Well, I thought I'd try to update once before the month is over. Though I should say in advance that I'm very fond of October. I've been wishing it was October for weeks. I think August, October, December, and possibly January are my favorite months. February and March are my least favorite.

So yes, I've been extremely busy. Taking 3 graduate level chemistry courses plus physical chemistry will do that. And yet, all things considered, I think I'm happier right now than I've been in a long time. Though sometimes quite frustrating, I like my classes. It feels like I'm really starting to get seriously interested in my major for the first time. I've got a good girlfriend, and good friends, and a good family... I don't really have much to complain about. My health is a little on edge right now, but when is it not?

I'm going to apply to do a six month internship in Tokyo with a major Japanese pharmaceutical corporation, Taisho Seiyaku. It would start June of next year. This is exactly what I need. It would give me awesome experience with biochemical research, and the culture and language of Japan in general and Tokyo in particular. And it would get me the hell out of here. If I got it, it would give me a great impetus to put a lot of effort into my study of both Japanese and biochemistry...

Junko. I'm doing my best to not think about where this relationship is going. Come summer of next year, it will be time to make some decisions, which basically simplify to "get married or break up." I find both choices extremely distasteful at the moment.

The Weezer concert. It was fun, I guess. The only song they played from Pinkerton was Tired of Sex, which was a little disappointing. If they had only played El Scorcho, I would have been satisfied...

Me and Kelly and David and Dave's girlfriend and Oliver (Kelly and Dave's brother) spent our time before the show in a state of self-aware elitist detachment. It was fun.

"At any concert you go to, there will be a guy wearing the shirt of the band he's going to see. Don't be that guy."

"I know a fun game we could play- let's try to guess what percent of the people here aren't as cool as we are!"

We felt more than a bit hypocritical making fun of other concert goers, but it was kind of hard when there were people running around wearing Rivers-style glasses with no lenses. ugh.

The crowd was relatively nice, I guess. They were pretty good about helping people out who wanted out. I managed to be pretty much right up at the front the whole show. I'm almost in one of the pictures on their website. ; >

You want some quick album and film reviews?

The Musketeer. The fight scenes were kind of cool, but you'd be hard pressed to write a more clich� screenplay. The story and dialogue were just oppressively unoriginal. 2 stars.

Zoolander. Saw this last night. I liked it. It was really funny. I'm considering giving it 4 stars, but we'll have to let it age a bit first.

Bj�rk- Vespertine. This is a great album. It sounds different from anything she's done before- it's softer, quieter, and somehow more subtle. Kelly and Dave think it sounds like Selmasongs, but I disagree. The song on Selmasongs that is most Vespertinish is probably Scatterheart. A lot of the songs on the album remind me of Debussy, actually. The whole thing has a feel like when you're lying in bed half awake and half asleep, one half aware of your surroundings and the other half only aware of the wanderings of your unshackled brain- half in reality and half somewhere else... The lyrics on this album are also different from what has come before, I think. They're a lot more... accessible, without being too specific. There are some fairly blatant sexual references in there as well, which is kind of new. Anyway- I think this is a great record, and it may end up being my favorite Bj�rk album.

Oh, by the way. You're now reading the diary of someone who has cloned DNA (or at least, someone who has tricked bacteria into doing it for him). yippee!

with a beard and a pipe and a parrot on each side,

greyarea, chromosome cowboy

P.S. You know who'd make a good pagan deity? Bj�rk.

Diaryland