.

Waffles.

-Joe

Eugenics. Cleansing. Betterment. Inhumane. Wrong. The greater good.

For those of us who are unfamiliar with the term “eugenics”, it refers to the improvement of the human race as a whole, using genetics. I myself was unsure of the meaning of this word until very recently, when an interesting post of Sleepywood Forums about genetic discrimination caught my eye.

The Wikipedian definition of eugenics is “a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. Throughout history, eugenics has been regarded by its various advocates as a social responsibility, an altruistic stance of a society, meant to create healthier and more intelligent people, to save resources, and lessen human suffering.”

Eugenics has been in practice for centuries. In the past, when all people knew about genetics was that healthy parents produce healthy babies, eugenics was crude and would have been against today's moral standards. In Sparta, all newborns are screened for defects, abnormalities. If they suffered from any sort of deformity, they were killed. Left on the slopes of Mount Taygetus to die. It wasn't just Sparta that practised customary infanticide. Ancient Rome had laws that said made the slaying of unhealthy children obligatory.

In a somewhat less gruesome manifestation of artificial selection amongst humans, several countries practice forced sterilisation. In Japan, the Eugenic Protection Law of 1948 allowed for the forced sterilisation of those “with a genetic predisposition to commit crime”, along with patients with genetic diseases such as total colour blindness, haemophilia, and albinism. Not excluded were also mental defects such as schizophrenia and epilepsy. In 1928, the Sexual Sterilisation Act of Alberta was implemented in Canada, which focused on the mentally deficient individuals. People were assessed by IQ tests like the Stanford-Binet, which favoured those who were proficient in the English language. This posed a large problem to immigrants and ended up with many people being unfairly sterilised.

All over the rest of the world, similar policies have been enforced and repealed many times. It was not until the Christianisation of Rome did the practice of customary infanticide cease.

Even today, forms of eugenics are in practice. There are laws that prohibit individuals with genetic diseases from childbearing. Similarly, there are laws that disallow marriage between blood relatives(in most parts of the world), unless they are more distant than first cousins, and have been proven to be sterile. The logic is clear: Inbreeding causes an accumulation of recessive alleles, and thus increasing the occurrence of genetic diseases.

So far, I have only covered incidences of negative eugenics; where people with genetic defects are prevented from breeding. The other side of eugenics, positive eugenics, involves having those of “higher genetic status” to procreate more, thus increasing the percentage of “good genes” in the population.

In the late 19^th Century, Sir Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's half cousin English Victorian polymath, anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, inventor, proto-geneticist, psychometrician and statistician, had developed an opinion after reading Origin of Species that human civilisation potentially thwarted the process of natural selection. He hypothesised that since the majority of the earth's civilised populations sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, the process where less desirable genes are normally removed from the pool was stopped almost entirely. This would inevitably lead towards “regression towards mediocrity”, as Galton himself put it.

Part of Galton's idea involved the way traits such as health, intelligence, and personalities ran within families. At the time, it seemed apparent that this was largely due to heredity. His basic argument was that “genius” and “talent” were hereditary traits in humans. He believed that these traits could be exaggerated within a population in the same way various traits can be brought to be more common in animals through artificial selection.

In the introduction to his book Hereditary Genius, he wrote

“I propose to show in this book that a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations. “

And that is also pretty much the same mentality that several other societies had... Including Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.

Scientifically, of course, he is right. But our world doesn't run on science alone.

In the film Gattaca, which is a science fiction story set in a dystopian future, where genetic engineering is commonplace and almost considered obligatory. At the birth of a child, its parents have the choice to engineer the baby to become an ideal, genetically perfect child, or to have a “faith birth”.

While this may merely be an interesting sci-fi, I think it may represent our future.

Eventually, along our timeline, we are going to experience the first real gene editing processes. It could remove any form of congenital disease from people from the moment they are born, thus eliminating the ailment from the population altogether. Perhaps we may even live to see the first prototype. That is, if Christian conservatives don't assault the genetics lab first.

Still, I probably have to thank them for their original ideas. If customary infanticide was never eradicated, I probably wouldn't be here to discuss it.

What do you think? Is it worth “perfecting” the human genome? After all, even a population full of fit, smart, and considerate people are going to face problems. Amongst them, a lack of genetic diversity, which could be catastrophic in the event of a highly lethal and contagious viral outbreak, or some similar occurrence.

Maybe you don't care, but it's something to think about. I hope you found this post insightful... Or at least maybe gave you something to puzzle your friends with.

That is all. Thank you.

Heh. Thought it was somewhat related...

-Joe

*Gattaca is actually composed of the first for letters representing our happy nucleotides. ATCG.

Oh gosh. First set of real homework and I'm already bloody ass of a hell frustrated. Does anyone remember two years ago when we started learning something as simple as... Simultaneous equations? And we(most of us) sucked horribly at it and took like one hour to do three questions. Three questions that today, would take less time than it does for most people to check their email. And not to mention that after one hour of struggling with those things(which is really unbelievable, now that I think of it), we still get them wrong? Like our first A. Math test. I actually failed that one. My working took up maybe one page for each question. Which, is also extremely unbelievable.

That's exactly how I feel right now. I've just spent an accumulative three and a half hours working on a single tutorial sheet. And I'm not done yet. I can tell that partial fractions is supposed to be some basic skill that we'll probably be using as often this year as we did simultaneous equations previously. Knowing that I eventually got simultaneous equations down anyway, I shouldn't be worried. But I am. We don't have A. Low to scribble all over our papers anymore. Agh. What the hell am I supposed to do.

And then there's that issue with how other people are doing. I really feel horrible at maths now. I haven't found out how anyone else is doing yet, but the feeling sucks. I've always found that if I sucked at something in the beginning, I wouldn't be able to handle it for a very long time. Unless I'm just expecting too much of myself right now.

Sucking at stuff... Sucks.

Quick, everyone quote that.

Yeah, sorry about having so many me-centric posts lately. I just haven't been able to sit down and think about anything deep yet. And we've also forgotten that existence of Shaun. I mean, I'm not even sure if he still looks at his own blog. For one, we've still got carols playing up there.

Whee random picture.


-Joe

I'm at home. It's not even 5 and I'm home. It's difficult to take in. Last year, it would have taken a holiday for this to happen. But apparently JCs are nicer to me... For now.

And then they're going to pile it. Better enjoy this while I can.

So, I was reading Jeremy's blog... and whaddya know? A quiz. Because I enjoy doing these internet survey thingies, I decided to try it out. Here's what I got:

Your view on yourself:
You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:
You are a true romantic. When you are in love, you will do anything and everything to keep your love true.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:
You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.

The seriousness of your love:
Your have very sensible tactics when approaching the opposite sex. In many ways people find your straightforwardness attractive, so you will find yourself with plenty of dates.

Your views on education
Education is very important in life. You want to study hard and learn as much as you can.

The right job for you:
You have plenty of dream jobs but have little chance of doing any of them if you don't focus on something in particular. You need to choose something and go for it to be happy and achieve success.

How do you view success:
You are confident that you will be successful in your chosen career and nothing will stop you from trying.

What are you most afraid of:
You are afraid of things that you cannot control. Sometimes you show your anger to cover up how you feel.

Who is your true self:
You like privacy very much because you enjoy spending time with your own thoughts. You like to disappear when you cannot find solutions to your own problems, but you would feel better if you learned to share your thoughts with a person you trust.

Like what?

Minus the stuff about romance and whatever... I found myself concurring.

And the thing is, none of the questions they asked had anything to do with their answers at all.

Okay, here's their list of questions.

1
Imagine that you are walking along a path. What do you see around you? please answer
Forest, so much forest that you can hardly see the sky.
A yellow corn field against a brilliant blue sky.
Softly sloping green hills, with a view of mountains in the distance.

2
What do you see near your feet? please answer
A mirror
A ring
A bottle

3
Will you pick it up? please answer

Yes
No

4
You walk along and find water. In what form is the water? please answer
A lake
A waterfall
A river

5
You see a key in the water and you pick it up. What does it look like? please answer
An ordinary house key
A beautiful antique key
A small silver locker key

6
Next you stumble across a house. What type of house is it? please answer
A spacious Hollywood mansion
A hut with a garden full of flowers
A beautiful old stone castle

7
What do you do next? please answer
Look into the window
Walk right on inside and explore
Walk away. You're not that interested.

8
Suddenly, something jumps out at you. What is it? please answer
A bear
A wizard
A spider

9
Because you are so scared you run until you see a wall blocking the path in front of you. There is a door, but it's locked, so you look through the key hole. What do you see? please answer
A beautiful house with a vast garden.
A pond in the middle of a desert.
A beach with waves crashing onto the sand.

I don't get it. How do they determine the reason a person chooses any particular option? Take that last one for example. I chose a pond in the middle of a desert, because it's the sort of weird thing I'd really love to see in real life. I really doubt that can give a freaking computer program insight into my personality. Yet they hit me right on. Likes privacy. Check. Thinks education is important. Check. Plenty of ambitions. Check. Confidence in my career. Check.

But then again, those aren't exactly rare qualities, now are they?

If you think about it, there are probably many, many people who think similarly in such scenarios. The question then really is, whether or not people with similar thinking in such areas to me, would also think similarly when presented with the quiz questions.

Let's assume so. Let's say that each person's fundamental thinking causes him to view things in a certain way. Since humans(contrary to what we like to believe) are actually not so different in fundamentals, it's highly possible that there is a group of people with similar fundamental thinking processes. Of course there will be variation, since we were not all raised by a pre-programmed schedule.

Thus the main concern is what the options to the questions represent. What does it mean if I choose to find a ring on the ground? What does it mean if I take it? The first thought that struck me on those questions was that rings were worth a lot of money. The second answer was thus obvious to me.

And then with the bear, spider, or wizard. If a bear jumps out at you, does it mean that you are afraid of bears? The next question seems to suggest so. However, how does one come to be afraid of wizards? Ignoring the elaborations and modifications of modern wizard tales, don't we all know that in traditional stories, wizards are generally the benign versions of the evil witches? They represent wisdom, power and fragility all at once. I picked a wizard, simply because it's cooler to meet a real wizard than get mauled by a bear or bitten by a spider. As far as I can tell, it doesn't say much about me that could relate to any of that.

Oh, wait. I just looked at the questions and answers again.

Green hills and mountains bears connotations of being "down to earth". Okay...

The ring and whether or not I would pick it up is supposed to refer to my attitude towards romance. Way off, man. I was just going "ka-ching!" in my mind when I chose those options...

And so on.

Now that I've looked at it again. It's not so strange. It's just clever. A very well thought out quiz. Objects represent character traits, and correspond to your analysis. Even though you pick your answers not according to how they would expect, they give you an answer. Their answers are written well enough to pass off as an actual analysis for just about anyone. Like I said, people aren't that much different.

Well, that might have taken the fun out of online quizzes... But now I've got a new hobby. Figuring out how they work. Problem is, I probably won't have time to do that much more for a while now.

Oh, and K.I lessons are a real relief. There are only 10 other students, and it's great to finally be able to talk after sitting through a few lectures in a row.

And I love it when they get blue screens of death during the presentations.


-Joe

Well, sorry about that last really short one... I just haven't had anything proper going on in my mind. Which, is not surprising, since a large part of the past few days have basically been an extension of the holiday. Not that I'm complaining, though.

Well. In my tiredness, I couldn't remember much. But now, it's somewhat better. It just came to me, suddenly. One of the classrooms we entered for a game session had Cyanide & Happiness comics pinned up on the wall. I was like, what? I mean, any reader of that comic strip would know how much sexual reference, violence, and other things it uses. Of course, there are the milder themes like plays on words and breaking the fourth wall. It is, of course, cool to see a comic which I am a fan of inside a college classroom.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Fun with dry ice.

I used a voucher to go get a quart of ice-cream from however-you-spell-it. And they gave me a few pieces of dry ice which got out and started messing around with. Of course there was the usual thing where I drop it into some water and let it bubble away, while I watch it happily and giggle retardedly. And then me, being me, decided that there had to be better ways to play with dry ice.

It instantly occurred to me that a single chunk of dry ice would sublime into a massive volume of gas. If I could get it to change states quickly enough, I could create a propulsive force strong enough to seriously annoy some people.

With that happy prospect in mind, I quickly gathered a small plastic jar and some warm water. Placing a nice diamond shaped chunk of dry ice into the jar, I dunked in the water and tried to cap it. Whitish smoke was spilling out of it like someone who's life ambition is to have cancer. When I slammed the lid down and screwed it shut, it started hissing really loudly and I swear, there was a menacing vibration as I dropped it into the sink and ducked under the table.

Waiting in anticipation of that oh-so-happy moment most people call an explosion, I looked upwards at the pipey underside of the sink. And waited.

And waited.

Finally, I resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to get my zeeky boogy doog of the day. My not so brilliant setup was actually void of water after I looked at it again. There was still a big chunk of dry ice, and even some regular ice encrusted around the bottom of the jar. Apparently(obviously), the hissing noise was the gas escaping out of it, and at the same time, blowing out any remaining liquid water. That made the whole thing slow down and -almost- stop.

Now, again, being me, I'm going to work on a proper design for a dry ice bomb. The main flaws in my first one were probably that the lid didn't close tight enough, and the plastic walls of the jar were too thick anyway.

But it's probably going to be a while before I get my hands on dry ice again, so ice-cream time!


-Joe

Woooaaahh. Like, woaaaahhh.

Three days of orientation at AJC... Intense. Really. I was really tired after the first day. Really tired after the second day. Really tired now, after the third.

But you know, it was helluva fun. Once people stopped being so shy and disabled their inhibitor chips, we all got along and did... Stuff. There was a lot of cheering and dancing... You know the routine.

After speaking with Shaun and Daniel... I feel quite lucky. I mean, according to Shaun, the CJ games involved mud and water and some rather gross things to touch. SRJC's orientation seemed to be really boring and had way too many talks. Plus they're six and eight days long respectively. Compared to that, AJC's 3-day campaign seemed really short.

Interestingly enough, I made a discovery... I've got moves.

Liek omgwtfbbq??!!??!??!11111oneoneoneoneelevenonehundredandeleven1!

Yeah, that's right. I can dance. Lol. It's really a huge surprise to me, too. I mean, somehow, I just managed to get moving and actually felt pretty good about myself. And it didn't hurt when my dance partner mentioned that I was good at it. Twice. Woot.

In my rush to get up the stage for phototaking, I wanged my knee on it and I only noticed the blood when I got home to my bathroom. So I must have been bleeding all over the girls' shirts when we stood behind them. Oh well. Will just have to wait for them to send us the photo.



-Joe