First the sting rays turn against our most beloved Australian! Now, Australian sea life is back for more with their Killer Jellyfish, threatening to take the lives of our most beloved romantic comedy duo!


Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the menacing Irukandji jellyfish:

The Irukandji jellyfish (Carukua barnesi) is a small, extremely venomous box jellyfish of the class Cubozoa that occurs in the northern waters of Australia. A mature Irukandji jellyfish's bell is only 12mm by 25mm in height (roughly the size of an adult thumbnail). It has four contractible tentacles ranging in length from 5 cm to 1 m....

Unlike other jellyfish, the Irukandji jellyfish has stingers (nematocysts) not only on its tentacles (which are arranged in clusters that look similar to drops of water), but also on its bell. Also unique to this jellyfish is that the venom is injected only from the tip of the stinger (cnidocyst) rather than the entire length. This explains why the initial sting is mild and there is a delayed reaction as the venom exerts its effects systemically.

So far, very little is known about the life-cycle and toxin of the Irukandji jellyfish. This is partly because it is very small and fragile. The researchers above have conjectured that the venom must be so potent in order to quickly stun its prey consisting of small and fast fish. Judging from statistics, it is believed that the Irukandji syndrome may be produced by several species of jellyfish, however currently only Carukia barnesi has been proven to cause the Irukandji syndrome.

I am not one of those people who tends to freak out when it comes to "possible sources of my demise", but Australia's ocean is doing a pretty good job in making me want to avoid its salty embrace

The Lexis database for the mag returns 115 results for my name. That's 115 bylines stretching from Mar. 2003 to Mar. 2007. Not that I'm checking or anything.

It isn't the flu, it's acute bronchitis. *fuck* I feel terrible and I need to sleep. But I can't, because I have to spend the next 48 hours awake, either revising like I've never revised before, or sitting the remaining two exams.

Something always goes wrong between me and exams. Always! I'm particularly sad about it this time, as well, because if I'd not been ill, I could easily have passed these and only had one resit in June. Now my entire spring is going to be consumed with revision, because I reckon me passing either of the remaining two exams in my present infected, feverish state is pretty slim. How can I possibly sit here for another 12 hours staring at a binder full of finance notes and actually take enough in and retain enough of what I manage to take in to excel tomorrow?!? I feel like death! Even Pepsi MAX and reduced-fat, garlic-buttered baguettes couldn't make me feel better right now.

Also, this completely ruins the rest of my week, which after the completion of the exams, was going to be spectacular. Spectacular!! But now I'm corporeally prohibited from doing anything fun until I'm better. Which won't be in time for an epic Wednesday and Thursday. All I'm allowed to do is "rest" and feel like shite until I start normal work (and loads of extra-curricular revision) on Monday. I am going to miss two of the year's biggest piss-ups (and potentially a boy that I like) because of this viral nastiness.

And what compensation will I receive in return?

The opportunity to sit the exams AGAIN in June. Fucking awesome. :-/

Also, you might all enjoy this information about upstate New York outlaw hero Ralph "Bucky" Phillips.

He's on the run.
He's afraid of the sun.
Now he shot someone.
Bucky's on the run!

A few things that you may or may not believe:

1. My NCAA basketball bracket is amazing. I picked seven out of the elite eight, and I picked the final four. What makes this all the more hilarious are the circumstances surrounding my bracket. When Mark did his bracket, I decided to fill one out too, basing my picks on team colors, the little bit of information I picked up from half listening to the radio and random guesses. I then decorated my bracket with hearts, stars and smiley faces, dubbing it "Ade1e's Fancy Bracket." Mark, a Kansas alumn and avid Jayhawk rooter, did not fair as well, relying on KU and Oregon to take him to the end of the line. Alas, it was not meant to be.

2. Coach Mark decided yesterday to teach me some of the rudiments of tennis. So we hit up Humboldt Park, where the courts are made of asphalt and the nets are chain link fence. Despite my notorious lack of coordination and the fact that I haven't exercized for several years, it was fun.

(my father with a shark. No, seriously)
The good thing about posting on Spring Break travelogues is there isn't that much that was done. During, say, a Convention of Awesomeness (tm), 2 days may pack so much adventure that each half day requires its own blog entry. Family spring breaks, on the other hand, are easily condensed into one entry.

Sanibel Island, 2007: And Then There was Sleep

Sanibel Island is a small, remote area off the coast of Fort Myers, close to the Florida Keys. My parents like it for it's curmudgeonly atmosphere: populated almost entirely by retirees, and with a hefty $3 toll just to get on the island, Sanibel is "rabble-free." There are no drunken college students, no wandering Vietnam vets, no militant Cubans. There is also no fast food or chains, which is fine, as it preserves some aspect of what was once called local culture, but bad in the sense that I cannot indulge my off-the-wagon-cause-it's-vacation Egg McMuffin fix.

Most of the vacation is spent like so: Get up at 4am. Hunt for shells. Go back to bed at 7am. Sleep until 12pm. Get up and watch Walker: Texas Ranger. Go to the pool/beach at 1pm. Come back in and watch MythBusters around 5pm. Go out for dinner. Shop/Get ice cream. Come home and watch whatever's on TV/Read books. Go to sleep around 1am. Repeat.

Occasionally we'd alternate beaches. Some time we'd go to the beach outside the condo. These were particularly lazy days, and there was unfortunately a large amount of seaweed and lichen on our side of the island.

One day we went to the south side of the island near the lighthouse. This side was short on shells, but had a cleaner sand. There were several sand sculptures (turtles, mermaids, whales) lying around for no particular reason. We decided to sunbath next to a hut made of palm fronds that someone had built the day before.

If you look through my photos, you'll notice a huge amount are posed, America's Next Top Model style. This is no mistake. My sister Julia decided that she wanted to take dramatic, jet-set photographs of the whole trip. Photos where we're "having fun" and "crazy" and "loving life," etc. She took, I kid you not, over 300 photos of just "jetset" photos.

JetSet Photo Series:

Towards the end, Jordan began to buckle under the strain of artifice. Never one to enjoy looking fake or overly girly, Jordan started sabotaging every photo that was taken of her. Eventually, she stole my camera and took a series of photos of herself a la Julia, but with very different results. Julia was discouraged by the sarcasm Jordan and I injected into every photograph.

On another day, we drove down to Miami Beach to check out the University of Miami, which Julia had been accepted into. It made me super glad that I had gone to Northwestern, super glad I was out of college, and a bit nostalgic. The people were dreadful: all fulfilling every sterotype you have of students who go to the University of Miami. Lots of bikinis and PINK jogging pants, shirtless guys in oversized swimming trunks and frosted tips.

Julia and dad explored the campus and seemed to like it more than we did, though. Dad was terrified by the boys dorms though, which he thought were 'pornographic.' I saw some of Julia's photos and I have to admit, while my dad was a bit dramatic, the boys dorms at UofM are way, way worse than anything I had ever seen at NU. And it wasn't even original pin ups pasted on every wall, just airbrushed Maxim chicks.

I have more to say on the rise and fall of Maxim. I'll return to that later.

Afterwards we drove down to Miami Beach and swam a bit in the Atlantic, as opposed to Sanibel, which is on the Gulf of Mexico. Miami Beach is not me, it is not me in any respect. Yes, it has a good, laid back vibe, yes it has a prettyish art-deco feel, but there is a shocking amount of cleavage (and I mean shocking, like shield-the-children cleavage) and the shortest of skirts, and the guys looked like dumb animals staring after these chicks. So it felt very trashy, but it felt fun trashy. It's the kind of place I wouldn't mind visiting with a boyfriend or a couple of single girlfriends for a 4-day-weekend, but that's about it. I couldn't imagine living there, and I was very uncomfortable being there with small children.

We ate at Johnny Rockets, where it seems every sleazy spring breaker in the world was sitting with us. It made me happy I hadn't washed my hair in 6 days--I liked being looked at disapprovingly by these people.

What else is salient? There were signs everywhere that said "$500 Fine for Feeding Crocodiles." My father and I played some tennis. I saw little herons--8 or s0--in a stream looking for waterbugs. I biked around the island. We ate at the Lighthouse cafe (best breakfast in the island!) after shelling one morning and were underwhelmed. We did enjoy one of the old 50's-era hot dog stands, though.

The last day we went to Ft. Meyers where my parents indulged my sister's need to go outlet mall shopping (yawn!), my need to get Chicago-style pizza (Uno's is a legitimate choice when one is having a craving!), and my father's need to go to the Edison museum.

I actually enjoyed the Edison museum. The parking area was under this huge, 100-year-old banyan tree that Edison had planted over a hundred years ago. The entire estate, actually, was a sanctuary for rare and strange botanticals, and the banyan tree was the star.

The winter headquarters was really lovely. Edison and Henry Ford (who owned the house next door) built this little, Randian compound together where they worked on experiments together. I didn't realize how much of the Objectivist Hero these two men were until I saw their list of accomplishments and their list of inventions and patents. Edison's House was using the same lightbulbs that Edison himself had installed.

The trip was very resting, very quiet. And I returned to a cold and blizzardy New York (since thawed) with more papers and books to read than I ever thought possible. Wish me luck.

I've fallen into the habit of purchasing reduced fat, pre-buttered, garlic baguettes and eating an entire thing in one go...because reduced fat means that you can eat the entire thing in a sitting for the same guilt as you'd feel if you ate half of a normal fat baguette. And a whole baguette is always more satisfying than just a half.

Finished the last one about three hours ago, and am still suffering the after effects of my gross overindulgence. Belches are unpleasant enough without them being laced with reduced-fat garlic butter. Of course, I've also recently consumed a litre of Pepsi Max, which might be a contributing factor to the belching. If I wanted to be truly tedious, I'd launch into a load of chat about limiting factors right now. But I won't. That was part of yesterday's revision, and today is finance day.

Reduced fat, pre-buttered, garlic baguettes come in pairs, and the litre of Pepsi Max was the first half of a 2 litre bottle. Shall I finish them both off tonight, and concentrate all of the belching into one day, or, shall I save them as supplements for tomorrow's hardcore business law revision session, and spread the digestive discomfort over two days?

I do have bigger issues than this in my life right now. But today, I'm choosing to be most concerned about this. Because my eyes are shot (saw everything in fours last night: rode the #1,111 bus home and gazed at four lovely, sliver moons as I strolled up the road to my house) and I'm coming down with flu...four days before a gauntlet of major exams.

Bugger.

About the eyes. The flu bit is probably partially attributable to last weekend's heavy debauchery. I had decided beforehand that I was going to be on moderate behaviour Saturday night. Unfortunately, setting out on a Saturday night with the express intention of behaving in a moderate manner often proves the best way to ensure that one's behaviour will be anything but moderate.

Scissors Sisters=Awesome
Spring Break=Fantastic
Five Papers, One exam, and 3 friends visiting all at the same time=Terrifying

Time Permitting, I'll elucidate. Until then, here's today's gem from the Superfical.com:

Us Weekly reports Katie Holmes has been crying over the phone to Victoria Beckham because she says "Tom is denying her every single thing" and the two were once on the phone for over four hours. Not only that, but Tom Cruise reportedly left 18 messages in one hour on Victoria Beckham's answering machine trying to get her to join Scientology. A source says:

"Victoria is sick and tired of Tom being on her back about Scientology," says the source. "Victoria is an old-fashioned British woman who believes in God. She finds it quite rude that Tom is bugging her so much. Not too long ago, Tom left 18 messages in one hour to get them to join the church. When she says no, she means no."

Tom Cruise's rep responded, saying:

"This is completely false. Tom does not and never has encouraged anyone to adopt Scientology."

I know reps lie all the time, but at least try to keep it believable. Tom Cruise has never encouraged anyone to adopt Scientology? He might as well have told us Tom Cruise captured a triceratops in his backyard and taught it to fly into outer space.

Here are two stories from the drugstore.

one.
The two CVS stores I frequent downtown (one at Madison and Riverside Plaza, the other at Adams and Canal) have the curious practice putting customers' feminine product purchases in brown paper bags rather than the standard translucent white plastic bags. Presumably, this is meant as a courtesy to customers who may be taking the contraband purchases back to their office buildings. CVS wants to spare women the terrible embarrassment of their co-workers finding out the mortifying truth -- women menstruate. First, I'd like to know what kind of market research led CVS to the conclusion that women want to keep their tampon purchases hidden. I, for one, have not been embarrassed to buy feminine products at any time in the past decade. But are other women (and their presumably horrified colleagues) truly that prude? Second, I'd like to know what other kinds of products get this treatment at CVS -- condoms? toilet paper? pepto bismol? hemerroid treatments? Any of those products is arguably as personal and embarrassing as tampons, but does CVS care if our co-workers know about those?

two.
I've been noticing the appearance of some so-called 'fine lines' under my eyes over the past six months, so I wanted to try some anti-wrinkle cream. While I realize this is vain, stupid and against my principles, I had a $10 coupon, so I justified it to myself that way. I went to the Walgreens across the street from my house to browse the options. I found a Neutrogena product that was pretty cheap. On the back of the package, it promised to do three things:

- visibly smooth fine lines and wrinkles
- alleviate puffiness and fade dark circles
- reduce the appearance of crepiness

Crepiness? ... Creepiness? Is this a joke? Later investigation (conducted by Mark) revealed that 'crepiness' is indeed a word that has something to do with a loss of subcutaneous collagen. But seriously, where were the marketing people on this one? Did no one think, "hey, maybe crepiness looks a little too much like creepiness, and not a lot of people are going to know what crepiness is"? I am a college-educated individual who can spell and understand "subcutaneous collagen" without the help of a dictionary, and I don't know what "crepiness" is. Does that not sound anyone's alarm bells? Anyway, my eyes are now at least 10 percent less "crepi" (crepy?) so I guess we're all winners at the end of the day.

From The Onion's Tolerability Index:

Slighlty Tolerable: THE LAST UNICORN'S 25TH ANNIVERSARY DVD
"This is one of the best movies ever made, providing you saw it during your childhood. If you didn't, however, it's an okay cartoon about a unicorn."

The Scissor Sisters are tomorrow, THEN spring break for a week and a half, THEN a rush to finish papers and finals. Thus, I need to make quick work of the convention of awesomeness. I will strive for brevity. The layout is bad, but i'm in a hurry, so deal with it.

CONVENTION OF AWESOMENESS II: NEW YORK, 2007


Friday:
Though we had planned to see O’Death, Adele’s plane was delayed, so Lakshmi and I had to eat at some mediocre Italian restaurant which kept (inexplicably) giving out tambourines every half hour so we could sing along to random 70’s songs. Returned and watched a few episodes of “My Super Sweet Sixteen”, which Lakshmi had never seen.


Adele got in around midnight. We went to bed early so we could get up early for shopping.

Saturday:

Got up, got coffee, had an early brunch at John’s Pizzeria in the village. I take everyone there, because it’s one of the few restaurants I know in New York that’s good and cheapish. I don’t have enough money to eat out, so I don’t. I need to start, though, as I’m becoming a terrible hostess. And after 8 months in the city, there’s little excuse.


We walked around the village, had pastries at Bruno’s (Benjamin’s dismissal of the food has made me no less excited. After walking up and down some of the streets, we discovered it had magically become 4, and we had to meet Mike Sherman up in midtown.





Mike Sherman, fresh off his Eastern Europe extravaganza, arrived early to help us set up for the party. He and the girls went out to get drinks while I finished a lot of the cooking and the organizing. Everyone was a big help in getting everything organized. The details weren’t as perfect as they had been at my NU parties, but that was partly because I didn’t expect anyone to actually show up.


Lakshmi’s birthday theme was “Fantasy Princess”—of course, only the three of us dressed up, but that’s how it should have been.


(Though I will say, Mike put forth a valiant effort.)


We took some glamorous pre-party photos. Katie Jeffries showed up early, looking marvelous. Queens agrees with her: her new hair and sleek wardrobe make her look like a million bucks. And she was super sweet and lovely—a great asset to the party.


Mike bought a pack of Moldovan cigarettes, and made the girls smoke them while guessing how much they cost (12 cents). Apparently, they tasted like a 12 cent pack of cigarettes should taste: like communist death.


Against all of my predictions, a lot of people came. I’d say out of the 15-20 people we invited, 10-12 actually came.



The majority were from our NU days: Grant Whiting and his lovely girlfriend Kerry, Sakina, Jeff Hughes (who must wear a size 20 pants! Such enviable skinniness!), Mike Wang, and Lakshmi’s roommate Nicole. Others came, naturally I can’t remember who they are.

Castle cake!

People ate the castle cake, ate up the food, laughed and drank and smoked on the roof. We watched the Arcade Fire on SNL and commented on how awesomely rock n’ roll Will Butler looked. It’s kind of surreal to be at a party watching a guy who used to come to our Northwestern parties rocking out on Saturday Night Live. We hear he’s getting married. Congrats, Will, if that’s true.


Mike Sherman, curious about “Mormon church” and unwilling to slog back to Jersey at 1 in the morning, crashed on our roll out bed. He was a real gentleman, something I don’t think any of us expected. He got extra blankets, gave Lakshmi water and made sure he was worn, gave us privacy to change. Lovely houseguest.

Sunday:
Despite the heavy drinking, everyone woke up remarkably lucid. Adele even got up and did the dishes, an act which brought tears to my eyes, I was so grateful. Everyone got dressed in churchy clothes, and we headed over to the Union Square Third Ward.


Church did not go well. While Mormons are usually friendly, I didn’t even get the usual bright “Hi!” That was sad. And then, bringing three investigators, no one stopped by to introduce themselves after church, either. I know my friends didn’t know better, but I knew they were being snubbed, and I was mortified. Then the talks were mediocre—one guy even talked about how having a testimony was light weightlifting…then just went off on a random tangent about how much he loved weightlifting. The talks were just spiritless and dull, and a little bit dumb. I wish they had come on a better day.


We wanted to go to the Cloisters, which wouldn’t have been feasible if we had stayed for all three meetings, and I was being humiliated by the subtle snubs and just wanted to bail. We walked across the street to a mediocre pizza shop where “spawn” was playing. Michael talked to us about the economics of Eastern Europe. I fielded Mormon questions. “Spawn” was kind of making me nauseated—lots of gross sound effects. Not the best soundtrack for a pizza parlor

We split off with Mike and took the train up to 160th street. The Cloisters isn’t as pretty in winter, bt it has a stolid integrity I prefer in some ways. They had opened up the treasury on the ground floor, so I got to see their collection of peculiar pieces. The MoMa always makes an effort to gather unique, perfectly preserved pieces. They might not give you the best spectrum of what medieval art is per se, but it’s ideal for those who have studied the basics.




They had a complete copy of one of Jean Pucelle’s Book of Hours, incredibly preserved.



Lakshmi and Adele found the unicorns I had seen in Philadelphia! It's true!

Exhausted, we headed home and crawled under a pile of blankets. Adele’s friend Laura came by, but I was involved in an IM conversation/crisis, and didn’t get to talk to her much. I’m sorry Laura! I must have seemed dreadfully rude. I didn’t mean to be—I was so out of it by the time you came by.


Adele and Laura walked out into the blizzard to get some drinks, while Lakshmi and I kept drifting in and out of consciousness, yelling at the screen when the undeserving won an Oscar.


Adele left around 4am to catch her plane. Lakshmi and I took some photographs—all my friends are so beautiful, I get the biggest kick out of taking photos. Sadly, I was so hung over from fatigue that I just took some head shots. It wasn’t until after she left I got some new ideas for body and face shots. Oh well. It was fun.

So yeah, the Convention of Awesomeness II was one big blur, much more so than the Philadelphia trip. I know such wonderful people. I have no idea how I could be so lucky.

The owner of the Flat Iron Building just threatened to sue me! My blood pressure may never return to normal.

Here are the photos from Convention of Awesomeness 2: New York, 2007. Accompanying post once my homework is done and my kitchen clean.

BRIAN CROTTY IS GETTING MARRIED!