My post about sirenians in honor of the glorious Nicole is up at Star-Gazy Pie! I am not reposting it here because there were HTML problems that took way too long to solve and I am done dealing with it!

While putzing around online I somehow found this foodie blog meme: the five things you think everyone should try before they die. Interesting if you're into food and also LENGTHY, this post features 1,665 different entries (though some are repeats, naturally) from various foodie folk.

While reading about Nomura's jellyfish today and came across mention of Dr. Shin-ichi Uye of the University of Hiroshima. We were wondering about the spelling of his name (Modern Japanese doesn't use "ye"; "yen" is a holdover) and did a little research. We easily found his website, which is adorable. According to Dr. Uye, his special ability is:

To stage (not for naupliar stages) and sex any copepod species from live samples from the Inland Sea of Japan with naked eyes.
However, this ability is faded recently due to hyperopia (by age?)

He is also depicted with a noren his wife made him in honor of the Fourth International Conference on Copepoda held in Karuizawa in 1990, which is the nerdiest/most adorable thing I've ever heard of. It vaguely makes me want to e-mail him and compliment him on his one-of-a-kind copepod curtain.

NOTE: Copepods are basically a type of plankton, tiny little oceanic crustaceans. Examples of them can pretty much be found in the eyes of most Greenland sharks (who I post about because they're...special). Scroll-down for a close-up, it's not gross or anything.

I will be in Texas from December 22-January 4th. Hopefully everyone will survive and my family and I won't end up hating each other because of pesky things like the notion of critical thought.

ALSO: I currently have a fat post on sirenians in the works for posting at Star-Gazy Pie, furnished upon request for nikoru5! I love fish blogging, I always end up learning a ton of stuff but it is very, very time-consuming. I will absolutely be spamming it once I finish.

Today was Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day that exists because some people are scum and feel that it is appropriate to kill certain people because of their gender identity/expression; bear in mind that this does little to discourage my rampant misanthropy/belief in humans as inherently evil/self-interested at best. A number of locations had vigils/events today, though I didn't attend any. Here are some more thoughts on TDOR from various blogs/locations:

-Feministing's post

-Transgriot, run by a transwoman of color whose entries frequently cause me to laugh

-Other links (meta-links!) to relevant posts at Zero at the Bone

-Questioning Transphobia blog; if you're not familiar with the term, I suggest checking the "about" section in the right sidebar. NOTE: The term "Shoah" is Hebrew for "catastrophe" and refers to what is called the Holocaust in English (Jewish readers, feel free to correct me if there's need)

-Pink News' article; Pink News bills itself as "Europe's largest gay news service"

-In general, I suggest reading Julia Serrano's Whipping Girl, which discusses transmisogyny in detail. It is especially important given that to my eye at least, it seems that transwomen are disproportionately victims of transphobic violence.

I'll post about my personal feelings/issues later, this isn't about me, this is about things you should know and feel righteous rage about, regardless of how much attention the media chooses to give.

Oh boy, you know it's that time of year again if the American Family Association is recommending boycotts against those who apparently do not recognize the birth of their lord and savior as much as they'd like/at all. As such, it's time for the annual repost of an entry from 2006 because I tolerate bullshit poorly:

I generally try to remain non-offensive-ish in my journal. This is a problem because I have offensive opinions and beliefs. It being that holiday time of year, I have an announcement: FUCK THE UNIVERSALIZING RELIGIONS. There are a shitload of holidays this time of year, GET OVER IT. I am filled with rage that you shitweasels feel the need to scream as loudly as you can to make everyone pay attention to you, your holiday and whatever your belief system is. Additionally, do your research: Jesus, is not, in fact, the reason for the season. That would be the axial tilt of the Earth, jackass.

I do not favor any particular holiday, and enjoy participating in a variety of different celebrations as I am invited to. My cards are solstice cards because I like space, nature and seasons and it does not promote any particular religious belief. What I do NOT do is organize boycotts and "fight" battles to defend the "honor" of a particular holiday, because this is a trivial waste of time rivaled by little else. I'm assuming that this is a phenomenon found only in the developed world because it's the only place I can think of that has enough time to spend complaining about this kind of asinine shit.

Seriously: Go put up your tree in your own damn house and SHUT. UP. I am not offended by your tree/menorah/giant sock/holiday symbol, but I am RIGHTEOUSLY PISSED OFF by those of you who seek to make sure you own little holiday is the only one getting the attention, those who demand to change the inclusive greeting of "Happy Holidays" to "MERRY JESUS FESTIVAL". IT'S JUST A FUCKING HOLIDAY/MARKETING SCAM. GO DIE IN A CAR FIRE ON MY FRONT LAWN YOU ARE THE NECROSIS OF MY SCROTUM

With a profound lack of love and absence of goodwill,
Me

NOTE: My Christmas mantra has been lovingly provided by Warren Ellis.

Looking at credit hours, it's possible that I could qualify for full-time status next semester if I took a Japanese class instead of Arabic. Full-time status = more dollars. My Japanese education has been strange, spotty and less adequate than I'd like so I think I'd feel comfortable retaking the 200 series, given this school actually has a major, proper Japanese educators (by "proper" I mean the professors actually studied to teach Japanese to non-native speakers; sadly, this was not the case at my undergrad school, with our single lecturer who was there by chance) and seems like it might be challenging.

As such, I am going to take an ego-deflating placement test/interview/thing on Thursday to place me. I'd like to think that I don't really have illusions about my Japanese abilities, but I'm afraid the prof's going to look at my info/history sheet and be all WTF. I'm also afraid I'm going to accidentally use Kansai conjugations in front of her, which I'm reasonably sure is too familiar. My Japanese is grotesquely informal, I'm going to have to pay close attention to my speech to remember to use polite forms.

We'll see what they say. I hope I get placed into 103 or 202 since I can't take 201 due to conflicting with my TESOL methods course that has been plaguing me for two years.

Additionally, this is going to sound horrific, but I'm reasonably sure that those of you who've taken Japanese in the U.S. know what I'm talking about when I say that Japanese classes tend to attract odd students. This was certainly the case at my university in Washington, where half of the class should've been flunked ages ago (as in the teacher told me she modified her classes/grading because she knew they couldn't hack it but she didn't want to lose funding), half were insufferable personally for any variety of reasons (including a classmate who tried to stealth convert me to Mormonism under the guise of friendship), and like...2-3 were tolerable, competent individuals. Interestingly, one of these in the latter group was Matt.

I've heard other people mention high degrees of obnoxiousness from Japanese classmates in other locations, so I'm a little worried. To be fair, enrolling in Japanese classes makes me wonder if I'm one of the obnoxious people. There is no guilt quite like the guilt of the ex-Japanophile; the only consolation I have is that I was 14-16 at the time, everyone's a goddamn idiot at those ages and it should not be held against them. However, if you're in/around your 20s, it probably should be held against you, you should know better by that age.

Other things: I am going to be much older than my classmates. They will not know this until we have to introduce ourselves, which we invariably do. This isn't a problem in itself, but I've been hanging around some younger folks lately and I'm more aware of immature behavior than I used to be. It's kind of funny, when I started the 200 series in undergrad it was the reverse, I got looked at weird because I was inordinately young. I probably look younger now, eight years later, due to no longer wearing make-up and having a rounder face. A consolation is that younger classmates mean that people are less likely to be obsessed with their weddings/pregnancies/children/etc.

I will be asked my major (in the introduction), where I will feel like an ass for saying TESOL because GODDAMN is that stereotypical weeaboo BS. "ARE YOU GOING TO TEACH IN GLORIOUS NIPPON ^_____^?" "...just for a little while to get experience because it's easy/pays well/I know WTF I AM NOT GETTING THIS DEGREE FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF GOING TO JAPAN STOP THAT"

OTHER PLANS:
-The only people who will know I've been to Japan are the professors; at the very least, I'm going to try to keep it that way as long as possible.
-I intend to tell no-one about my nerdy co-occurring-with-Japanophile hobbies. Yes, it worked in the case of Matt, but game music collecting is a very specific nerdy hobby that I'm unlikely to run across. I'm not sure this will work, given I seem to have some kind of magic otaku magnetism properties that confuse/concern me.

Do you hate Islamophobic shitstains? If you're reading this, you almost certainly do (or at least I hope so)! Here's a post from debunkingwhite about the situation in Lilburn, Georgia. I encourage any like-minded local folk there to go and provide physical action where I can't. However, I will write semi-respectful letters to the relevant authorities in the area, for whatever that's worth.

Also, just go read The Ruh of Brown Folks in general. Humanity will never run out of methods to enrage me/make me crave extinction as the justice we deserve.

This article is fascinating, it makes me want me to do this as an academic study and publish in a psycholinguistics journal or something. If you want to get to the interesting part, just scroll down to the chart. I love Max's names for things, that kid's such a proto-nerd.

( RESISTANCE IS FUTILE )

Unhappy Star-Gazy update :/. This situation is actually kind of distressing to me, which probably conveys more about my mental health than everyone reading this is comfortable knowing.

I don't usually do this, but EEEEEE PUGGLES!!!! They are tooth-rottingly cute.

Red panda cubs are just big furry caterpillars.

Everyone's probably seen this already, but you know you've been waiting your entire life to see Japanese-engineered cat speed dating. Part 2 is here with the spine-tingling results. (courtesy spacecoyotl)

I'm having a difficult time formatting it for LJ (which is what I should've done originally), but there's a new Halloween post up at Star-Gazy Pie. I'm aware that the format's wonky, so I'll probably just end up leaving it as it is (with the excessively large gaps) and remember to compose in LJ next time. Enjoy!

Lately for some reason I've been hooked on Yahoo! Answers. I do not recommend this, because by and large the site makes me sad for the world. However, for some reason I get a charge out of helping people and this gives me a chance. Plus you gain EXPERIENCE POINTS and LEVELS, something I have trained myself to think is awesome from a very early age.

OBSERVATIONS:

-The thing that by and large makes me the saddest is the realization that many people do not know how to ask a question, or perhaps just how to write. It's not a matter of spelling or grammar or anything, it's that the question doesn't include enough information for anyone to possibly answer it or even make sense sometimes. Here is an example of a question I answered:

Degrees Celsius?

JUST BECAUSE IT HAS A QUESTION MARK DOES NOT MAKE IT A QUESTION. There are CONSTANT examples of this and it's just GODDAMN, yeah, you may be 16, but I would expect that most native English speakers (READ: non-native speakers get a pass) are capable of crafting a coherent sentence by that age? I'm totally giving a pass on spelling, mechanics, text-speech, everything, just have it MAKE SENSE. It honestly makes me sad.

I will freely admit that it's difficult for me to empathize with people who find writing (or reading, for that matter) difficult; expressing myself through writing has never been a problem. I recognize that some folks have trouble with this, but please, seek help! Hell, *I'LL* help you if you ask. I guess it's just worrying to see it be so prevalent? Maybe I'm overthinking things and it's more a testament to people's laziness/being in a hurry than inability. I hope so, because otherwise we're all in deep shit.

-People are also very general. A question I answered:

Where do squid comfortably live under the ocean?

Uhhhhh there are many kinds of squid in the sea, kiddo. I answered as best I could using data about the most commercially relevant species, but STILL.

-People like to repeatedly ask what sushi tastes like. Sushi tastes like...sushi? A combination of its constituent parts? How do you answer something like that?

-Some people just want people to do their homework. I am astounded by the number of people who spend the time to submit a question when a very simple search would answer it faster.

-Yeah I know they're everywhere, but GODDAMN at the racism/sexism/ethnocentrism/homophobia/generally not even knowing what the fuck. It's absolutely amazing.

-The state of sex/sexual health education in the United States is pitiful. Just DAMN, people shouldn't have to be asking these questions, they should be being provided with the answers to begin with as a matter of course.

-Not all questions are stupid. There are some surprisingly complex and specialized questions in the Math/Science area, it's just the range between "gibberish" and "erudite" is very wide.

-People ask more questions than I would expect about energy drinks and whether or not they're gay/bi.

-I HATE the avatars you can make with Yahoo, they're awful. Go go mainstream standards of beauty!

-Some people are surprisingly kind and grateful. It helps me simmer down after I see a particular WTFFFF question.

"How may a cheetah be rebellious?"

"Where is Iran?????????????
Is it like next to Iraq?"

"How is meteorologist a profession?
Aren't you just paid for flipping a coin? I can do that and I don't need school for it."

REGARDING MYERS-BRIGGS: I was curious about your results because I've noticed trends in various Internet communities in which a LOT of people end up as INTJ (my own type, which I consistently get), which strikes me as odd. Between the 11 or so people who responded to that post, we ended up with 8 different types, of which INFP was the most common. Now I feel like I should make a pie chart or something. Don't worry, I don't take the test or typing too seriously, I was more interested in the distribution than seeing how well you "fit" your type and whether or not there were any strong trends.

Personally, I have found the test useful for helping to explain certain traits of my personality (always asking "Why" questions, my drive for information) to my mother/father; if they see someone else on the Internet describing a trait, they can kind of divorce it from me and understand it in isolation, if that makes sense.

THERE THAT IS ALL!!

YOUR LOCAL ON THE 8s

Things have been...weird. Those of you following my frequently-gross/seldom updated Twitter already know, but thanks to a friend in Japan, I have landed my first tiny little localization gig, which involves a pervo dating sim game for iPhone. It's actually pretty horrible/gross (thematically, rather than specific content. The target audience is the charisma man-in-Roppongi demographic), but I guess I'm justifying it through filthy lucre and experience.

I'm reasonably sure that I'm not getting paid enough, but it's experience and it's actually pretty fun, in a weird way. Matt and I are tag-teaming it and are disappointed that we can't be dirtier (we've been banned from using the word "fuck", apparently). Still, it's somewhat refreshing to be getting paid to use phrases like "score", "get some", "insert gross bro-like sexual euphemism of your choice", etc. I may even get a staff credit, which could be awkward if my family ends up Googling my (uncommon) name. I will disclose the title of the game after I see it if I am not too ashamed for those of you who feel like spending $8 and becoming a worse person for the experience.

It's the kind of thing that makes me want to use an old-school video game music composer pseudonym, like Yuukichan's Papa or Bun Bun. Nobody would notice John H. Cuttlefish IV in the credits, right? Oh, like anyone will actually look at the credits on this horror.

STUFF ABOUT MY REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM

So I went to the gyno for my annual yesterday, which went well (as far as I know, no Pap smear results yet but they're not expecting anything weird). I may have mentioned to some of you that last week I had some weird sharp pelvic pain that concerned me. I am very familiar with pelvic pain (whenever my body does deign to menstruate, I cramp like a mofo) and so unfamiliar pain is Not Good. I theorized that it was one of my ovarian cysts rupturing or something, which the doctor said was a possibility.

However, he also said that it was possibly OVARIAN TORSION (get twisted) D:. I knew testicles could do that, but I always figured that ovaries were more firmly installed? Oh well, they said not to worry if the pain was gone.

I always get a different gyno at the Women's Clinic on campus and this one's surname was Saraswat, which pleased me because I am a dork. He did not have an accent for me to try to figure out, unlike last time where I embarrassed myself by asking the doctor if he was from Wisconsin (he's from Lithuania) because he honest to god sounded like Pickles from Metalocalypse.

OTHER EXCITEMENT:
-They have calming images of forests and raccoons on the ceiling in the examination room.

-While I appreciate the sentiment behind them always having a second female doctor in the room during examination, she kept patting me and telling me I was doing a "good job". I remember when I was young (~15 or so) that all of my peers were afraid of going to the gyno, but I was surprised when I did go (again, around 15) how not big of a deal it was.

Yeah, they scrape you for the Pap, but it really doesn't take long and isn't that painful. I dislike/fear getting a blood draw FAR more than a gyno inspection, it's more inconvenient than anything.

STUFF ABOUT SCHOOL

My fake research paper is going to be about the sociopolitical aspects that may affect a majority language speaker learning a minority language. Any thoughts/ideas/takers?

Well, hmm, that's about all I can think of for now. It's weird, I mean to blog more often than I do but I just don't. There will be more specific entries coming up, such as thoughts regarding books, fish blogging, etc. You know how it goes.

Also, I have these horrible songs stuck in my head thanks to the Internet (I'm sure everyone has seen these):



This song has been described as "the song that America deserves". I cannot agree more strongly.

Morbid curiosity: for those of you who know your Myers-Briggs type, what is it?

I may have mentioned to some of you that the other day I woke up with a single sentence on my lips: "A is for Anomalocaris", my Cambrian super-predator BFF. This thought launched a brilliant/horrible idea: A blog series/potential children's book on aquatic creatures from A-Z! Fabulous! So, starting today, I present you with A, which is not in fact for anomalocaris, but ( AMMONITE. )

Absolutely not. I think that there are multiple people with whom one could have a relationship described as that between "soulmates". I mean, just thinking about the global population, a single person who is perfect for you, out of billions? The odds are much higher that there are hundreds, thousands who could fill that role. Additionally, to me, "soulmate" has a whiff of predestination or fate, which I also place no credence in.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure the concept of a soulmate is just one more destructive fiction placed upon us by our own overly-sentimental impulses and buying into the model of "romance" that society has fallen in love with/continually inflicts upon itself.

Important PSA over at Star-Gazy Pie, where all the cool kids hang out.

Urrrrgh, readying reference lists for my research class is not easy when the school's library portal is not functioning. So instead I will talk about what I've been reading.

( Story of O )

( Mother Nature )

( Naming Nature )

This post on street harassment at Racialicious made my day. It's stuff like this that makes me wonder how different my life would be if I could be visibly coded as male.

It also makes me cringe that I feel more comfortable with Matt walking beside me, who at 6'5" and 300 lb+, could never be coded as anything other than a large, visually masculine male. Why the hell should I need a "guardian", the presence of a male to show that I'm "taken", considered the property of another male? I'm not a child, I shouldn't need the presence of a male to shield me from hoots, honks and whatever else men deign appropriate to yell at me.

For the record, I'm a funny-looking* white person and have been catcalled by men of all races and ethnicities, in both the U.S. and Japan; Japan was worse because of chikan shenanigans, not to mention drunk salarymen yelling at you on the street. Ladies, do not be fooled, for chikanery is not only the province of the middle-aged and creepy! I had an attractive 20-something grinding on my ass once in the train in one of those situations where you're packed like sardines, it was weird and gross.

*="funny looking" in the sense that many people have asked if I'm from their country. The most common guesses are that I'm Arab, South American [Brazilian/Peruvian/Chilean] or Iberian [Portuguese/Spanish]...I also get this question from white people. The best was being asked if I was half-Chinese in Alabama once, by someone who has clearly never actually met a person from Asia.

The second best was being pegged as a non-native English speaker once in a cafeteria based on a noise I made because the speaker surprised me. They spoke very sloooowly and clearly to me...until I opened my mouth.

I went to the library again. This trip's haul includes:

-The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories, edited by Theodore W. Goossen

I got this book because I think it has The Only Story I Ever Stopped Reading Because it was Repellent, similarly located within an anthology of short stories that I read back in 2004. That and I love short stories. I will let you know if this is The Story, which I've been reseeking since that time.

-Sarah, by J.T. LeRoy
Y'all know exactly why I got this book: because I am dirty and gross and read dirty and gross things.

-Death by Government, by R.J. Rummel
I think it is important to know about governments killing their citizens. Awareness is key!

-Sputnik Sweetheard, by Haruki Murakami
I love Murakami's voice and surrealness; one in a line of Murakami novels that I haven't read.

-Mother Nature, by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
A book examining the biological reality and social construction of motherhood. As I'm sure you're all aware, romanticization of child-bearing is one of my pet peeves so I'm delighted to read a book debunking it.

-Story of O, by Pauline Reage
Again with the "being a dirty pervo". If you're not familiar with this infamous work, here's Wiki's rundown.

-Japanese Respect Language, by P.G. O'Neill
It is extremely easy to be inadvertantly rude in Japanese. If you're not Japanese you'll usually get the gaijin pass when you mess up, but I still want to make an effort to not come off as a total jerkwad.

-Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
I am slowly trying to work through the various reading lists of classics or other recommended lists. HoD is short, I'm working my way up to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

-Naming Nature, by Carol Kaesuk Yoon
My favorite so far, this is a book about scientific and social taxonomies of the natural world. According to Ms. Yoon's website, Naming Nature:

"...sure to delight readers who love words and nature, is a rich journey from Linnaeus, whose system turned classification from a hobby to a science, and Darwin, who ended the idea of rigid species definitions, to today’s dream of naming all of earth’s species and listing them online."

It's pretty layfolk friendly, so do not fear! She even includes pronunciations, which is adorable. I will provide a more thorough review once I you know, actually read the book, but it's very accessible and interesting. Ms. Yoon also had the childhood I always yearned for: both her parents are scientists and there was a federally funded lab in their basement.

It reminds me of the Murray family in Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series, who I also envied terribly, with dual ultra-genius scientist parents and a brother with strange powers.

Speaking of labs, at any time y'all are welcome to purchase me items from United Nuclear (thanks mmsword, particularly Ehrlenmeyer and Florence flasks, retorts, or pretty much anything else awesome that one would find in the lab of an alchemist mad scientist. Rare metals samples, aerogel and rare earth magnets are also welcome!

BEDTIME, I WILL RETURN TOMORROW TO TELL YOU OF MY ENCOUNTER WITH THE BEEF PROPHET