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So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.


The Profile


Zanzibar
Age. 39
Gender. Female
Ethnicity. that of my father and his father before him
Location Altadena, CA
School. Other
» More info.
The World









The Link To Zanzibar's Past
This is my page in the beloved art community that my sister got me into:

Samarinda

Extra points for people who know what Samarinda is.
The Phases of the Moon Module
CURRENT MOON
Croc Hunter/Combat Wombat
My hero(s)
Only My Favorite Baseball Player EVER


Aw, Larry Walker, how I loved thee.
The Schedule
M: Science and Exploration
T: Cook a nice dinner
W: PARKOUR!
Th: Parties, movies, dinners
F: Picnics, the Louvre
S: Read books, go for walks, PARKOUR
Su: Philosophy, Religion
The Reading List
This list starts Summer 2006
A Crocodile on the Sandbank
Looking Backwards
Wild Swans
Exodus
1984
Tales of the Alhambra (in progress)
Dark Lord of Derkholm
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Lost Years of Merlin
Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers (in progress)
Atlas Shrugged (in progress)
Uglies
Pretties
Specials
A Long Way Gone (story of a boy soldier in Sierra Leone- met the author! w00t!)
The Eye of the World: Book One of the Wheel of Time
From Magma to Tephra (in progress)
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Harry Potter 7
The No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency
Introduction to Planetary Volcanism
A Child Called "It"
Pompeii
Is Multi-Culturalism Bad for Women?
Americans in Southeast Asia: Roots of Commitment (in progress)
What's So Great About Christianity?
Aeolian Geomorphology
Aeolian Dust and Dust Deposits
The City of Ember
The People of Sparks
Cube Route
When I was in Cuba, I was a German Shepard
Bound
The Golden Compass
Clan of the Cave Bear
The 9/11 Commission Report (2nd time through, graphic novel format this time, ip)
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Twilight
Eclipse
New Moon
Breaking Dawn
Armageddon's Children
The Elves of Cintra
The Gypsy Morph
Animorphs #23: The Pretender
Animorphs #25: The Extreme
Animorphs #26: The Attack
Crucial Conversations
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
A Great and Terrible Beauty
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Dandelion Wine
To Sir, With Love
London Calling
Watership Down
The Invisible
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Host
The Hunger Games
Catching Fire
Shadows and Strongholds
The Jungle Book
Beatrice and Virgil
Infidel
Neuromancer
The Help
Flip
Zion Andrews
The Unit
Princess
Quantum Brain
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
No One Ever Told Us We Were Defeated
Delirium
Memento Nora
Robopocalypse
The Name of the Wind
The Terror
Sister
Tao Te Ching
What Paul Meant
Lao Tzu and Taoism
Libyan Sands
Sand and Sandstones
Lost Christianites: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
The Science of God
Calculating God
Great Contemporaries, by Winston Churchill
City of Bones
Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
Divergent
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Old Man and the Sea
Flowers for Algernon
Au Bonheur des Ogres
The Martian
The Road to Serfdom
De La Terre � la Lune (ip)
In the Light of What We Know
Devil in the White City
2312
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Red Mars
How to Be a Good Wife
A Mote in God's Eye
A Gentleman in Russia
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
Seneca: Letters from a Stoic
The Juanes Module


Juanes just needed his own mod. Who can disagree.
Killing Time
Thursday. 7.26.07 11:27 pm
As he sat, he absent-mindedly crushed the wasps as they emerged from the gap in the boards. Their nest lay within, who knows how many there were. At first he had left their bodies at the entrance, intent more on exterminating then eliminating. Their bodies would be swarmed with other wasps for a time and if left the spot would eventually clear with no trace of the deceased save a pale stain upon the wood. Now he planned a little better. He scraped the dead off the ledge into a rough pile. This way they would not know their fate.

He wondered, suddenly, about this catastrophe visited upon the wasps' nest. He imagined killing every wasp in the colony like this, one by one, sitting here for hours until none were left. How long would that take? He felt up to the challenge. And what then? When would the Queen, sitting pampered in her inner sanctum, come out to see where her generals had gone? Would she notice as fewer and fewer wasps crawled in her corridors? Would she hear and feel the death in the new silence? Would she wait until all the food was gone and her belly ached before venturing out into the empty corridors, shouting "Where is everyone?" Asking herself, "Where have they all gone?" Searching with increasing terror....

Would she stay within her dark and silent stucco'd catacombs, like a captain with his sinking ship, until starvation and desperation had its way at last? Or would she finally come out, squinting into the sunlight, her royal stature reduced to tentative creeping, alone to meet the reckoning that his boot would deliver?

Mwahaha. Crush, crush. As long as they came out one by one he could get them all without fear of being stung. Crunch, crunch, now he would be able to enjoy his porch in peace. The wasps should have stayed in the fields and meadows, if they valued their lives. Obviously they didn't. So he didn't, either.

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

Dilated and the Eleven Sequential Comments
Wednesday. 7.25.07 11:05 pm
I thought I would give a statement to be read to my spokesperson about the "situation" between Dilated and me. But I don't have a spokesperson. Then I thought that I'd just post a little press release on my MySpace page like all the other celebrities without spokespersons do. But I don't have a MySpace page because MySpace is so crappy (or so it seems nutang is always insinuating). So I guess here is as good as anywhere.

Dilated has recently said that our relationship is "over". This is because he is not supportive of my crazy schedule of clubbing, partying, and reading the final Harry Potter book [which was *~FANTASTICO~*].

In addition, I am sure that he doesn't approve of my brash and open discussions about s-x and 20th century British literature, both of which, as he well knows, I know pretty much absolutely nothing about.

But in answer to that I say this: If I stayed away from subjects about which I know nothing, I dare say I wouldn't have a journal at all. I dare say, that I wouldn't speak another word, excepting of course concerning the lives and careers of certain members of boybands of the late 1990s and from time to time the names of various features of the moon.

Also I deny any wrongdoing in the matter of Dilated's heart, most of the damage found done to said heart having been done by other parties at a previous time. May I make further clear my non-intention to move to Spain, Puerto Rico, or anywhere else that could not be reached by a car driving overland.

However, I shall make it equally clear that, having named a pokemon in my honor, should Dilated remove said mantle of honor from said Pokemon, our engagement will be thereby terminated without notice. I shall also make every effort to understand his Texaninity, which shall mostly include not "messing with" said state of domicile.


In the name of the United States of America, Law and Order, and the Geological Record, with the honorable Justice Helena Kristination and Sir Elessar the Tiger-Hearted bearing witness.

Comment! (105) | Recommend! (1)

Holy Mackerel!
Friday. 7.20.07 1:28 am
"There's lots of good fish in the sea... maybe.. but the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you're not mackerel or herring yourself, you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea."

--Lady Chatterlet's Lover

So my friend lent me the book that was the inspiration for that movie I saw (from the last entry). The book, so far, is MUCH better than the movie. British writing>french film. Usually I would have to say resoundingly yes. But we'll see.

"Both Hilda and Constance had had their tentative love-affairs by the time they were eighteen. The young men with whom they talked so passionately and sang so lustily and camped under the trees in such freedom wanted, of course, the love connexion. The girls were doubtful, but then the thing was so much talked about, it was supposed to be so important. And the men were so humble and craving. Why couldn't a girl be queenly, and give the gift of herself?
So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the discussions were the great thing: the love-making a bit of an anti-climax. One was less in love with the boy afterwards, and a little inclined to hate him, as if he had trespassed on one's privacy and inner freedom. "

And with that I'll be going to the beach. I may or may not be around until August 4th. And you also know that on Saturday I shall not be disturbed because I will definitely be with Harry.

ciao bellos.

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French movies: Like porn, only boring.
Tuesday. 7.17.07 10:57 pm
Ok, that's not fair. I've never actually watched any porn. But I did see Lady Chatterley's Lover tonight (the new, french adaptation), and that was probably close enough.

Is it the French? Is that it--- that's just the way they make movies? I remember watching (being subjected to?) this french movie one time- "Hiroshima, mon amour" it was called, perhaps you have heard of it. The frame story was just that this married French woman (why do they always have to be married?) is having sex with this Japanese guy.
Yeah, they spend a large part of the movie on that.

It's just after the war and she's come to Hiroshima to make a film about peace.
While this is taking place, she starts remembering her first love, a German soldier she fell in the sack love with during the occupation. Needless to say, this wasn't really good for her "La Resistance" street cred. There are a lot of wheat fields and some snow and quite a lot of bad editing. Yet another thing that that film had in common with this one, as it happens.

But the whole time we're looking at snow on poor quality film and wondering why we should sympathize with some woman sleeping with The Enemy (I bet she can't even speak German!), these two are having teh sex, very SLOOOOWLY, and man is it BORING. For the life of me I have no memory of how it ends. The movie, I mean.


During the fine film I just finished watching, they don't even have an intervening German. It's just "look at all the plants" and then SEX! and then "regard, the leaves on the trees" and then SEX!!! and then "behold, she walks through a field of flowers", etc, etc. If the plants were supposed to be some sort of innuendo or euphemism, I think they forgot they were supposed to *substitute* them rather than juxtapose them. Ok, so it got a little more interesting around the end when they finally fell in love. (Isn't that supposed to go the other way around?)

Anyway, my two friends and I spent the whole movie snickering.

Mostly because of the extremely awkward editing. I swear.

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Focused on Science
Monday. 7.16.07 8:37 pm
Today I am only thinking about science. All day long. Like right now, I'm reading a book about Aeolian processes. It's talking about saltation. Saltation is when particles are only somewhat picked up by the fluid medium (usually air or water), so they tend to bounce along the ground as they go.

Saltation.

There used to be these little nuts that would fall on the roof of our dorm from the nearby trees. They would always fall all over the place in one of the little random vestibules between the higher roofs. We always talked about having a rooftop salsa party in one of those vestibules. There were even speakers in the walls, as if this place was made for that purpose. Wasps lived in the speakers now, we had discovered. Auggie and other members of zeta chi sigma used to go up there now and then and throw the nuts at the walls of the room. Their strange, knobby, hollow, wooden sound would echo off the walls as they saltated briefly --cloc-cloc-cloc-- before falling silent again. Or was it more of a cascading "pong-pong-pong"? Anyway, that is the sound I always think of when I think of the word "saltated".

This time it was night. I don't remember much about what kind of night it was. It was a little chilly, perhaps- but in Southern California in early May the weather can never be a cause for concern.
I think talk of these nuts had been a part of the conversation that had gotten us up there that night. I know for sure that my insistence that a nearby tree provided as good a route to the roof as any staircase had something to do with it. Some measure of sparkling mischief in his eyes played an important part, perhaps.

We had been wandering around for some time up there and now we were both still- looking out over the campus, which was glowing with festivities in the darkness.

He came up from behind and wrapped his arms around me. His arms... around me!

Me!

I slowly turned around to look up at him then.

Whenever I remember this part of the story, I feel an odd vibrato that speeds through my heart in trembling crescendo. Strange, I think, that something intangible like a memory could provoke such a strong physical reaction years later. I wonder if they hooked up a bunch of sensors to my body and brain... perhaps inserted electrodes, put me in an MRI, placed chemical tracers in my blood... if they could tell me exactly what pathway that memory takes from my mind to my heart. Why not my stomach, like the feeling I get falling from the Tower of Doom? Why my heart?

"How is that an evolutionary advantage?" I wonder.

After all, I'm thinking about science today. Only science, all day today.

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When did I start wearing a watch?
Monday. 7.16.07 6:56 pm
Yeah so... I used to do this ALL the time. I just never thought that anyone else did!

looks like my monday night dance card just got filled up!

Comment! (1) | Recommend! (1)

An Interesting Comparison
Sunday. 7.15.07 8:29 pm
This is a map of the United States where each state is renamed as the country in the world which has a comparable GDP to that state. Keep in mind that this doesn't take population into account, so while the GDPs of Iowa and Pakistan are comparable, Iowa has about 2.7 million people while Pakistan has about 170 million.



This map is from here.

Some countries aren't on here, like Germany, China, Japan and the UK. They are the next four richest countries behind the US. If you add their GDPs together, you get around what the US's is. Here's someone who took the map and did more comparing.

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Block Island and PB&J
Saturday. 7.14.07 9:08 pm


Today Toku and I went to Block Island, which is a little island shaped like a porkchop off the southern coast of Rhode Island. I heard this guy on the phone being like, "I can't get straight from Block Island to Long Island. I have to go from Block Island to mainland Rhode Island and then drive to Long Island. Does that make sense to you?"

Too many islands.

I brought lunch:


MMmmmmmMMmm!

Let's have another look:


You'd think that by now I would have learned my lesson about packing peanut butter and jelly. I didn't.

But actually it didn't taste too bad. Though I didn't end up eating this part:

I don't know (anatomically speaking) which part of the sandwich that was.

We had a lovely time. We rented bicycles and rode all over the island, taking pictures, taking walking sidetrips to lighthouses, going body-surfing in the ocean, etc. I bought this frozen lemonade, (which wasn't cheap!) but it had all these freaking pieces of lemon peel in it, which seems like a good idea, but ISN'T. I finally ingeniously bit the end of my straw until the opening was such an irregular oval that the peel-pieces didn't fit. Still tasted weird and gave me a toothache.

After we got home he wanted to take me out for Japanese food, because I hadn't allowed him to buy me anything all day, and he "never got me a birthday present", so we went. He also always walks on road-side of me when we're walking on the sidewalk. I'm not used to that, so I tend to make it extremely difficult for him because I don't pay attention to where I walk and he has to madly dash to the other side of me to... do whatever it is that men do when they stand on the road-side of women on the sidewalk. Usually this consists of putting his arm out authoritatively to stop me from jaywalking in front of oncoming traffic. Then I walk right through it, because hello, I'm sure they'll totally stop. They do in Cali, lah. [omg, btw, my friend had this album and she called it "Road-trip to So-Cali" There is no such thing as "So-Cali" There is a Cali, and there is a "So-Cal" There is no So-Cali. Get hip to it. jki<3ubff!]

I don't actually like Japanese food- namely... sushi, or most kinds of fish, but I ate a very good noodle dish with beef. He says they don't really eat sushi that much in Japan, only at parties and things because it gets rather expensive. Perhaps he would have liked the all-you-can-eat sushi at the Sushi Boat. I think he wanted to play the "I'll show you something new and gross and you can react in a squeamish girly fashion" game. But I've already had raw eel, thank you very much, and I don't react to anything in a squeamish girly fashion. Except... no, I can't think of anything right now. Squeamish-girliness is an unnecessary and sometimes extremely annoying affectation. Girls only really do it so that boys will pay attention to them longer, because boys love imagining that they're grosser than girls are. Observe this sometime: "Omg, there is a bug in my kitchen, ew! Ahhh! I'm so helpless and squeamish that I have to go hide in my room while my big strong boyfriend takes care of it for me! Don't kill it! You can't KILL a living creature! I can't stand either the bug or the idea that you'll squish it!"
Whereas, if she didn't have a big strong boyfriend, the conversation would go like this: "Give me that shoe." I remember one time this girl was whining about how her car's battery was dead and she needed someone to jump it. She was whining to this guy, of course, that she didn't know how to do it and that it was so confusing etc. etc. Not even thinking, I broke in and explained that I overhead their conversation and that I had jumper cables in my car which was right outside and I could easily jump her car for her. The guy looked a little relieved because he was obviously busy, and she looked like a huge raincloud had just settled over her face and she followed me out there with every bit of rage and no gratitude because I was not jumping her car, I was cheating her out of her golden opportunity to hang out with whoever that guy was. She wasn't that clueless about jumping cars, by the way.

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with my day, or with Toku, because he comes from a culture that in chivalry-level resembles what ours used to be like not so very long ago and you can't blame someone for that.

Anyway, after buying me dinner he said that he'd like to buy me something else before he leaves... a dress. What kind of dress? One of my choosing, he says. I don't think he's ever seen me wear a dress. Not very many people here in Providence have seen such a shocking and totally unnecessarily frightful sight. Maybe that's why he thinks I need one. I don't know about you guys, but most of the time men buy women dresses in the movies it seems like they have the design that they might see the girl actually wear this dress. Oh, and in the movies the guy is usually the bad guy and she is his captive for the time being while her knight in shining armor/Indiana Jones/Luke Skywalker/Gaston is on his way to save her. Well, it's probably not like that since he would be willing to let me choose it, but still.

Well anyway, for now I'll go ahead and continue buying my own clothing. And you can bet it will be unflattering. And have some kind of geology joke on it. And there isn't a damn thing anyone can do to stop me!

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