Update November

It's been ages - I don't even want to talk about it.

Remember the really really ugly spider I brought back from the caves of Gunung Senyum in September? Maybe this will jog your memory:

So I did some reading and its an unidentified species of huntsman. Anyway. I brought it back, it habited a rather small cage (for it's rather huge size of approximately 12cm across if legs were fully stretched -- I must shamefully admit to being too lazy at the time to prepare a larger cage.), and to my (and lab mates) horror, SHE laid a patch of eggs. I nearly couldn't handle the amount of UGLY POTENTIAL that little 1cm patch of eggs was capable of. One huge ugly spider was a cool pet -- a whole cage full of little uglies -- I'm not so sure. The image alone boggles the mind.

That said, the eggs hatched very nicely, and we decided it was time to move mummy ugly out to a larger cage, seeing as how the added misery of staying in a small cage, plus the potential ugliness of having all her little uglies running around and climbing all over her, and the plain fact the she herself, is ugly -- makes for a whole load of ugly. Not wanting to breed anymore ugly, I generously donated the little uglies to a lab mate whose aranaephagic spiders were in need of food.

On a lighter note, Meme and I finally completed our ISM review papers and conquered the presentation - which really turned out to be an hour-and-a-half long discussion session (i.e. pretty presentation slides wasted, tho he did give em a read-through.). We learnt a few things, and I'm sure Dr. Peter did too, even from two humble honours students.

Lessons have closed for the semester, save for a test and consultation session this Wednesday and the big media project presentation this Thursday. It always amazes me how you can make anything a module in university, especially in USP. So today I was thinking back on the last 3 years and what insanely silly/inane modules I'd taken.

There was Chem & Us, which was really just on industrial processes - not easy, not enjoyable, but had a field trip to APB that had us leave all red and not very sober after an hour of free beer. There was Cyberart, which was insanely fun partly because of the profound lack of the need to do any readings - and the fact that class was really a 4-hour long sit-in-a-circle-and talk-about-what-you-think-of-art session -- you can almost see Dr. I passing around a smoking stick of weed and us, cross-legged in a rolling meadow, one guy with long braids strumming lazily on a guitar. That and our projects were how fun! Make a website, make a video, call it art, get your A-minus. :D

And now in media class we talk about games and play games and make games - minus the weekly blog assignments and rather profound readings, this'd be the pinnacle of inane university modules. It's almost a waste when during every class, Alex (the instructor) mentions a few games to illustrate a point -- (usually on the philosophy of gaming [= ludology] - and you'd be damned surprised to note that the whole field of ludology, yes academics!!! - they spend entire decades debating the philosophy of games. You can read more at my module blog - beware of potential brain-popping.) -- and nobody gets it because we haven't played it! And fortunately, and this is really cool by the way, Alex would have brought his PS2 to class and he'd load it up and play it to prove a point. (Speaking of which, one really cool game I remember being demonstrated in class was Okami. Anyone feeling generous? I think I could do with a PS2 and maybe a copy of Okami :D)

PhD in games anyone?

Incidentally, the bunny will be taking on the mozzie jungle of Ulu Gombak this coming weekend for a 4-day field study and spider-collection. Again, I know. (And a week before exams - I know!!!) Good news is I got the whole of December free to conduct my experiments and catch up on the dog-walks at SPCA -- time to lose weight again and get in touch with the fuzzies. I miss having a dog, I find myself calling to the turtles in the tank on level 3 of s2 like little doggies. It doesn't help that they respond - probably haven't been fed in a while.

Sigh. I'm so frustrated it's not even funny anymore.