While doing some reading for lab I stumbled upon some humorous statements…

It is provocative that downstream from Drosophila segmentation genes, many of which encode homeobox proteins or other transcription factors, are the cell-cell signaling genes such as dpp and hegdgehog that may define segmental boundaries.

…

It is tantalizing that the vulval equivalence group, P3 to P8, is also defined by HOM-C genes and may define a similar signaling domain.

–Ruvkin 1997

I just really don’t find either statement provocative or tantalizing; but then again, maybe I just lack the passion that Gary Ruvkin has for the spatial patterning of the C. elegans nervous system.

Since this is the first time a project like this has been done, 16 person group as opposed to a usual maximum of 4, and since our sponsor was so “impressed,” we’ll be presenting for all of UT today. Sorry for the late notice, but I doubt anyone would want to come anyway. If you do come, be prepared, it’s going to be pretty lengthy.

Click here for flyer and info or here to view our presentation.

Brief demonstration video of our project:

Avien – Slow Moon Groove
Download audio file (Avien_-_Streets_of_Rage_2_-_Slow_Moon_Groove_(OC_Remix).mp3)

It has been quite some time now since my last update. The past month of school was an absolute nightmare filled with many sleepless nights and non-stop studying.

Finals were a huge bitch. I had three finals to take scheduled one right after another: Wed (12/15), Thu (12/16), and Fri (12/17) for U.S. Government, Analog Integrated Circuit Design, and Ciruits II respectively. Although the schedule wasn’t that bad, it was the fact that I had two grad school applications for UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley and UT due on Wed (12/15) that fucked me over. The whole period before finals I basically spent working on grad school applications leaving me no time to study. *sigh* As a result, I ended up bombing all of my finals. Two out of my three finals I didn’t get to start studying for until ten o’clock the night before. It was awful. I had worked so damn hard the whole semester and then I was fucking it up. *sigh* Oh well…no big deal…SINCE I FUCKING GOT A 4.0 THIS SEMESTER!! HAHA! Couldn’t fucking believe it when I checked my grades. I know for a fact that I bombed all my finals, but I guess my grades were high enough to still keep my A’s!

So the day after finishing finals I took off to San Antonio with Derick, Joe, and Will to go live it up. Congrats to Luke for graduating and happy belated to Mr. Jason Fields who turned super old while I was taking finals. Got to meet up with Johnson while in SA too which was great.

We did the usual pre-drink at Ben’s before hitting up downtown. It’s funny, seems like I’ve been partying in SA more than Austin lately. I took my camera with me but the bitch was out of batteries so I won’t be able to do my usual mural of images. Oh well, pretty much the same old same old. Drunking at Medusa’s and Pat O’Brians again. Haha, this time it was Derick who got all fucked up on hurricanes. Thanks to Paul for buying five pizzas after we got out of the club. Damn, those were good. (For more pictures click here or the picture above)

So what else has been going on….hmmm…. Well before finals I got to do some nerdy stuff here and there. I finally beat the worst RPG I’ve ever played in my life, Final Fantasy II for Nintendo. Hadn’t touched that game in several months since it was so awful. If you want to beat all the Final Fantasy games, skip this one unless you’re truly hardcore. Its that bad.

Also got to finish seeing Samurai Champloo finally. I thought it was pretty good. Unique way of presenting the story. It kinda reminded me a little bit of Cowboy Bebop the way some scenes were done. It was directed by the same guy after all, Shinchiro Watanabe. Oh yeah, and since everyone asks who has seen it, I’m more of a Jin fan than Mugen. I need to set up a poll to see who’s the more popular of the two. Haha, Ivan = huge n3rd. I also watched an anime called Fruits Basket which was pretty good, if you have a huge vagina like me, haha. Um, what can I say, it was nice seeing something different for a change. No fighting, no mechs, just talking…about your emotions…and relationships, lol. Umm so yeah, if you’re a girl, I’m sure you’ll like it.

So thats pretty much what has been going on with me. During the break I get to work full time, do three more grad school apps, and take GRE’s again. Was supposed to take them today but wasn’t ready…*sigh*. Going to just have to reschedule and take them early Januray now. Lets see…I’ve also been updating the site a little bit. Still haven’t gotten the sidebar to stay when you read an individual post but hopefully will have that done sometime soon. Have more pictures up in the photo album so feel free to check those out. Also, going to try out a new song system since some people don’t like music automatically playing when you check the site out. From now on I think I’m going to keep the player at the top of my post and you can click play from there if you want to listen. Hopefully that should make everyone happy.

Gonna close this entry with a shout out to “Long Dong Ong” a.k.a “Maverick” a.k.a my boy Derick. Welcome to manhood friend. Everybody is growing up so fast. Seems like only yesterday we were lapping up those horribly unsanitary ice shots from the Omega house at “Pimps and Hoes” parties. Haha, cheers to ma boys.

Oh, and can’t forget to mention that Celeste is in town too, wohoo! Picked her up from airport shortly before finals. She’ll be visiting up until early January so yeah, it’s good to have her home. Alright, time to study…*sigh*

Denizen Kane – Only Sleeping
Download audio file (Denizen_Kane_-_Only_Sleeping.mp3)

SO yeah was talking to Johnny and we both agreed that my XangA posts are always “I’m too busy to do ANYTHING! School and work SUCK! AHHH!” So yeah….gonna try and avoid that this time, hehe.

So first we’ll start off with the bad. Found out tonight at the boxing gym (which was fucking 96 degrees from 6:45-8:30 because they have no AC) that Jesus Chavez’s last opponent, Levander Johnson, ended up dying from the injuries he sustained during the world lightweight boxing championship match on the 17th. Couldn’t help but feel extremely bad about this for some reason, just kinda was a big shock. Johnson left behind 4 kids supposedly…For those that don’t know, Jesus trains at the same gym that I work out at, R. Lord’s Boxing Gym.

Moving on…well, umm…I beat Mega Man for Nintendo, hahah. YES! I know, I’m sooooo kool, you don’t have to tell me. Still need to finish beating Final Fantasy II…I also got one of the most beautiful toys in the world this past week. My Binal Tech Wheeljack came in. Look at all his majesty.

The next Transformer that I was gonna buy was gonna be a G1 Soundwave made in 1984 and I found one on ebay for $30 (usually sells for $100+)! I bid on it with 1 minute remaining and was the highest bidder at $31 until I got outbid within the last 20 seconds of the auction. ARG! What a bitch!

Hah! I was cleaning in my room a bit and found this picture of Joe:

Hahaha, this was taken freshman year at like 5AM outside of the H.E.B on Red River at Hancock Center. LOl, I was basically living with Joe and Brian during this time and had told Joe about these people at H.E.B (cause I used to work there) that would run through the whole store looking for expired shit cause they could exchange an expired item for one that was in date for free. AFter hearing this Joe’s face lit up and the next thing I knew we were on a glorious excursion through the aisles at H.E.B. Of course the easiest department to hit up is the dairy and boy did we rape it. We were walking through HEB with literally a cart FULL of yogurt and decided to display our slaughters from the hunt. Brian, Joe, and I ate yogurt for like 3 weeks! Oh good times… H.E.B put a quick stop to that policy, hahaha!

Ooooh…got this in my email today too:

According to the email I got from UT about 2 weeks ago, UCSF has one of the nation’s best bioengineering programs. I applied to this convention thing to kinda get some contacts and help pave my way into grad school there and to my surprise got accepted! Woohoo, got mself an all expenses paid trip to SF on Oct. 27-28th. So I’ll get to hopefully set myself up for grad school AND get to see Celeste, badass! Now my only problem is that I have to make a presentation….boo….

Theme from X-Men the Animated Series
Download audio file (xmen.mid)

So yeah…my intro to Psy class decided they’ll drop lowest test grade so I don’t have to take that next week, already got an A. I also got one of my papers postponed until the week of finals which should make things more manageable now.

Due next week: 4 papers (20 pg group project paper included), group presentation….ASS!

So yeah, I also ate with Hanh today. I was telling her how I needed to get a hair cut and she told me I looked like Wolverine, HAHA. I guess thats when you know its time. I think its been close to 2 months now…but yeah…great seeing you again Hanh, and we need to hang out more often (or more like I need to hang out w/ my friends more often…)

But yeah…Here you go Hanh, something just for you:

If I would have had more time I would have grown the beard for the full dramatic effect and yes, those are butter knives… =(

Alright, back to work, which is what I should have been doing the whole time instead of fucking around so much… :sigh: