Atlantic (and sorta Far East) Invasion

My sister was shipped from the city of Sex and the City to entertain me with her rising AP crisis (ergh, when I've got so much work?) during this crucial festive time and be my dish-washing slave for the week *cackles most evilly*.


I was hoping to feed her with good, no-nonsence, and distinctly British food. The previous sentences all culminates to Christmas Pleasures which she won't ever be able to have had she stayed at the other side of the pond to get lost in the jungle of Manhattan, especially Sainsbury's bakery mince pie, which may be a bit tacky but still managed to trap me in livid daydreaming wet-drool-dreams for the whole week. Yes, Christmas means food and only food (and good carol singing) to me, the ever-gluttonous Agnostic. The list also includes Ploughman's lunch (which I get massive, unstoppable, unbeatable cravings for about every year, and am now in heat), marmite (to see her reaction), baked beans on toast, full English breakfast, chicken tikka masala, and other British food I thrive in. I close my eyes and momentarily paw after phantom Branston's pickle.

Alas, that is not to be. She wants to pretend she's back home, which I can heartily understand, but that means she demands full cuisine of home food. Meaning; more works on my part. Rice needs to be cooked, soups needs to be made, meat marinated, dumplings conjured up, and more bicycle raids to Mill Road. Not that I don't like home food, I will wither and die without a steady input of them. I just fancy she will accept one or two meals where I don't have to watch over three pots at once. (Little Voice Inside Brain: Pickles! Cheddar! Toast! Butter! Honey! Tea! Pickles! Cheese! Butter! Crusty Bread! *repeats infinitum*)

No, I don't trust her around the kitchen, unless it be around the sink for washing-up.

I swear to you, on Christmas day I will feed her with mince pies.

= = = = = =

The Evil Drudgery Work Progress: STILL 0%. I'm starting to have a problem. Someone needs to hit me around the head asap.

And here I give you a quote.

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen — I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

from Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods'. Enjoy.

You'll be the death of me, Mr. Procrastination.

One can hardly call a 6-week holiday a privilege when your bedmate through the winter is an enormous chunks of work, and a start-of-term exam test (ah, what a lovely life to be! No wonder there's a facebook group called 'I'm a NatSci, get me out of here!') looming ever closer and closer. No, I refuse to call it an exam. To be, an exam is when it actually counts towards the general marks. No, I won't get thrown out even if I don't do well (hopefully). Even if I'm not blessed with genius brain, I am blessed with what sounds like 'bridge's only director of studies who's out to eat you there and then.

To scare myself than anyone else, here's my list of unavoidable Evil.

- Revision of all lecture notes during last term (sounds simple? Well, it sounds simple until you see the sheer amount of paper in my room. Hah.)
- past Tripos questions for QB, Cells and chemistry (Can't do them, too darn difficult, but oh well.)
- past Tripos essays for Cells
- (optional, but going to do it because I'm a masochist) redoing of some of my less-than-satisfactory essays set during last term

Current progress of Evil : freaking 0%

Oh Mr. Procrastination, you'll be the death of me.

Sometimes I think it is tragic that I love my subject with my heart and soul. I am a born bespectacled geek scientist and I know it myself. If I hated the subject it would make my incomprehension of the course material less tragic. (Well, admittably, except quantitative mathematics, which I abhor, and has atrocious marks to go with it.)

I suspect massacre of English grammar. You know? For once I do not have the heart to check it out.

December Report.

1. Review on Mooncup is coming. Am waiting for the Cycle to come back. How can I write a review on a product when I haven't tested it in action, huh?


2. I have found, to my utter shame, a LiveJournal 50 sentences challenges which has been neglected. For about a year. Hit me, Lord, hit me hard. I'm in a big, big trouble, people.

Also, it is incomplete (only 47/50 done), and...damn, I must have mysteriously improved during that one year of procrastination thinly disguised as dedication towards academia. I was this bad? *sobs* For tonight only, this takes more priority than my holiday work.

(One may notice that Josie's life lacks any sense of sensible prioritizing. Sorry, lived like this for 19 years, not likely to change)

Update: It's done! It's posted! I'll never have to mule over that gawddamn brothers ever again! (dances in relief)


3. Therefore, since I won't be posting any review on Mooncup until next year, I will post review on Temeraire, written by Naomi Novik and my recent Age-of-Sail fangirling droolage fictional obsession, as soon as the third book I have ordered through Amazon arrives (and after I finish reading it, of course. It's a very light read so should only take me a few hours to read it.) I have abandoned my ongoing Alexander Kent novel to read the first and second book of the series, and in my book, that is truly miraculous. I used to, and still nominate Mr. Reeman aka Kent as the Best Trashy Naval Author of Last Millenium. (and also the Best Slash Naval Author of Last Millenium, but let's not get there, shhhhhh...)

I was introduced to the series in a queer way; Anke-Katrin Eissman, an established Tolkien illustrator, and she's a woman of my heart - she is one of those select few who properly acknowledges that the most glorious, wondrous and delicious male character is Faramir, son of Denethor, the 27th steward of Gondor, and Prince of Ithilien, by grace of Elessar Telcontar, High King of Gondor and Arnor, Envinyatar the Renewer. I wrote that completely out of my head, ain't I great?

(You are in presence of Josie's Tolkien-Raving, the most potent form of Josie's Lethal Rambles. It is only natural, Tolkien is her oldest object of obsession; ever since she pulled out The Hobbit from a bookstore at tender age of 8. Lord of the Rings is the first proper English fiction I have ever read, and looking back on it...my gawd, how did I do that? I possess better-than-an-average-foreigner but still mediocre knowledge of British history, my command of Korean history is okay but fuzzy at places, my grasp of world history will get me through a pub quiz but nothing more academic; but I can pretty much recite names and history of Royal House of Finwë off my head. I think I'm sad. You think so, too.)

I digress (as usual).

Anke Eissman started drawing illustrations for Temeraire, and the drawings instantly caught my interests; Napoleonic naval battles plus aerial draconic battles? The only child of that union must be me screaming in my head "MUST HAVE THAT BOOK NOW, NOW, RIGHT NOW!!!"
(Her unique and marvelous water-painted illustrations for Temeraire and all Tolkien Middle-Earth saga can be found at her homepage.)

I am really confused. I was writing about Temeraire, why is there more words of Tolkien that of Naomi Novik?

Anyway, I need to calm myself down and finish of that 50sentences challenge, it's better late than never, or so I hope.

4. Oh, and forgot to add;
The first term of GAWDDAMN Cambridge has ended! Now I Can Sleep!
(It is true, I'll only get back just enough energy to get me through another 2 months of beating without being completely dead; but who's complaining? Sleep! Proper Food! Human Behaviour! Wooooooooot!)