catastrophic failure...of chalk ;)

Aw man! Spring is hea!!! *wooo ooo* I love it! Its finally warm enough to wear slippers!!! *excitement eek* Freedom to the toe dudes! Ya man, its bout time we change some weather laws. And I can't wait to pull out the humongously torn jeans!!! (I tore them in chem class too...*haha* nitric acid rules!!!)

I just saw a bottle of Vault..hence I put my vote in in full support of how o-so-mahvelous it is! It is indeedy.

Its about time things happened..let me rephrase. Its about time I MADE things happen! I know I have a lot to do...and I just need relax about it because whatever is going to happen is going to happen, right? Why fret it? I really really love this one quote from the Last Samurai...
gorgeous chinese dude: "Do you believe in destiny?"
gorgeous Tom Cruise: "I believe a man does what he can until his destiny is revealed."
*stares at gorgeous chinese dude with thoughtfulness*

I really really hope that applies to women. :)

Anywho, I'm really really happy for some of my friends. I cannot believe how many strides each of them are making in their lives. Sometimes I can't think of anything else but where and what we all will be when we're all done and over with college, our graduate schools, with families ..o, did I mention money? How could I?!! :o...TONS of money!!! Ya dudes. We are going to RULE the world with our nerd power..you know it! And the means by which we do so..."The Nerd Scrolls" *coming soon to bookshelves* :)

Some awesome quotes over the past few days:

"Michigan's center of mass = sucks" -Dr. Kaldon

Physics lab report: Q: "Why is the center of mass with 300g not the exact middle of those for 100g and 200g?"
James: "BECAUSE THAT IS JUST NOT HOW LIFE WORKS! ...correction..that is not how physics works, I HATE these pointless questions" (just not to offend the TA)

Steve practicing for his presentation: "so these chells..." *hahaha* I almost died laughing but I had to keep it 'on the low.'

Biochem class: Dr. Huffman "Ya, I got an email today about the PNAS" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" ...people crack up..I'm, as usual, clueless.
Jeff B: "Say it really fast...weren't they going to enlarge the PNAS?"
Jeff S: "Ya man I heard they were going to use herbal supplements"...me: finally getting it, crack up for like 5 minutes straight
Dr. Huffman: *unaware as to what is going on behind his back* "What?"
*hahaha*

humbug

Wow...today has seen some serious turn of events. I opened my email today to find that one of my coolest cousin sisters on my dads side gave birth to a baby boy! *giggles* I cannot believe it! I used to play with her all the time when I was little, and now she's married and has a child of her own! I'm officially a "masi" now..that means Mom's sister. :) I was jumping with joy!!! I actually got yelled at because of it because we have wood floors and my dad freaks out every time I jump because he thinks i'm going to create a massive ginormous hole in our house. (as if someone as small as me could actually do that...but I do have a wicked jump)

So the day started out cheerful, from all the humbugness thats been going on. It was a good day, slightly productive, but quite lazy in that i spent millions of hours just talking to people at my lab because of special things that are currently going on there. I got home, and heard some pretty gruesome news though. Its personal...I shall not divulge. I'm just really really scared and sad. I don't know...its times like these when I force myself to forget about everyone else but my family. Its times like these when they really need me...unfortunately, its my first time and I have no previous experience with such a huge responsibility of protecting them. I'm scared even though I know better. I'm scared that something I love could be gone..something I love so dearly could not be here to love me back. I'm horrified. *tears*

Crayola :(

blech..It's been a rough weekend! *aaa* I have a 15 page paper on prions due Wed. and I haven't even started!!!! *eek* Not to mention, I SUCK at MCAT crap! Why o why on earth do people invent such tests?! (actually, I secretly understand why :) ) I miss good times..I cannot wait for April to come and GO! Go!! Go away!!! I don't know how I'm going to survive anymore. I'm so sick of school. I barely even have time to go watch movies anymore! *sucketh* I have no clue how I'm going to survive med school if i'm freaking out already! I just need to hibernate for a while..hide away. Far away.

*poofs*

Dudes..many apologies..i didn't realize how important this blog was to some of thee! I've just been really busy freaking out about EVERYTHING! Ok..things to freak out about:

There's obviously the lab stuff to freak out about..as always, except that this time its not a worry about what my results are telling me (which is clearly nothing), but rather about my friend Steve. He's off to San Fransisco at the end of this month for his first official conference! I mean, months of his work is going to be finally recognized at one of the biggest scientific conferences ever held! I think i'm freaking out about him more than he is. I guess I just keep imagining what I would go through if I were in his shoes...thankfully he hasn't fainted..yet. But the important thing is that 'we are all here.' :)

I've had a constant run of exams and papers that have been due, and i've procrastinated on every one of them! But fortunately I worked my butt off and did really really well on all of them. :) So I guess I finally realized that I really DO work best under pressure..and NO..you don't want to see me then! Actually, thats probably when you don't see me at all..like anywhere, i disappear! *poof*

Speaking of poofs and vanishes, I got to go to an actual magic show! No, not any normal magic show with a dude and his talented origami, I mean like making people travel to Perth, Australia magic!!! :o..yup, I saw David Copperfield for under $30! And in all that he made a car appear on the stage, a huge group of people disappear from the stage and end up only a few feet next to us in the grand tier, shorten his body to a few inches, a few card tricks, travel to Perth, Australia and back (with freaky proof), and predict lottery numbers and underwear colors! It was great and all...but we were slightly disappointed only because we expected sooo much more (like roaring lions and the Statue of Liberty appearing before us in Michigan and levitating people)! But later came to the conclusion that in the amount of space Miller provides it would have been impossible for him to perform much greater stunts. Plus I'm kind of a strong believer of magic, in that I know that its all an illusion, perhaps I went to the show in order to prove to myself that there was indeed something greater. But I just wanted to have that one chance to see something magical, instead I just ended up scientifically and rationally questioning how every single trick might have been performed. I think just knowing beforehand that it was all an illusion kinda ruined the moment for me. :( I just wish I could go back to the time when I didn't really know much about reality..but hey! Life is real, so I gotta live it that way! And we all had a blast going to iHOP for dinner...it was my first time there for DINNER...mind you, iHOP always struck me as a 'haven for breakfast.'

Um, my pathology class RULES!!! Dr. Eversole took us on a tour through the imaging center at Haenicke and we got to see some of the largest electron, transmission, and confocal microscopes in western Michigan. And we even got to see neutrophils degranulating at an absolutely amaaazingly fast rate!!! *gasps* Seriously! The speed at which life happens is incomprehensible! And we're here sitting worrying about what we'll be doing for summer or the next year when each and every millisecond that passes major changes and interactions are taking place in our bodies..(for example the immune war). Its mind boggling! *mind boggled*

Just to end on an advisory note: Do ya'll by chance know that smoking is bad for you? And I mean ANY kind of smoking?!
To get the point across, I quote Dr. Eversole: "So, people always tell me 'I smoke light cigarettes'..I always say 'Well then, you just DIE LIGHTLY!!!'"

I was also thinking about the possibilities of the next world war III...I had an epiphany that maybe, just maybe, nature has granted us such power than we are now in control of our own demise! *eek* Maybe nature has empowered us with our own weapon for extinction..nuclear weapons!

the helix!

Woa...Slashdot just posted this article about how this new nebula has been discovered in the center of our Milky Way galaxy...and its shaped like a DOUBLE HELIX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :O



I am speechless..yet I have soo much to say!



O my goodness! Is that not astonishing? Amazing? Freaky? Yet possibly the coolest, most awesome and intiriguing discovery I have EVER come across. Somehow, it shakes me to the core! *shivers* How could something that is the basis of our existance, one of the most infinitely small molecules that governs life, be so infinitely huge, not to mention at the very CENTER of OUR galaxy? Is this just a coincidence? Are there other nebula's like this out there..but if so, wouldn't we have seen them before? It seems to me, literally, like a sign from the 'heavens!' Something that is just blatantly there...and so significant and representative to us humans! Why should this simple shape be so powerful to me? Simply because I have been conditioned to recognize and respect this shape ever since I learned about the existance of life. And to find this shape within another most significant power that I respect, namely space, I cannot help but think of all these correlations between the two! I cannot help but think its there for a reason, and that's just blows me away! I always thought that what humans define stays within our dictionaries on earth..that we can relate them to other things to understand other things better but that I question "who are we to define things?" But when something like this comes about, I wonder and think of the enormous power we have to imagine and believe. We are indeed amazing, and I cannot imagine what else is in store for us out there..perhaps, although not always, I sit here in absolute awe at the respect our specie demands regarding our capabilities. I sit in awe at the message everything around us is sending us. I sit in awe at our power, at our imagination, at our life.

proof

Seriously, literally a few minutes after my last post it started storming like *hell on earth*...which made me reconsider whether or not I really HAD a sixth sense! :o It was sooo scary!!!!! Apparently there were 113 twisters 'down south' (compared to michigan) and 10 people died! And I realized that although I was horrified to death to the point that I woke up and started freaking out with my family because there was a tornado watch and we started getting torches and food together and heading for the basement (*haha*) I absolutely enjoyed every minute of such a huge adrenaline rush! In the middle of it all, my dad and I managed to catch ourselves staring out of the living room window cracking up about how we seemed like the only house on the street with all our lights on because we seemed like the only ones afraid and awake...but if it were india..now imagine this...imagine every single person on our street out on the street staring up and just like wow, this storm is really big, I wonder what it could do? gee...just like...crap, or dang..huge storm eh? like woa...look at that lightening strike..or woa..look at that twister..oops its heading our way!!!! *eek*

Maybe my love for thunderstorms is genetic..maybe it runs within the Indian lineage! Who knows?

Speaking of weather..I cannot believe Michigan...it was 73F yesterday, today, snow, 35F with 50mph winds. *blech*

So, I have some mahvelous Andy quotes for ya'll:

1. Two hydrogens are walking down the street.
One says to the other "dude, I think I lost an electron"
Other hydrogen dude: "so dude, are you sure?"
First dude: "ya man, I'm positive"

*hahaha*

2. What is The Undertaker's element?
....why...Barium! ;)

Possible MCAT writing prompts:
3. It is good to eat babies...i mean vegetables.

4. Tater tots are good for the soul.

5. Logical reasoning practice:
God is love. Love is blind. Thus, Ray Charles is God.

O..and i've heard this a long time ago..actually Scott, you might remember this :)

Proof of how girls are evil:

girls = time*money
time = money
girls = money*money=money^2
money = √evil
girls = (√evil)^2
Hence... girls=evil

sixth sense O_O

haha..i love sites that attempt to define your name..here's one at http://www.quizgalaxy.com
How would my name be defined by the dictionary?

shruti --
[noun]: A person with a sixth sense for detecting the presence of goblins

(WARNING: this definition is NOT ACTUALLY concomitant with the real definition of Shruti, which is "the cosmic sound of truth") ;)

I seriously hope 'goblins' has some reference to diseases...wouldn't it be sooo cool to be able to just KNOW what the disease is in the first place..i mean the entire diagnostic area would be WIPED out because of me!!!!!*kapow*

I was running the other night, and o my gosh, it was ominously quiet and black. I noticed the street lights on one of the streets was out, and for like five minutes I sprinted like *heck* to the next stop sign where I could finally see my street again! I seriously thought someone was following me...maybe it was a goblin!!!! :o It still made my heart beat faster. And then as soon as I made that turn into my driveway, I laughed out loud simply because I could not believe how I was capable of 'inventing' such thoughts...such threats to my well-being. Sometimes when I'm home alone I hear noises from the attic and I *FREAK OUT*...like that's when you'll find me on AIM, or scrambling to dial some numbers on my cell phone to reach my parents or a friend just so that I have SOMEONE else to calm me down!

On a much brighter note, I've noticed that ever since the 'coming' of 'spring', I hear the birds every morning, and *GOSH* I didn't realize how much I missed the presence of non-human life! I mean, I don't own any pets...actually they kinda commit suicide on me. :( And I love how I can just look outside the window and see a decently green lawn which I helped rake for like two days in a row some day late in October until I had blisters on my palms...and now I can see it again! I can finally hear the rain pitter-patter on my roof, and the thunder scare me half to death! I love the suddenness of lightening and how I catch myself wondering if I saw a strange light, only to be reminded a second later by another bolt that I was in the middle of a thunderstorm. And I can't wait for the flowers to start blooming so that I can walk past a tree in full bloom and have their fragrance startle me to admire nature even more.

I can't wait for it all to begin. I can't wait for 'life' to 'begin' even though it was here all along...I can't wait to bloom myself.

the nerds versus the 'hot' ones

So..I guess I AM finally going to complain about how 'stereotypically' hot people get soo much more attention than the awesome nerds, like moi. Don't get me wrong..i'm not saying i'm not hot. *i'm smokiiin'* I'm just jealous as to how guys in a class get sooo friggin' worried that a hot chick who shows boobage and buttage got a little boo boo cold and are all like 'awwww'...and by doing so, they completely ignore perhaps the smartest person in the class. *egoflare*

Haha...this is how nerdy my friends and I are...we walk down sidewalks, halting traffic JUST to feel our patella's...and if anyone stares us down, they get the 'patella stare'...the "what what homey? who YOU lookin' at? you'd betta get DOWN and start wigglin' your patella cause its SERIOUSLY cool." :) Only fellow nerds would understand.

I suppose my point is that I don't understand how some girls need to degrade themselves to prove who they are. Just the other day Amanda and the Cyborg and I went out to dinner, and a few guys sitting behind us started calling out obsurd comments to the waitresses, because nobody else was around and because they could, and were probably drunk, and they asked this one waitress for her phone number after what I seriously considered verbal sexual harassment. I only found out a few minutes later that one of them actually HAD given them her number..disgraceful.

to believe or not to...?

Slashdot says that in 2001 there was strange 'red rain' in a south western state in India called Kerala (where Sandhya and Pramod are from), and that scientists now believe (have published results) claiming that it might contain extraterrestrial microbiological life...the original publication even has pictures (but i'm techie-idiot so i don't know how to get them on here :( ) But what troubles me is simply trusting such data/such claims..in that the TEM images make these 'cells' look like red blood cells..exactly like the 3D structure of slightly deformed red blood cells, but apparently the electron microscope reveals an almost bacterial spore-like envelope structure and the complete absence of DNA!!! But they are composed of carbon and oxygen..strange eh? Are these people simply claiming so just to 'get attention' as in the cloning controversy? A huge part of me just says sheesh..they simply slapped in a coupla pictures they could have obtained from anywhere and claimed its from teh red rain...Should we trust this, and if so its almost scary that we've 'suddenly' confirmed the presence of extraterrestrial life!!!! (that like totally ruins the major part of our curiosity, not to mention NASA's missions to Mars etc.)

I truly believe there is life out there...its arrogant of us to be so ignorant of this simple truth (in that there are infintesimal amounts of planetary bodies that could be inhabited by SOME form of life...which leads to another controversy, which is how do we define life in teh first place?) It just makes me wonder how there's so many 'races' going on...the race to space was accomplished, now begin the race to successfully clone entire humans (which is a bunch o' crap...unless speaking of organ/tissue cloning), and also the race to find extraterrestrial life. Is our adrenaline rushing too much that we're just making assumptions without considering the full impact of our choices to finish these races? Don't we have a greater ethical responsibility to make claims only once they've been FULLY and FACTUALLY confirmed? ...I dunno, maybe i'm just scared. :)

Apart from the abovementioned 'philosophizing'...Spring break just FLEW!..I have NO CLUE how 168 hours of my life went by..for those of you just starting...*enjoy every minute*!!!! Don't say you're going to study and catch up on a ton..nope..that ain't going to happen. :) And now, all the tormenting tests are back..i seem to be dazed right now..simply cannot get across the fact that i have soo much to do that i've completely stopped functioning. Lets see...I have all of the following ALL due the same week of April: MCATS, class finals, and my research stipend, o..and did i mention *M.C.A.T.S*!!!!!! *AAAAAAAAAAAAA*

the hot zone

So I just finished reading "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston..a really good book about the dangers of a future biohazard, namely the family of Ebola viruses: Ebola Zaire (the most dangerous), Ebola Reston, Ebola Sudan, and Marburg. But this quote hit me hard:

"In a sense, the earth is mounting an immune respponse against the human species. It is beginning to react to the human parasite, the flooding infection of beople, the dead spots of concrete all over hte planet, the cancerous rot-outs in Europe, Japan, and the United states, thick with replicating primates, the colonies enlarging and spreading and threatening to shock the biosphere with mass extinctions. Perhaps the biosphere does not "like" the idea of five billion humans. Or it could also be said that the extreme amplification of the human race, which has occured only in the past hundred years or so, has suddenly produced a very large quantity of meat, which is sitting everywhere in the biosphere and may not be able to defend itself against a life form that might want to consume it. Nature has interesting ways of balancing itself. The earth's immune system, so to speak, has recogized the presence of the human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting ot rid itself of an infection by the human parasite. Perhaps AIDS is the first step in a natural process of clearance" - The Hot zone, p. 310-1 ( :) references..i've been taught repetitively to the extent that its automatic)

I do believe that humans are becoming annoying lil parasites, and I do believe that there is something out there that is absolutely going to shock us into extinction. The question becomes...when? Honestly, we're NOT going to be prepared...AT ALL. Were we prepared for AIDS? No. It just travelled down the Kinshasa Highway in Africa until it finally touched the 'web'...the airline transportation web that interconnects us all. Ironic how some of our greatest strengths could become our greatest weaknesses...or is it inevitable anyway?

om

Om namah shivaya namah