Monday, April 30, 2012

Superjail Wiki?

What? Superjail has a Wiki too? Seems like everything has a Wiki today!
Gee I love it! It has everything, even the little, random, cameo, unnamed things in the show.

http://superjail.wikia.com/wiki/Superjail_Wiki

STLF Tour - Belleville, IL

Date: April 1st
Stop: Belleville, IL

STLF (Student Today Leader Forever) is a non-profit organization on campus. I've heard about them by seeing their posters about this spring break community service tour. "One student can make a difference!" they advertised. Why not? I was just worried that I didn't find travel partners and had no where to go during spring break. I signed up for the trip 4 days before the set-off.

The 8-day-long trip seems like a perfect deal, costing only $450, including about 2 meals a day and a 2-night stay at a decent hotel. However, we'd be sleeping on the floor in churches, schools, and YMCA, so I ran to buy a sleeping bag. I remember that Friday was completely hectic. I skipped 3 classes, packed up, and tried to finish my lab report due on the same day right before the trip. Ready! Final destination: Dallas, TX. It's like an adventure! 40 other young and daring college students like me made this decision of jumping onto a bus full of strangers down to the deep South.

I didn't sleep well on the first night, nor did I throughout the trip. The floor was hard and the sleeping bad was too warm at first and too cold in the morning. But new friends' companion and all the fun and magical things happened on the trip proved to be more than worthy.

Our first stop was Belleville, a rather small town in Illinois. The very first mission was to accompany the old people in Sycamore Village, a senior center. Didn't sound hard at all. I looked at this finely decorated place curiously. They seemed to have everything - from pretty bathrooms, barber shop, restaurants, to ice cream shop. It was really like a village on its own, but all the residents are old people, many are physically or mentally disabled. I suddenly understood the significance of our first mission - those elders must be very lonely and bored to be confined in this village, with no one but a few caregivers and each other.

We went around and tried our best to interact with the elders around tables. Some of them talked to us happily but many of them seemed to be too old or too ill to talk or even move properly. We were encouraged to play music and dance with them. The music machine had some Western oldies that the elders liked to sing along. I danced to the beats and amused not only some elders but also my trip-mates. Some girls and I danced with them and apparently one of the old men liked me a lot. He kissed the back of my hands many times and said I had a beautiful ponytail. (LOL I'm the old man killer; for some reasons some old men like me very much, including a little girl's grandpa I met around the old campus of HAS and a janitor of the UW chemistry building and who is a retired navy.)

Everything was fine except an obviously psychotic old woman going around and nagging "they are going to kill my children!" and another old man was annoyed. Most people seemed to get used to her. We were provided with children's toy and puzzles to play with the old people, but most of us found them too childish. Before I left, I asked for paper and pencils and drew a portrait of an old man named Phillip, using two colors of his choice. His caregiver was joyed and showed it off to other people in the center. Before I left, they all wished that I could stay longer and do more portraits of the elders. Well, I'd love to, if that made them happy, but would I ever have the chance to visit the same place again?

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Boogie Fever ... Again

After downloading a collection of 70's and 80's disco music I caught boogie fever again! This is at least the second time. Can't stop.
I'm so happy because the collection has many funk tracks that I wanted to have. Man, I love funk and disco so much!

Funkadelic and its sister band Parliament are one of the pioneers in funk music. This track might not sound impressive at first but it's so infectious! It's awesome.


Friday, April 27, 2012

Ready to Make Ketamine ...

I looked at the synthesis route for producing ketamine and I realized, I've learned all of the reactions in Chemistry 345 class! So I decided to figure out and write all the mechanisms as an exam review practice. I'm nerdying out everyday.

Starting with 2-chlorobenzonitrile, it takes just 5 simple reactions to make a ketamine.
1) Grignard reagent with an acidic work-up
2) Carbonyl alpha-bromination via enolate
3) Hydrolysis of tertiary bromide via Sn1
4) Imine formation (happens simultaneously with reaction 3)
5) Ring expansion via alpha-ketol rearrangement
Wow, I didn't know my chemistry knowledge is enough to make a well-known drug now! I'm feeling proud.

Ketamine was first synthesized in 1962 as a substitute for PCP (Angel Dust). She was indeed proven to at least a bit more emotionally stable than her cousin and became an important medicine.
Once Ketamine was commonly sold as Ecstasy at dance clubs, although it makes absolutely no sense to confuse those two drugs with the exactly opposite effects.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Who Wants to Look Like Cartoon Characters?

http://www.niusnews.com/index.php/main/view/789

Woah ... This is effing terrifying!  =  =
I said are those people too addicted to Photoshop so they are sick?
Show this to some girls and see if they still want to look like those pretty (esp. manga) cartoon characters.

http://www.niusnews.com/index.php/main/view/840

Oh but this one above is very neat! It's the skeletons of American cartoon characters made by a Korean artist.

I've been staying up very late. Mom and Dad said I always work hard at first then can't persist later. It seems like they don't believe I've been working hard in the past few weeks. Well, I have no time to post photos or log in deviantART. I felt terrible because I was so tired a few hours ago, but after some additional hours of work, I'm too stressed to sleep well.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Beautiful People of Earth

I've been learning a lot about many issues in the so-called third world countries, such as hunger, lack of access to clean water, and environmental conservation. Before I go to sleep, I often think about those people on other parts of the earth.

Although Peru rated high on the Human Development Index, most people in the country are still poor. We watched a video of Brazilian nut hunters in Peru. I got the people imprinted in my mind - they are beautiful people! They are dark-skinned, have features that aren't like those of white, black, or Asian, and speak with some accent. Some of their traditional clothes are very pretty. They are beautiful because they are not perfect and real. We are not talking about some fictional remote planets and aliens as in Avatar here. Those local people, in Earth's most abundant and scenic place, the tropical rainforests, are harvesting wild Brazilian nuts (a labor-intensive job) and making a living through their own sweat and time.

The Amazon is not paradise. The people struggle for life. Conflicts (between people and between people and the environment) always exist. The local people want ownership over their land, but they don't want to be isolated from the rest of the world. They are not satisfied to be in poverty and long for the materials we enjoy in developed countries, while afraid that their culture would vanish with globalization, and their hometown would be destroyed by foreign companies.

Although complete equality across the globe is impossible, I dream about seeing those beautiful people of Earth empowered and thriving, not as the perfect Avatar in an isolated paradise, but as modern people! They don't necessarily need a first world lifestyle. (That's not feasible for everyone, and we rich people need to lower our consumption factor too.) Just a little more would make them much happier - but I hope to see them able to get what they want - food, clothes, etc. - not receiving the leftovers of rich countries because we pity them! And that they have titles to their land, and can connect with the rest of the world by economics and modern electronics, representing their own culture and be proud, like the Chinese and the Indian today, instead of being assimilated in the storm of globalization.

Is it even possible, that we can't eradicate all the conflicts and problems in the world, but at least make things a bit better and not let the beautiful parts of the world disappear?

Monday, April 23, 2012

Mantis Cycling

LOL OMG this picture is absolutely adorable and awesome!
GO MANTIS GO GREEN!

(from http://absolutelymadness.tumblr.com)

Speed Sketch

Catrina and I were trying to recall what Speed Amphetamine (who is amphetamine itself) looks like. Hmm, so far like that. Catrina suggested that he should be a mod. That'll be excellent! lol I want to make this guy look cooler.

MDMA: Introduce to you ... my brother Speed! He's awesome!

(Speed has weird European accent.)
Speed: Doyouknowwhat'sgreataboutbeingastimulant? It's YOU DON'T NEED TO SLEEP andyoucandowhateveryoulikeallnightlong!! LIKE PARTY! OOOOOOOHHHYEEEAAAAHHH!!

Speed: I HATE HIPPIES!

 Speed the mod and LSD the hippie hate each other from the start. LSD really has got some nerves to seduce his arch-rival's little sister, although it's not entirely his fault. *facepalm*

Another sketch of Serotonin Tryptamine, who is welcoming people who fall asleep to the world of dreams and peacefulness. I just made a few random sketches. Too bad Bufotenin still doesn't have clothes.

Sometimes stress can make you hard to fall asleep even when you're exhausted, or make you easy to have nightmares. I probably really need Serotonin now ...

Unfortunately I still don't have time to upload my photos and write my travel journals. If I don't go to sleep now, I'll have no time at all to sleep.

YES CHEESE!


Stereotypes are mean but sometimes can be fun.

The environmental studies TA asked, "Do you think stereotypes can really represent who we are ... like we are all eating cheese and brats, drinking beer, and watching Packers in Wisconsin?"

A few other students and I nodded and replied, "Yea."

Friday, April 20, 2012

Oops, Overslept ...

It was so embarrassing. It's all because I've been too stressed. I felt asleep last night while preparing for the environmental studies exam. Then I woke up at 10:34 AM .. oh no! I totally missed the exam.

I sent an e-mail to the professor and she allowed me to take the exam in the afternoon alone. I did well on the 1st and 2nd exams, however, ran out of time preparing well for this 3rd one. There were some geography questions that asked us to locate several countries and I might have messed them up. At least I was allowed to take the exam. It's better than nothing!

I think I'm going to sleep ... I feel like I need a good sleep, not just nap, immediately now.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Growing Sick of Those Pop Songs

Folks are really obsessed with a song called Call Me Maybe lately. When I was on the STLF community service tour, people played it everyday, sometimes a few times a day, on the bus, singing, shouting, and dancing to it. Several people asked me if I liked the song, I was like, huh ...

Today my group in PE class gave our final presentation. It was a success! But when we were doing the exercise, the music both my group and the other group chose to go along with is ... Call Me Maybe. Now it's just too much and it stuck in my head! NOOOOOOOUUUUUU!!

The other song my group chose was Sexy and I Know It. But I mean, those two are such bad songs, and they're so popular! There are a few other currently popular songs that I'm growing sick of, too.

I've been listening to a lot of poppy stuff such as Erasure, Alphaville, Hall & Oates, BT, Scissor Sisters, Aqua, and even Duran Duran sometimes. Pet Shop Boys is pop too. A lot of dance songs today are house or techno. I listen to house and techno too. But why I just can't stand those pop songs that people around me play all the time? AHHHHHHHH! Please, no more Call Me Maybe!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Thankfully Not Living In Yorkshire, It Doesn't Apply

I've heard this song years ago.
I just can't remember when and where.


Thankfully Not Living In Yorkshire, It Doesn't Apply
from Dexy's Midnight Runners' debut album, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels (1980)

Friday, April 13, 2012

List of Non-white Molecule Characters

Someone on deviantART reminded me about the representation of "colored" characters. I'm making a list of the molecule characters that are going to be non-white (don't look like Caucasian), and that's not a whole lot! Hopefully we'll have more. It's like a head count so I won't forget whom I have. Let's wait and see if we need to add onto or take off the list. It's interesting that some characters are never white in my mind.


Psilocybin Tryptamine

Psilocin Tryptamine

Diisopropyl Tryptamine

5-Methoxy Diisopropyl "Foxy" Tryptamine

5-Methoxy Methyl-Isopropyl "Moxy" Tryptamine

Miprocin Tryptamine

5-Bromo-Dimethyl Tryptamine

Ephidrine Amphetamine

Khat Cathinone

Cathine Amphetamine

Meth "Crystal" Amphetamine

MDEA, Eve Amphetamine

MBDB, Eden Butanamine

Bromo-Dragonfly Benzodifuran

Cocaine Ecgonine

Caffeine Xanthine

Theobromine Xanthine

Theophylline Xanthine

Salvinorin A. Diterpenoid

Arecoline Tetrahydropyridine

Acetylcholine Ethanaminium

Cortisol Corticoid

Gibberellin A3 Diterpene

Abscisic "Dormin" Acid

Monosodium Glutamate


Notes
- Some molecules that are not on the list might have non-white heritage, e.g. Mescaline Phenethylamine is 1/4 Native American; I'm not sure about Lophophine.
- Some molecules appear to be mix-race, e.g. Acetylcholine, Bromo-Dragonfly, etc.
- Some, especially those of Eastern Europe, Spain, etc. might not really identity themselves as white.
- I'm not sure about DXM, THC, Meth Cathinone, etc. yet.
- I haven't seen an Asian psychedelic. It seems like most Asian molecules are stimulants or something else.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The Very Colorful Insect Phylogeny

Ta-dah!


Phylogeny shows the genetic relationship between different taxonomic groups. In this one the insects on the right are more "advanced" (more evolutionarily derived). Isn't it just great to appreciate the diversity and beauty of insects?

Left to right:
(bottom) Thysanura, Odonata, Ephemeroptera, Orthoptera, Dermptera, Blattodea, Hemiptera, Neuroptera, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera
(top-left) Carabidae, Staphylinidae, Scarabaeidae, Curculionidae, Chrysomelidae
(top-right) Culicidae, Asilidae, Bombyliidae, Calliphoridae, Tachinidae

PS. Emphemeroptera is actually a bit more primitive than Odonata, but I accidentally switched their place. Later I found it probably looks better compositionally as it now.

The Ultimate Insect-killing Machine

... DDT.

I made a drawing of DDT since we learned about it in class.

DDT is relatively nontoxic to humans and other mammals but he got into troubles especially with environmentalists and bird-lovers and has been condemned for ecological destruction.

The professor showed us a video of technicians trying to convince an African tribe to apply DDT to control malaria in their village. The chief, being skeptical about anything modern and "magical", shook his head. One of the technicians wanted to show the safety of DDT so he sprayed some DDT in a tray AND HOLY CRAPS HE DRANK IT! (Urrrgh, chlorinated hydrocarbon, I bet it tasted awful.)

Well, it's true that people back in the 50's and early 60's thought DDT was totally safe and the savior of getting rid of all bug problems and insect-vectored diseases. In the same video, the "safety" of DDT was demonstrated by having people dined and swam joyfully in fume of DDT spray.





Things in the drawing:
Top-left: bird death and broken eggs due to DDT poisoning and egg shell thinning.
Top-right: 4 mosquitoes - one dead and three alive - implying that more mosquitoes survived than killed due to resistance.
Right: The personified DDT in his overall.
Left: the (young) Rachel Carson - author of Silent Spring.
Down-right: malaria parasites coming out of a red blood cell.
Down-left: African residents suffered from malaria and hoping to find a solution. DDT is still an important and effective way to reduce the spread of malaria in some African countries by controlling mosquito population.


I just couldn't lift my energy to prepare for exam today. I went back and forth falling asleep and waking up feeling awfully tired. Now it's 3:40 AM but I feel so stressed that I can't sleep. Well, if at least I'm feeling less tired now I'm going to study a bit.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Angel! ...

I just got back from the community service tour and a party of friends' made during the tour. It's late so I'll update some stories and pictures tomorrow, hopefully. Gosh, I've got so much to do, so much to study for the exam!

I saw Catrina's drawing of PCP (Angel) and I was like who is this ... ohhh, and I nearly screamed! xD

Catriiiiiinaaaaaaaa who said you can't handle good-looking characters?
Look at this cute sexy twink guy!

The thing on his head are some bruise and blood because he bumped his head. I suppose he was upset so I don't know why he looks happy now.

He was originally designed by Blanca. I don't even know how I would handle this character. LOL
Angel is a powerful hallucinogen and anesthetic. He has caused so much problem and is addictive. Oh God, he is so terrible. Even more terrible than STP. Incredible character.