| french lit? |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|09:14 pm] |
this is probably going to be pretty vague so I apologize in advance. I have no idea when I might have read this, but I don't think I finished it.
I believe it took place in France, the main character was man somewhere in or near his 30's, he worked at either a grocery store or a bank or somewhere equally boring. either his mother died, and he was going to her funeral, or he was just going to visit, but he took a bus up to her retirement/nursing home. he spoke with the manager about his mother.
I feel like it's a fairly well known book, might even be considered a "classic".
that's all I remember, any help would be awesome :) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|06:33 pm] |
I have a favorite drummer in La Bomba Del Tiempo
I do my own share of stalking and staring
I like to watch him play
He plays the bass that makes the floor shake
Clustered in the Amazon of a thousand sudden Swedish girls
voices singing against the bathroom walls
like long blonde braids and stretching green fields
and someone somewhere milking a cow
I slouch amongst them, a short dark thing
the troll princess in John Bauer fairytales
and later, the taxi temptress, forever seducing cab drivers accidentally
staring down into the brackish brown water
the slant of trash from Uruguay |
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| Birth Control Question |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|09:29 pm] |
Hello ladies-♥
Today I went to the clinic to get HBC to help with my acne. I asked the doc., since I am due for my period in about a week, when I should start taking the pills. She said that I should take them right away and so I took my first one tonight, though I am concerned. Will taking these prolong my period until I start the "inactive" pills or will I have a period because some sources say that it takes about a month for the pills to work? The pills I am on are lo-ovral pills called "Cryselle". The package said that I should take them when I start my period. So now I'm really confused! Did I do something wrong? :C |
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| Tagging in the Community |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|09:35 pm] |
Hi friends!
Over the past little while, I've been going through the tags here in the community. They were pretty much chaos, until recently. They're a bit easier to browse and relevant now, but there's still a long way to go.
So! What is going to happen, is from now on, is if you make a tag, it has to be in the list of tags to the right of the community's main page. If it isn't, it just won't show up. This is to keep the tags relevant and neat.
It'll take a bit of time for me decide on which ones are relevant/used, but you can help! If you think a tag is irrelevant or you think a tag should be added, send me an LJ Message and I'll look into having it added or removed!
Thanks for your help and as always, if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let myself or one of the other mods know!
 I'm irrelevant, but so cute! |
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| Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|05:53 pm] |
(NYTimes article link)
November 9, 2009
Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity
By RON NIXON
As a child, Kim Eun Mi Young hated being different.
When her father brought home toys, a record and a picture book on South Korea, the country from which she was adopted in 1961, she ignored them.
Growing up in Georgia, Kansas and Hawaii, in a military family, she would date only white teenagers, even when Asian boys were around.
“At no time did I consider myself anything other than white,” said Ms. Young, 48, who lives in San Antonio. “I had no sense of any identity as a Korean woman. Dating an Asian man would have forced me to accept who I was.”
It was not until she was in her 30s that she began to explore her Korean heritage. One night, after going out to celebrate with her husband at the time, she says she broke down and began crying uncontrollably.
“I remember sitting there thinking, where is my mother? Why did she leave me? Why couldn’t she struggle to keep me?” she said. “That was the beginning of my journey to find out who I am.”
( Read more... )
More proof that systemic racism can be just as harmful as intentional racism. |
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| More fun with percents - math for checking. |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|07:48 pm] |
Possibly while I have the flu isn't the best time for me to be doing this, but I want more eleuthero tincture ASAP, and it takes a few weeks to steep.
After several stupidities, I concluded that the reason I have much more trouble with this is that A: I get confused about volume and weight conversion, when it's relevant, and when it isn't, and that B: I make a million arithmetic errors. B carries a lot more weight. So to speak.
So, there's two questions for anyone willing to play with my numbers, here. The first is if anyone wants to check me on my results? I think I have it right, finally, because I found a way to back-check it. But more double-checking would be welcome, before I use an entire 750ml bottle of overproof rum, because the stuff isn't that cheap.
The second question is, how /should/ I have solved the problem? I did it by the stupid method. I feel as though, if I weren't flu-bound, I would have been able to figure out what the proper method would be.
So, first of all, the problem: I have a 750ml bottle of 151 proof (75.5% alcohol) rum. I want to use all of it to make a tincture which requires a 60% alcohol solution by volume. The question is, how much water do I add to bring it to the proper concentration?
I've done this (with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jerusha's bountiful help) when I knew what total volume I wanted, and was figuring how how much rum and water to use.
It went like this:
60 (total volume) = volume rum
75.5
and
15.5 (total volume) = volume water to add
75.5
So, by the stupid method, I have concluded that if I want to use all my rum, I want to use approximately 194ml of (additional) water, and will thereby end up with a total volume of 944ml of liquid.**
I /think/ that's finally right, because (194ml additional water + 183.75ml water in the rum to start with)/944ml is approximately .40. Forty percent water means 60 percent alcohol. But anyone who wants to run through it and tell me if I've made /another/ stupid arithmetic error should please feel free.
I did this just by punching in total volumes until I got it close. However, once I write it out like this, it seems as though I could have just taken
60 (total volume) = volume rum
75.5
so
75.5 (volume rum) = total volume
60
so
75.5 (750ml) = total volume
60
so
total volume = 943.75ml
...which I could then have used to calculate the volume water. I hate how obvious things get when I'm done with them.
I acknowledge that I'm perfectly capable of having screwed up this much at the best of times, but I'm going to blame this particular instance on the flu and stress, if no one minds.
* Emphasis because I spent a really stupid amount of time going down a blind alley of thinking I had to convert it all to weight and allow for the lighter weight of alcohol. I didn't. Michael Moore's Materia Medica provides ratios of herb to liquid by weight of herb in milligrams to volume of liquid in milliliters. I consider this insane, but I'm not arguing at this point.
** The level of inaccuracy in this strikes me as acceptable because, among all the normal things like my not having really accurate measuring equipment and so forth, I also figure the potency of the herb and therefore the amount of the active components which can be extracted from a given mass of it will vary from batch to batch anyhow. |
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| 40K filk? |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|05:43 pm] |
You say you want an Inquisition, well, all right,
We all want to cleanse the world.
You say that it's a prohibition, well, all right,
You better cleanse yourself instead.
But if you go carrying icons of Rogal Dorn,
Believe me now buddy you just need better porn,
You know it's gonna be all right, you know it's gonna be all right. |
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| Cervical fluid smell |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|07:21 pm] |
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I just recently learned about FAM and started doing it. This is my second month of checking my fertility signs. I have noticed that my cervical fluid smells the same most of the time. I am getting close to when I should be ovulating (all the signs are telling me it is coming soon :) ). Today I noticed a dull pain on my right side so I thought it might be ovulation. I thought it would be cool to see what things felt like in there if I had just ovulated, sadly everything felt the same. But when I smell the fluid on my finger it smelled very different then it had earlier in the day today. Is it normal for cervical fluid to smell different after you ovulate? Or could this be something else? |
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| What would you ask? |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|07:36 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  curious | ] |
I have an item that people have asked for as a FFQ item and Illusen item. There are none on the Trading post. If this were your item, what do you sell it for if asked? You don't want to gouge people, right? Do you just ask what you would want to pay if the situation were reversed?
Thanks for your opinion! |
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| hCG levels after miscarriage |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|07:20 pm] |
I posted a week or so ago about a miscarriage I had October 20/21. When I was in the emergency room, my hCG was around 7000. A few days later it was around 900. My gynecologist wants me to test every week or so until it gets down to zero. Last week it was 18. So disappointing! I wanted so badly for them to tell me everything was back to normal and I could move on.
My question is, do I really need to do another blood test? The nurse told me to come back in a week or two. But what's the chance at this point, with bleeding having stopped over a week ago and hCG down to 18 last week that there's anything wrong? Is it worth the stress and time of going in to the doctor's office? (And I'm not entirely sure if it's covered by my insurance, but even if it is, someone is still paying for the use of resources whether or not it's me.)
My main concern is that if something does go wrong--like if my period doesn't come in the next few weeks or is significantly out of the ordinary--I'll have to go back to the gynecologist without having finished up the hCG testing.
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| Monday Food and Snakes and Ugh |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|01:35 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
To be fair, today started pretty well. I had a good night's sleep and the grumps were pretty much gone once I woke to blue skies and sunshine, and I got lots done first thing, various chores & sorting, and mum made chicken soup for everyone for lunch, and I was going to get walkies after my shower, except got the timing wrong as dad was in the way so I ended up getting lunch first, then just chucking clothes on to get a walk while the sun was still out, and met my dad coming back from the library so we walked together.
And then mum planned to make corned beef stew for dinner so I was busy peeling the potatoes, and then started feeling very odd, had tea and biscuits, didn't help, had more milk, didn't help, ended up lying on her bed under a duvet as I felt too fragile to go very far but needed to be lying down *right now*. After which I managed to get upstairs and crawl under a blanket, suspecting a seizure would hit. Luckily napping seems to have averted it and I did finally manage to get a shower round 9pm, then made dumplings to go with the stew which was delicious, and other than that have been reading and trying not to move around too much cos I keep going very shaky, urgh.
So much for the plan to do some Italian and read Chinese today, have to be tomorrow I guess. At least I managed to extract Zebedee's shed skin from his tank - had I tried last night I would have been nibbled but today he just popped his head up as though to say "What *are* you doing?" and then ignored me. I measured his shed, which is a semi-accurate measure of a snake's length, give or take an inch and he's 29", thats 2ft 5", getting to be a looong little snake, about double what he was when we first got him. |
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| Is this thing on? |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|05:16 pm] |
I just realized it's been a year since I posted anything here, and my last post was on the same subject as this one. Jesus. Maybe I should start spending more time on the internets again..
Anyway, for those of you who didn't get an e-mail (which means I don't have your e-mail address, 'cause I sent it to everyone in my list), I'm turning 40 this Saturday and I'd love y'all to come join me.
Yes, despite my "safety third" attitude, obsession with guns and explosives and excessive clumsiness, in less than a week I will have managed to survive 40 trips around the sun. I would love to celebrate with friends & nemeses alike, as well as to thank everyone who has been a part of my life and made it as enjoyable and special as I feel it is!
I've booked a room at Bourbon & Branch ( http://www.bourbonandbranch.com/ ) for Saturday November 14th from 9:30pm to 2:00am. Bourbon & Branch is located at 501 Jones St (between Geary and O'Farrell) here in San Francisco. This will be a private room – the password to get in is "Waffen". We'll have snacks and cake, but note that it's a pay bar.
Please come by and say hi! |
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| Falling apart |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|05:21 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  grim | ] |
I feel like my life is falling apart. I'm late paying my bills, the cats' litterboxes are best not described, I'm behind on preparation for my next square dance booking, and I got an 86 on my o-chem test. There's no future in sight for my foster cat, I keep discovering e-mails I haven't answered, and I have put off contacting both UCDavis and Santa Clara U for as long as I dare. It is time to pull myself together.
( pulling myself together )
Hopefully this will do it. |
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| Bloody Microsoft |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|01:21 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
Its been a rotten day - started out ok but I went really ill this afternoon and couldn't cope with talking to anyone, so apart from a few text messages I've barely spoken to a forest, who texted to say he was on MSN for a bit before bed, so I scampered in here to the PC, tried to launch Messenger and it refused, saying I had to update. Fine, fine, clicky button...
And 35 long minutes later, by which time Forest has texted to say he's off to bed so I didn't get a chance to chat, I finally have a working Messenger. And ooh, a Windows Live folder in my Start menu too. I've got a blogging tool! (do not want). I've got a photo gallery thing !(do not want). I've got some kind of Mail client (still happy with Eudora for all my email needs after 13 years, thanks....)
I also had the option of checking the box to make Bling my search provider *and* ensure no programs could change it. Er, no.
And have MSN as my start page. Er, no.
I think Silverlight has crept in somewhere as well, not sure either way on that.
So 35 minutes installing stuff I don't want or need and will never use, plus trying to help me to use even more unwanted services, and meanwhile I don't get to be silly and snuggly online to my man for ten minutes or so which is all I wanted.
If I ever get a laptop, its having Ubuntu. No question.
Grrr. |
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| Non-Drowsy Medications |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|04:35 pm] |
My brain does some really, really weird stuff when it's whacked out on non-drowsy medications. Normally I don't get a chance to witness these things first hand, because I jump straight from "wide awake" to "passed out on the chair"... However, today I'm at work and have been trying very hard to stay awake.
To begin with, my typing is really wonky. I begin typing something, and find that my fingers are ending the word with other letters. For example, "word" becomes "work"; "coffee" becomes "caffeine"... and sometimes while I'm typing these words, I get strange flashes of images. I was just writing "lecture" and found my fingers supplying the word "letter" instead, while I suddenly was imagining a crystal blue cascade of water and the sensation of cold air.
Additionally, I start seeing weird words. I was having a somewhat disjointed conversation with someone over IM and found that I kept seeing the word "smile" somewhere in a jumble of words and letters I was visually scanning. A quick reread confirmed that "smile" wasn't used anywhere in the conversation, but I kept catching glimpses of that word.
The other thing I'm definitely missing is focus. After the "smile" incident, I went to write about this on my LJ. About thirty minutes later I found myself staring at an open "Post an Entry" tab with a blank field in it, trying to figure out why I'd even opened the tab up in the first place.
Ironically, in addition to being really, really, really drowsy, I'm also still suffering from an allergic reaction of some sort -- sneezing, sniffling, leaking, ad nauseum. You'd think that by taking a non-drowsy allergy pill you'd get at least one out of two... |
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