Breathing life

We are still alive and we plan to breathe life back into this corner of cyberspace. One of us has started working and the other is going to grad school.

Having been away from this blog for almost two years, I only just discovered that blogger has a feature that allows us to analyze the stats for our blog. Now, time for some data analysis. Our top posts of all time are: 1. Origami - The Art of Paper Folding, 2. You can call me at 10:59 but..., 3. Yue Guang Xia De Feng Wei Zhu. Top search words: 1. yue guang xia de feng wei zhu, 2. wan shi lu yi, 3. you can call me at 10:59. We have 357 pageviews from Russia (why???), 198 from the US and 154 from Singapore. Other countries that have visited our blog are: Netherlands, Ukraine, Iran, France, Germany, UK, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico. I am completely amazed at the global reach of our humble blog.

It's been awhile our friends...stay tuned!

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Shortly after noon on July 8, comes the moment that can be called 12:34:56 7/8/9.

(well, that'll be in the american month/day/year format...so i guess for us it'll be August 7).

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!

Girl laughs non-stop for 12 years

Came across this curious little article on the internet...Click here for the news report!

A YOUNG girl has been laughing non-stop for 12 YEARS, it was revealed today.
The Chinese teenager cannot even talk – but has to communicate with different types of GIGGLE.

Xu Pinghui, 13, has stumped doctors ever since she started laughing when she developed a fever as an eight-month-old baby.

Her parents are now desperate to find a cure.

Mum Yang Longying said: “Ever since then she has been laughing uncontrollably.

Her dad Xu Weiming added: “There is no happiness for us. Seeing her laughing we feel even sadder than if she were crying.”

But Pinghui has been given new hope after doctors said her brain’s frontal lobe may have been damaged by the fever.

They now plan to carry out a CT scan on the teenager and hope this could provide answers to her mysterious condition.

Accident on the road

Haha, how rare is it that the traffic light turns red just as your car stops beside a horrific accident. People can't even call you a hog for stalling traffic. Jokes aside, I wouldn't wanna be the dude in the car though, i don't know if you can see it from this picture, but not only did it flip over, it is -pretty- messed up. Not the greatest place to be in. But maybe he made it, at least the car ain't on fire. According to my dad, this is the third flipped car he's seen this week! That's a lot right??

The Heart

It's not that I'm in love with anyone in particular right now, and neither is it that anyone in particular is in love with me (not that i'm aware of), but i saw this thing on someone's livejournal while blog surfing and i thought it was pretty...um...thought-provoking? And decided that it was blog-worthy. Aiya, whatever, just read it. I like, "as we all know, the heart is the centre of the body, but it beats on the left, maybe that's why the heart is not always right."

During long quiet car rides, my mind always wanders. Sometimes I think about things like love and how relationships can be so complicated (not so much from personal experience, but from observations of other people's relationships). And how some relationships can really mess up lives. And how common it is nowadays for relationships to fail and marriages to end. And then I feel so lucky that my parents are still together and more or less quite happy and peaceful. I think it's amazing how they've been with each other for so long. I probably don't give them enough credit for that. It's difficult enough finding the right partner, then you have to date, and like each other enough to get married, and then have kids, and do adult things like earn money and buy houses and pay taxes. On top of that, you have to deal with good-for-nothing siblings, unreasonable bosses and angsty kids who will never like you enough.  All this while trying to make sure that you're doing the right thing; and trying not to think about "what happens if i'm making all the wrong decisions?" etc, etc. Okay, I think I am rambling. Shall stop here.

The Ladder of Love

An incredible love story has come out of China recently and managed to touch the world. (some valuable happy news for this breakup season)

Mysterious manifestations

A mysterious message from the yin-yang man appeared on our table during lunch that day. What could he be telling us??!
Okay, this isn't mysterious, but i just wanted to take a picture and post it cos it was pretty. I think only one person at Gloria Jean's knows how to do latte art, cos the previous 4 cups all didn't have this. I now have the loyalty card thing! Can't wait for my 10th free drink! =)=)

Love

This one's for you my friend. Some excerpts from the journal articles that ferris passed to me for the lit review. Basically the article i was talking about is about the Self-expansion Model of Love which is based on 3 principles:

1. People seek to expand the self.
   
2. One way they seek to do so is by attempting to include others in the self through close relationships.
   
3. People seek situations and experiences that have become associated with experiences of expansion of self. 

And people fall in love because of:

1. Desirability: Perceived degree of potential expansion of self that is possible thru a close relationship with that particular other.
2. Probability: Perceived probability of actually obtaining that expansion with other (probability that one could actually form and maintain a close relationship with this particular other)

-----> Edit on 17/11: And the above points make alot of sense. For instance, some distant eye-candy crush would be high on desirability, low on probability. And your platonic friend would be low on desirability, high on probability. Makes a bit of sense, no? So when you find someone who scores high on desirability AND probability, then BINGO! You're one lucky dude.

When one initially falls in love, the perceived opportunity for expansion is very great. 

But once established, the rate of expansion inevitably slows down.

The self-expansion model imples that a possible way that couple might avoid the typical decline in satisfaction and love over time would be by associating the partner or the relationship with experiences of expanding. 

Once relationship partners can no longer gain substantial expansion from the development of the relationship (they know each other well), by engaging in expanding activities togehter, they may give the relationship an aura of expansion. Activities that are self-expanding are those that are novel or arousing.

So in the bridge study, male subjects found a woman more attractive when she was met on a scary suspension bridge than when the same woman was met on a safe foot bridge. Meaning that the woman encountered on the suspension bridge may seem to offer more self-expansion, or feelings of arousal.

I would like to elaborate more but there's this kancheong senior who's bugging me to send out a mass email. Next time.

Throw Rocks

Recent interactions with a certain so-and-so have just confirmed my belief that guys are:

• Superficial
• Clueless
  
• Unaware
• Stupid (worse are those who think they are smart when they are just really really daft)
• Desperate
• Let's throw rocks at them. God save me.

Holiday plans

Hi bern and chee, if you're reading this, these are our plans for the dec hols! Came up with them over brunch today. So keep a coupla days in the first 2 weeks free kay? We are happening!!

AWWA

I spent last Friday at AWWA in Hougang with iBig. They planned some music session thing with the special ed (mildly autistic) kids there, which turned out pretty awesome. It was my first time ever interacting with autistic kids, so I really didn't know what to expect -- they were alot more extroverted and friendly than I had imagined. Somehow, I had the impression that they'd be really quiet and antisocial. I have this mental image of an autistic kid, sitting in a corner, creating genius-level works of art, and he'ss oblivious to everything around him, sort of living in his own world. But they were all very warm and welcoming, more than us visitors anyway. When I say warm, I mean warm. Like there were kids who literally ran up to us saying hello, introducing themselves, asking us for our names. There was this particular kid who ran up to Xyvill (17 yr old guy from myanmar, he named himself that) and asked to "bao bao". So Xyvill just picked him up, carried him and rocked the kid around. All this happens like, in the first minute that we step into the acitivity room -- even before we got a chance to talk to the lady in charge of the kids.









Really gotta give credit to the social workers at the centre. After about 2 hours of playtime with the kids, we were completely out of it. We have 2 more sessions with the kids...looking forward to our next! I left the place feeling all "i've made a positive difference on earth", which is a really nice feeling to have.

After approximately 9 hours...

Last night chan msged me to ask if i could go over and help glue tiny plywood cubes into slightly less tiny plywood cubes. Exciting stuff! The cubes are gonna be glued into a further structure. And if you look closely enough, there's some business going on with the woodgrain. Patterny smarty-pants stuff that i'm too lazy to explain now lol. But basically chan came up with idea --> she's the boss of this project --> i'm the boss' friend!

This is what we managed to achieve. 57 cubes. Suddenly that doesn't sound like a lot anymore chan -___- She needed a total that amounted to thousands, i kid you not. But never mind, it looks like a huge mountain of cubes from here! And it was really fun, i even got one for keeps =D Anytime you need me again, chan =)=)

Oh yes, send us a photo of the finished product, chan!

Bumper Edition

I'd prefer to refrain from using cliches in this blog, but it's quite apt to begin this post by with the phrase, "Time flies". Can't believe its already the end of week 4...soon it'll be midterm, then exams, then hols, then new term...repeat. Since I have some time now before heading off to nus ucc for chee's dance concert (and having already completed my assignments for the week -- yay productivity), I shall post random pics to chronicle my past few weeks.




Awesome lighting at esplanade's concert hall for the dcfc concert. Funny incident: chris and I spent the bulk of our time laughing at this guy directly in front of me who was very very very high throughout the concert. Like, he kept bobbing up and down quite rigorously and screaming out lyrics at the top of his voice. About halfway thru the thing, i suddenly realise, HOLY SHIT i know that guy! Haha..it was kevin and then the overenthusiasm made so much sense.

Met lotsa jc ppl there, including shib who came up to me and said, "I KNEW I would see you here!" We met up recently and she recalled how i was the one who introed ben gibbert to her. Like years ago when she came over to my place and was looking thru my cd collection. I believe tt was during the whole omg-i-love-seth phase.



The people who have become a gigantic part of my life -- in a scary yet heartwarming way.

Um...these nails only lasted for a few hours on me. I went straight home to take them off. Too bright, too bright...Very pontianak-y.

Friend, may you one day be ready enough to meet THE MENTOR. Haha...the title is Thai Horror Film-worthy. Some people you'll have to wait for, but you will never have to wait for me. LOL. ;)

This was the random spontaneous 3V reunion...cons was there earlier too. Interestingly enough, even without bx being there, she managed to take up quite a substantial amount of our conversation. Above you have future lawyers, doctors, dentists, biz women. We didn't do too bad afterall. Not too shabby. Koh siew yong should be proud.




Word of advice: Never ever go for fish foot therapy. It is a complete waste of money. It was definitely not relaxing, and my foot didnt feel significantly smoother after the session. The first 10 minutes of sitting in the tub was ridiculously tortuous. The feeling of dozens of little fish nibbling at your toes...is not a pleasant feeling. And after a half hour of staring at the tiny fish darting around the pool - I became slightly dizzy and nauseous. We had to take our minds off the queer ticklish sensations by having very insightful conversation about school, friends, love, travel, camping...so on.

Everyone's flying off again. Why so fast!!

What I've been doing in school

Finally have time to post these pictures. It's what we've been doing this term! Dentures, and crowns. Well, we haven't actually gotten to the final product yet, but this is the in between and it's as fun as it looks! =)=)

Jitty and chan came by for lunch =)=) Jitty still looks the same as ever. Once a year is much too little jit!Shiny happy wax =) this entire thing is made of wax, who knew it could get so shiny! Just takes some flaming (<-- dangerous. i've flamed my fingers a coupla times alr, and damn does it hurt), and bit of soap+water. This is on its way to becoming a denture =D=D It's so shiny it already looks like acrylic =DThis is to make a special tray for taking impressions. For making crowns. Reason why i'm showing this, is because aluminium foil is magical! The foil is used to cover the wax base, because the material used to make the special tray sets in an exothermic reaction. Lotsa heat produced, don't want the wax to melt into the special tray and contaminate it. Anyway. When you burnish it and burnish it, the foil turns this dull but white-bright silver, and super smooth, like the kind you get chocolate wrapped in! Super addictive way to spend the afternoon.Then boon found the silicon putty unguarded one morning in lab.Hooked onto the magic of replicating body parts, he realized that a finger was not enough! He had to hide in a corner to do this, cos the blue stuff is really expensive. Lab techs always scold us for taking too much. It's a silicon impression material, we use it to take impressions of teeth and stuff cos it's got good detail etc. Then after that you use it as a mould and pour silky rock (the pink stone thing) or whatever in it to make a cast =OHurhurhur.Lastly, smiley face cookie from david for my birthday! =D=D so cheerful! =D=D Feel happy everybody! =D

BIRTHDAY LOVE

I'm in the middle of an excruciatingly boring and dreadful Finance class now...prof's words are just flying past my ears, so anyway...eggy <3

The Golden Ratio

In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio between the sum of those quantities and the larger one is the same as the ratio between the larger one and the smaller. The golden ratio is approximately 1.6180339887. The golden ratio can be expressed as a mathematical constant, usually denoted by the Greek letter (phi).

At least since the Renaissance, many artists and architects have proportioned their works to approximate the golden ratio—especially in the form of the golden rectangle, in which the ratio of the longer side to the shorter is the golden ratio—believing this proportion to be aesthetically pleasing. Mathematicians have studied the golden ratio because of its unique and interesting properties.

It is sometimes stated that nautilus shells get wider in the pattern of a golden spiral, and hence are related to both φ and the Fibonacci series. In truth, nautilus shells exhibit logarithmic spiral growth, but at a rate distinctly different from that of the golden spiral. The reason for this growth pattern is that it allows the organism to grow at a constant rate without having to change shape.

Saw this at the underwater world, and thought it was very pretty. This fossil reminded me of the greek exhibit we saw back then at the national museum, think it's the lighting. Anyway, everything above is from wikipedia.

WE ARE STILL ALIVE

It's been awhile since we last blogged. So here's a video for you guys, hope it makes your day. Presenting Beijing Olympics 2008, Synchronised Swimming Team Singapore!

School starts tomorrow...oh my! I'm feeling excited jittery unsure. But I trust that I'll get by just fine!

To have Succeeded

A little something I have to share with everyone who reads this blog! Let's try to make the world a better place for everyone, hehe!

Gloomy first days

New name tags ($10 if lost!) indicating the start of the new year, the next leg of this marathon. Don't know why i'm so reluctant to return to school again this term, i'm not usually like that. A friend shared with me a poem that really inspired and encouraged me though, and it just made things feel a lot better. Today wasn't a bad start though, so i'll save the poem for another day when we all need it a little more =)