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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. 40
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.
Hong Kong Memories
Tuesday. 11.8.05 11:37 am
As we walked through the little park, the city outside was in the process of waking. The people in the park were preforming tai chi. It seemed like it was their strange, fluid and mystical movements that were calling the city into life.

Had we been in America, we might have laughed at someone moving in such a way inside a public park. Here, the exercises were preformed by every age and rank in utmost seriousness, such that we, the walking tourist, without the skills to participate in this city-wide dance, might be the only cause for laughter.



Hong Kong was confusing. It wasn't a progression of events, nor was it a feeling that prevaded everything. It was not a state of constant stimulation. It was not India. Hong Kong was way-station, it was a city of complexity and at the same time impeccable order. Hong Kong returns to me as a series of moments. There is a vignette of feeling, which lingers before my eyes for as long as I want to keep it there before whirling away into a tornado of tail lights, neon signs and dirty window shades. Phil said that he never really "got" Hong Kong. But I think that's the point.

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writing letters to my garbage can
Tuesday. 11.8.05 11:31 am
And heavens the swirled above us
and the earth breathed beneath us
and there was no one on this planet
'sides you and me

it's times like that make you want to believe...



but don't. fer serious. It's a bad idea.

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Monday. 10.31.05 9:55 pm
The night was getting late, but we had finished dinner and we were still hungry. Oddly enough, next to that dingy little restaurant with the unidentifiable peices of bleeding meat in the window, the man under the orange light hacking pieces off for customers, there was a 7-Eleven. It was even rumored that if one sat on the curb in front of this 7-Eleven with one's laptop, one could get free wireless internet. Who would bring their laptop to this part of town, and who would dare put their feet out into that street even as far as that gutter, I did not know.

We looked around the store; there were Mars bars and Nestle bars and Sprite Ice, a kind of Sprite that made your mouth abnormally cold and refreshed. We usually passed one around like we were taking drugs, because that's what it felt like. We knew there must be something in there that wasn't FDA approved, or everyone in America would have one. And another one. and another one, please? Everything there was so familiar and yet slightly different, as in a dream when you find yourself in your house but when you look back on it nothing inside was quite like your house at all.

Maggie and I bought a Vienetta. How long had it been since we had had a Vienetta? It was 6 Hong Kong dollars, we had to buy it. It was mint.

When we got back to our room on the 15th floor of the Panda Hotel in Kowloon, we discovered that we had no spoons, so we each tore a bit of cardboard off the box and we ate that Vienetta, the whole thing, just between the two of us. We said it was for all those times that we had to share it with the whole family and no one ever felt like they got enough. It was hard to eat it with the flimsy cardboard and we spent the whole night laughing and licking the melting ice cream out of the box and feeling by the end that incredibly, there was such a thing as too much Vienetta.
As we fell asleep we could hear the strange opera music coming from behind our headboards that we weren't quite sure how to turn off.

I'm sure there was a knob, somewhere.

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Halloween!
Sunday. 10.30.05 11:36 am
So today there was daylight savings time, which is confusing because I believe they passed a law to extend daylight savings time for a couple of weeks, but I guess it doesn't actually take effect until next year, when they have a chance to change all the calendars. Thus I was an hour early for my hair appointment. I guess I'll have to start walking back there soon; I came to Oldenborg because it was the closest place I could kill time online. ha. I miss killing time online. I'm such a killer. Last night was Harwood Halloween. Last year my sister Katherine was there, which was pretty sweet because we went to the party which was lame like always, and then we went to the subfree party which was pretty fun but Katherine cut herself up on the bouncy thing we were playing on when she got whipped back by the bungee cord. This year the party had the potential to not be lame, as it was held in the new parking garage. This is excellent because they kept the location a secret until the very last minute, and also because it muffles the noise so the residents of Claremont can't make noise complaints. The problem with it turned out to be that the whole line to get in the party ended up being on an incline, which caused everyone to bunch at the front, start pushing each other, things got a little out of control, the bouncers were panicking, some people got thrown to the ground and cuffed, they threatened to shut down the party... etc. I ended up being a gypsy instead of a ghost, and that was fun. It was pretty great because all of the senior girls I saw (with very few exceptions) had hilarious random costumes that were really modest; whereas all the freshman were dressed as playboy bunnies and whores and prostitutes and anything else that meant they could wear clothes that were never meant to see the light of day. It got the attention of the senior guys, yes it did, but not exactly in the way I think they hoped. The best costumes, in my opinion were these: Cyrus, Caroline, Alex, Annie, Chris and Rory were the Planeteers, with Cyrus as Captain Planet. It was great, they all learned the Captain Planet song and they sang it for us at the party we had. This also led to one of the best single moments in the evening, when the song "Toxic" came on and Cyrus yelled, "WHAT! Something is TOXIC? OH NO!" He also reminded us throughout the night that we shouldn't pollute, and that saving our planet was the thing to do. Dan was a magic 8-ball. He wore all black and pinned a big black 8 in a circle to the front, behind which he had stuck a whole bunch of tiny slips of paper that all had fortunes on them. Fritz asked the 8-ball, "I am I going to get laid tonight?" and the 8-ball said, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA No." Ok, time to get my hair cut!

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It's time for Halloween!
Saturday. 10.29.05 2:37 pm
woo.... what a week. There was that one all-nighter, followed but a full day of class and rushing to get things in (no lunch)... followed by a nighttime visit to seaver south to finish my geology lab which was due Saturday morning. Due to the all nighter, I fell asleep on my lab, and then woke up enough to slip onto a couch. It was really cold, so I had fitful dreams until I woke up at 4 with my feet under me... and completely asleep. I tried to get them to wake up--- oh the pain! I experienced how hard it would be to walk on your feet if you couldn't feel them... you take some things for granted, for sure. Then I worked on the lab from 4 until 9 (except for when I was writing a million IMs to Bristow, heh heh), turned it in, and went home, sleeping from 10:45 til 11:20. Now it's time for Halloween. Not too much time for Halloween, though, because we have thesis deadlines next week! dammnnn, I need a pumpkin to carve, for sure.


Being a senior sucks. Kiddies, make sure you enjoy your years in college, if you are lucky enough to get them. THEY WILL END.

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Listening to nothing
Thursday. 10.27.05 4:55 pm
I think I'll write a song

and the song will not be about love at all. Because there are so many love songs, and not nearly enough songs about getting massive amounts of homework done in limited amounts of time. A majority of the population should be, if one examines it, either too young to be looking for love or already married or too old and without a desire to start something new. However, the majority of songs are about people looking for love, which is primarily in the age range from 15-30ish.
So why is it that so many teenagers and 20-somethings are glued to their ipods and computer mp3 collections? Because all of the songs are about their own lives, and they can relate.
If you are already married, you can look back upon your time dating and think about the heart break and the "I like you but do you like me too?"... you may have some lingering regrets or wonderings... but for the most part, all of those questions have already been answered. You can listen to country music, as quite a bit of it deals with the struggles of married life (perhaps one of the reasons that country draws an older audience as well as the typical audience of youth), or you can just listen to the old songs that you used to listen to which used to remind you of your life.
So let's make more songs! I never listened to music from age 7-13. When I finally did start listening, it was because I had a) a lot of homework to do and b) because the songs started meaning something to me. Nobody writes songs about 7-13 year olds. Nobody ever writes songs about the things that are important to them- their friends, playing outside, inventing games, etc. One of the first cds I bought was Pure Moods, because that's just the kind of cd that would appeal to the kind of preteen I was, lost in a fantasy world in my imagination, dreaming of the adventures I would have when I was as old as Young Indiana Jones and could therefore do anything (age 14).
And let's make some songs for people 30 Maybe different ages groups should produce rock stars, but since they're older they'll keep more reasonable hours and not take drugs and make their tour schedules more managable. And then maybe everyone will listen to music, and when I need a song about getting an astronomy lab done in the next 19 hours, when I need a song about getting into grad school, when I need a song that has absolutely nothing to do with love... well, there it will be.

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It's getting late and I'm in Seaver South again
Sunday. 10.23.05 10:16 pm


I like the way that Seaver South smells. It's a little musty: it smells a little like rocks, a little like the huge collection of stuffed dead animals that professor Wirtz had in his back room and all around his ecology classroom. I like the way that it's locked and most of the time I'm the only one here. I remember first semester my freshman year when I wrote my first paper and I wrote "Prof. Wirke" instead of Prof. Wirtz because I thought that was his name. He said he was going to take a letter grade off immediately for that, but he didn't. It smells... it smells like my academic home, and I'm glad we refused to move into the new building, and I'm glad biology left and only the rock people and the EA people remain, because as much as the EA people get on my nerves, they're sort of adorable in their own way. Just like Seaver South. My building, to which only I have the key.

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this weekend
Sunday. 10.23.05 3:23 pm
On Friday night they had a Drag Ball, and we had a fantastic time dressing Rory up like a woman in all of my clothes. (those that would fit him anyway, which was hard to do). The biggest problem is Rory's back, which is much wider than any female's back tends to be. It's a good trick, letting girls dress you up like a woman, because they get really excited about it and fawn over you for hours, helping you get in and out of your clothes, playing with your hair, etc. If you ever wanted attention, there's one way to guarantee that you'll get it. It only works once per group of girls though, it isn't as exciting the second time around.

We went to drop Rory's clothes off in his room and while we were there we decided that I should be dressed up like a man. I wore Rory's jeans and a nice button up shirt of his. I tucked in only one side of it and wore a baseball hat. He even gave me a rolled up sock thing to stuff into my pants which was constantly getting out of place, forcing me to adjust it all evening (welcome to being a guy, they said). The ball was fun and they taught me how to walk like a guy and dance awkwardly like a guy, complete with the White Man's Overbite and other important dance moves. They ended up having a contest for who pulled off being a drag king best, and I came in a close second.

Don't really know how I feel about that.

Dan said that people were asking who I was and saying that I was really cute (a really cute... guy). He said that unfortunately these people were both girls, one straight and one gay.
(As an aside: On Saturday night we went to a party, and RORY ended up MAKING out with the lesbian girl for an HOUR). (This is not the first time lesbians have considered becoming straight for Rory, either, what can I say, I'm in awe)

Anyway, to-day I have to study for my mathematics exam, mostly sequences, subsequences, monotonic subsequences, and other mathematical phenomena that require rigorous proofs. I'm dyin. School. is. killing. me.

And I've become a bit cynical. I see boys and girls flirting with each other and all that occurs to me is what an incredible waste of energy it seems like. All that racing each other around and playing midnight frisbee and chasing each other and grab-assing- it used to seem fun but now I get tired just thinking about it. Who has time for crap like that? Especially since it distracts you from more important things and then eventually doesn't work out and leaves you all tragically sad and distracts you even more.

Sometimes it's so exciting thinking that you have your whole life before you, and sometimes it's so tiring. My whole life left to live? Who has energy for that?

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