Priscilla Ahn - Dream

One of those songs that makes me just stop, listen and pay attention.

Priscilla Ahn - Dream

I was a little girl alone in my little world who dreamed of a little home for me.
I played pretend between the trees, and fed my houseguests bark and leaves, and laughed in my pretty bed of green.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest swing.
I had a dream.

Long walks in the dark through woods grown behind the park, I asked God who I'm supposed to be.
The stars smiled down on me, God answered in silent reverie. I said a prayer and fell asleep.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest tree.
I had a dream.

Now I'm old and feeling grey. I don't know what's left to say about this life I'm willing to leave.
I lived it full and I lived it well, there's many tales I've lived to tell. I'm ready now, I'm ready now, I'm ready now to fly from the highest wing.

I had a dream.

And apparently, she keeps a blog.

500 Days of Summer

Check out the movie trailer for 500 Days of Summer, starring Zooey Deschanel (did I get the spelling right? btw, i recently found out she's engaged to dcfc's ben gibbard? wtf, but kinda cute.) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the geeky guy from 3rd rock from the sun and 10 things I hate about you! he was damn cute). It's funny because JGL is now all grown up and less skinny...and it's scary because I think he looks ALOT like Heath Ledger (RIP) now that he's past the stages of puberty...and weren't they acting as brothers on 10 things? The casting directors were good!

Anyway, 500 days looks like one of those romantic comedies that I will like! One of those Juno-type flicks. And because they have to be unique, they have a movie blog, instead of a normal movie site. Check it out!

Weekly Fix

Adam Lambert - Born to be Wild 

Check out the scream from like 2:20 onward O_O

Muji Chronotebook

We can always trust Muji to come up with something original, yet still functional, like the Chronotebook! Instead of having lined or grid or calendar squared or blank pages like normal notebooks, the Chronotebook has an analog clock in the middle of each page. I like how you get to plan your day around this clock, but there's still quite alot of blank space of scribbling notes and useless doodling. 

Third Arm

First, we had the third nipple. Now we have the third arm (thought not quite, it's more like a supernumerary phantom limb). But nonetheless, it is just as bizarre.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/Doctors_confirm_woman_s_imaginary_third_arm.html?siteSect=105&sid=10522330&rss=true&ty=st&ref=ti_spa

Doctors confirm woman's imaginary third arm

A 64-year-old woman has reported to doctors at Geneva University Hospital the presence of a pale, milky-white and translucent third arm.
After examining the case, the woman's neurologist, Asaid Khateb of the hospital's experimental neurophysiology laboratory, called the rare phenomenon credible.

The arm appeared to the woman a few days after suffering a stroke, doctors said.

But this case of what is known as a supernumerary phantom limb (SPL) is a genuine head-scratcher.

The upshot is that the woman can use the apparitional extremity to relieve very real itches on the cheek. It cannot penetrate solid objects.

She does not always perceive the arm but "retrieves" it when needed, doctors told the Swiss news agency.

It is nevertheless the first case known to doctors of a person being able to feel, see and deliberately move a limb that doesn't exist. The findings are published in the Annals of Neurology.

Pinpointing
Khateb and his colleagues examined the patient's brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a tool that allows doctors to see whether the brain is truly stimulated, and to pinpoint where. In this case, the investigations revealed that the woman actually experienced what she described.

Researchers instructed the woman to move her right hand. As expected, the motor cortex and visual processing areas in the left side of her brain became mobilised.

The same effects were observed to a lesser extent when the woman simply imagined moving her right hand. Imaginary movements of the woman's paralysed left hand prompted the same activity in the brain, but on the right side.

But when doctors asked her to move her phantom arm, her brain reacted as though the arm really existed and could be moved. In addition, the patient's visual cortex was also activated, indicating the she actually saw the imaginary limb.

And when she was instructed to scratch her cheek, regions of the brain relating to touch were activated.

Mystery
Khateb said the exact cause of the imaginary arm remains a mystery. Supernumerary limbs are rare. There are only nine known cases of a patient both feeling and seeing an arm.

"Existing evidence from stroke-elicited SPLs convincingly implicates the mismatch between the subject's well-established sensorimotor representations and a suddenly aberrant pattern of communication between the brain and the paralysed limb," the authors wrote.

They said it could represent a missing link between classical phantom limbs and phenomena such as out-of-body experiences.

Phantom limbs are more commonly associated with people who have had an amputation – between 50 and 80 per cent of people who have had body parts removed suffer from it. In most cases it is painful, according to a 1984 article published in a scientific journal called the Clinical Journal of Pain.

"Ultimately however these conditions might offer a unique way to understand how the brain constructs a normal experience of bodily awareness and the self," they concluded.

My first exam begins tomorrow, still a bit of mugging and reading left to do (like analyzing organizational failures in the Queensland Health system), before i go to bed...wish me luck!

Mad World

Rushed home just in time to catch Adam on tv today (yes, i actually rushed home to catch a tv show). I think the song Mad World is grossly overplayed, but Adam manages to put his magic into everything. So here goes!

Incredible!! It's really worth the load. I've never really appreciated singing as an art...like I usually listen to music for lyrical genius, for an infectious melody, for a catchy beat, for nice vibes, or for heart-bursting emotion. But this guy's mastery of his voice is the real deal. This guy is like...a born singer. And he seems so humble about everything too.

Third Nipple

Christine introduced me to the concept of the third nipple today while we were mugging at starbucks. I must have been living under a rock all these years coz I've NEVER EVER in my life heard of this thing called a third nipple. I thought she was kidding, until I went online to wiki it. She got the facts a bit wrong though, the third nipple is not a hormonal development that happens during pregnancy. I think its more of a genetic defect kinda thing. Apparently 1 in 18 humans have it, which is OMG to me. HOW MANY OF YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE HAVE THIS MYSTICAL THIRD NIPPLE and didn't tell me about it?? (Or trip nip, as they like to call it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernumerary_nipples

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_breast

I learn new things every day.

The Dough-Nu-Matic

An automated mini-doughnut making machine!! just how cool is this, a bottomless supply of sugar-glazed anytime you want it. only takes a minute for each doughnut. and the flipping mechanism is brilliant. i LOVE sugar-glazed doughnuts! so what's your favourite flavour?

not to ruin the party right now, but watching the vid, it seems a hassle to clean the machine after. but what the heck. here's some doughnuts to tempt you with.

Testing Something

World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Play That Funky Music!

Check out the Presley hairdo and his last note (superb vocal gymnastics)!!!

412 '04

I found the class video that jiching was telling me about today! Such a pity that the sound was taken off!

**Comments:
- Our board was so full of rubbishy things! Like the hangman game where we trying to guess mrs bala's real name. And teachers' quotes, "when you get to university, one eye on the book and the other eye roaming around" (yeah, back when university was still a very far-away thought). And Miss Ting's funnel, thistle, pipette-shaped population graphs.
- I realized how ancient this video was when I saw my handphone in the scene at waffle town. It's like the first nokia handphone mobile that came to singapore (the dark blue one, not sure of the model number, i'm not good with things like that)

Getting crafty, getting gay

Made pretty lanyards! =D Ribbon was bought at the scrapbook store, Made with Love, and all the other hooks buttons etc. were gotten at Spotlight =)=) Luckily i already have such a huge stash of embroidery thread at home.

Was surprisingly fun to make, not on my part, but his. You already know i love doing this kinda things, gives me a crazy high. Feel so pleased with it cos it's so pretty! =D=D Plus functional, bonus, lol. And the pink button that was supposed to be decorative ended up being functional too, cos it was sewn directly onto the press stud underneath. He was value-adding to the design, lol =D The whole matching lanyards thing is admittedly really gay, but never mind. Can't wait for more projects to come along! =D=D

Substation Courses

Eggy,this link is for you.

Chris Jordan Photography

A thought-provoking lecture video by photographer Chris Jordan from TED.