Where I'd rather be now

Have been ill the last week due to an unfortunate plate of Nasi Goreng consumed along the side streets of Yogyakarta so updates have been sporadic at best. Also, I'm trying to cut down blogging cos I have a major major deadline to complete my magnum opus by July 23rd. It's a long shot, but I'll give it a go.

Just the other day, I was on the bus with Mingko, and I showed her my phylogenetic tree - the cumulation of what I've been up to the last few years. A PhD's funny like that. all that work and at the end of the day, its distilled to a mere diagram that takes up an A4 sheet of paper. It was very surreal. Almost like a cell out of PhD comics. Sometimes our conversations are reflective of that too.

Anyway, the last few days, I've been experiencing waves of nostalgia. My mind keeps bringing me back to somewhere in the South Pacific. In a town of one salsa club and three bars. Flavoured tropical rums and introspective evenings huddled over a burning fire and every so often getting up and pulling away from the warmth of the burning logs and getting a kava fix.







Chilling out, post kava, just lounging listening to the conversation, the music..

Nice quiet dinners in the garden, decorating the trees with little chinese lanterns I had brought. Trying to keep them out of Enzo's reach.





Karaoke at the Ninja bar and salsa nights at the only salsa bar in town. That was an incredible evening (my apologies to Francoise though, for stepping on his feet the whole time). Or how about that night at the Rum bar..shots after shots of exotic rum flavours. Just standing by the counter all night long, talking and laughing. And how just as we were going home, the boulangerie was just starting its day, and we bought loads of croissants and baguettes and had breakfast in the garden and the neighbour's dog decided to come join us for breakfast too.



I miss Noumea... and I miss my friends there. :'(

Just because

I'm bored so here's a ditty to keep everyone entertained. Nice groovy feel-good beat.

It's Thursday today! The weekend is beckoning!

weakness

I was just surfing on the net when I came across this list of fears that readers of the BBC magazine had submitted.

Some of them are truly irrational, but its not as if I don't have any loony ones of my own, so here's what I have to add.

When I was a toddler, I used to be truly terrified of sweets (really.. but I've got to admit its not everyday you get a kid that runs the other away when offered sweets). Not the boiled kind but more like fruit gums, especially if they are encrusted with sugar. The sight of those artifcially coloured sweets in all shades of the rainbow plus sugar crystals on them made me squirm.

I'd want to retch and then the crying starts. I must have bewildered all those poor grown ups who only just wanted to give me something to eat. Happily, I've since grown out of it and have been scoffing them eversince. I think the turning point came one day when I decided that those Rowntree hard fruit gums were no good since they always get stuck in my teeth. The sugary pastilles were softer (never mind the disgusting sugar) and since then, there has been no turning back.

I am also afraid of repeating patterns - no.. not like polka dots or anything. If its artificial, its ok, but not if its naturally occuring..honey combs for example, or the pits and bumps (must be uniformly shaped!) on the back of the Pipa toad. eeks. Hair's standing just thinking about it.

Deep. Breath.

So what are your fears?

The lobster 祖綜 that you found

that, my gentle reader, is my mother's succint summary of the news article that mentioned her offspring's name. I bet she wished I struck the lottery (for real) instead of finding this though. Heh.

P.S. No Ivan, you may not eat this. How about drooling over this nice picture of some boiled Heterocarpus sibogae and giant Galatheids? They were great!



The squat lobster was even the size of a dinner plate!

Speaking of lobsters and plates, heres another crustacean that was in the news recently.

Kiwa hirsuta..it is quite interesting to see how the news has evolved.. from when it was first described and published in a scientific journal, followed by the media picking it up (note the silky blonde hair bit), and finally, the man in the street talking about it (salad plate sized!).

But hey.. when it comes to our brand of science, like they say in Hollywood, there is no such thing as bad publicity. :D

thanks to Fatfreddy for the newspaper cutting :)