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Yep. It’s over.

For now.

More or less.

Still a few death throes and other bureaucratic idiosyncrasies to deal with, but for the most part, I’m done with the 10 g. of caffeine + 10 hours of studying per day… On to the next phase of my student career: one I should be enjoying exponentially more. No more mathematics for what I seriously hope to be the rest of my life, and even less physics. Eagerly awaiting results and decisions. Although the eagerness tends to vary with time of day and level of confidence in the positive outcome of said deliberations.

Anyway, let’s make a deal: I promise I won’t bore you with any more of my result anxieties, academic postpartum depression, career interrogations, hatred of the bureaucracy I am forced to deal with, and all sort of stuff that would make great session topics with my shrink, but very poor blogging material… On the other hand: if you know me, will meet me in the near future and value our friendship, you would be well advised to skip the subject altogether. If you are a complete stranger and happen to work in the administration of certain major Parisian university, you may be well advised to simply avoid meeting me, as I am quite certain the possibility of a friendship, however fleeting, would be highly compromised by the irrepressible urge I may have to strangle you with one hand while shoving form paper down your every orifices.

Now that we’ve got this out of the way, a last personal announcement:

I will be in Paris until Tuesday: if I haven’t been getting in touch with you (and I probably haven’t, seeing how I lived the past 3 weeks at the bottom of a very deep and dark cave with weekly bat-carriers as my only way of contact with the outside world), do get in touch with me and let’s try to get together for a beer or ten.

Also: shortly I’ll be posting my answers to our great quizz of the Summer.

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Alright boys and girls,

In ten minutes I’ll be heading out for Narita with twice the limit in luggage, and the hugest smile I can summon to convince the employee to let me board without supplement (not an option, seeing how it would probably cost the price of a full ticket). Especially hard to smile when you have more grams of caffeine floating in your body than hours of sleep over the past two weeks, but if I can manage to freeze my muscles in the appropriate position, the twitching may complete the illusion.

Although I hear they have internet access in even the most remote Parisian neighbourhoods nowadays, you likely won’t hear from me until next Thursday, if then.

But I promise that, once the bitter taste of defeat and humiliation of having my ignorant ass handed over to me by my professors, subsides, I will be back and regaling you with the wondrous adventures of my final three months in Nipponland.

To keep you busy until then, here is what I have to offer:

Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Dr. Dave, But Were Afraid to Ask…

I am sure all of you, my faithful readers, have many unanswered questions pertaining to the author of this site, sitting somewhere in the dark recesses of your mind while you read these lines…

How old is dr. Dave? What is dr. Dave’s favourite colour? Why the fuck does he keep writing “favour” and “colour”, yet spell it: “organize” ? How many billions sit on dr. Dave’s Cayman Islands bank account? What crème de jour does he use to keep this youthful looks about him, no matter what time of the day? Is he for real? Is he really that full of himself or is this just an elaborate act? What’s the answer to the ultimate question to life, the universe and everything? Mac or PC? Shaved or natural? Boxer or tighty-whities? Heroine or Cocaine? etc. etc.

Crucial existential questions indeed…

Well, wait no more: ask ahead, and in ten days, when I come back, I will personally post my reply to each and every question asked through the comment section or sent through the contact form.

Time for some transparence around here.

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Watching a small online condensate of worldwide TV programs, I stumbled upon a bit of French national news wherein a journalist comments, in French, over footage of flooded NOLA streets.

At one point, the camera stops on a man laying on the ground, zooms in, and we can hear the following voice-over:

Voiceover: “… Un homme a terre, qui dans un souffle parvient à peine à dire à une équipe de reporters…” [“… a man on the ground, barely manages to tell a team of reporters…”]
Offscreen (in English): “Are you alright?”
Man on the ground (in English): “I got a kidney stone…”
Voiceover (allegedly translating from English): “… qu’il est affamé.” [“… that he is starving.”]

Yea… Next time I see somebody with a kidney stone, I’ll just cook them some food, ’cause they must be hungry…

Could they actually hand their reporters a dictionary before they send them abroad?

Dans le “Zapping” d’aujourd’hui: un extrait du Journal Télévisé de France 2 (édition de 20h du Samedi 3 septembre, environ à 13 minutes 25 s.).

On y voit des scènes filmées en Louisiane, après passage de Katrina. Commentaire-bateau sur fond porno-médiatique standard… Puis, la caméra s’arrête et zoom sur un homme au sol, visiblement pas en bonne santé, alors que la voix hors-écran continue:

Voix hors écran: “… Un homme a terre, qui dans un souffle parvient à peine à dire à une équipe de reporters…”
Voix interviewer hors écran: “Are you alright?”
Homme au sol: “I got a kidney stone…”
Voix hors écran: “… qu’il est affamé.”

Est-ce que quelqu’un peut offrir un dictionnaire Anglais-Français aux journalistes de France 2 avant de les envoyer à l’étranger la prochaine fois?

A défaut, s’ils cherchent d’autres volontaires pour scénariser les dialogues de leurs prochains reportages: j’ai plein de supers idées originales…

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Chalk it up to a simple equation involving roughly 2 weeks of time, 50 pages of yet-unwritten report and 500+ pages of reading material… Blogging just hasn’t been a priority round here lately.

What has been a priority, though, was the quest for any combination of chemical aides, likely to make the required 250 hours of studies in 10 days, a technical, if not quite reasonable health-wise, possibility.

Thus, in the spirit of killing two heart-attacks with one stone, and without further ado, the first episode of:

Dr Dave’s Guide to Chemically-Enhanced Studying in Japan

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A bit short on the news front lately, I know… And not likely to get any better soon. In fact, consider this the official seasonal warning about the usual 3-week writing slump to be followed by lengthy catch-up, once I’m done strangling the manes of Mssrs. Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen with my bare hands, once and for all.

But before we dim the light, turn off the gas and put this page in energy-saving mode for the rest of the month, it’s time for a bit of ego rambling and life status update, for the benefit of the three people (cat and genetically-invested relatives included) who give a damn.

Yes, you may have noticed: next Friday is that day again, and thus, this year’s edition of Existential Week is under way.

Please come back: no longwinded self-serving cheese and whine party, this time around. To tell the truth, we were tittering on the edge for a few days, but doubled the meds, resumed intraveinous vodka doses in the morning… and now the sun is shining and the future bright again! [insert Absolut Zoloft sponsor message here]

What you will get though, is a world-premiere announcement of Dr Dave’s Life Projects for the Fall 2005 Season: hang on to your mouse, it’s earth-shattering stuff we got here. Particularly if you are my mom and wondering if I am still attending seminary or been ordained yet.

OK, first, gotta break the bad news to my affectionate otaku readership (I know you exist, I can smell you all the way here):

Dr Dave is leaving Japan!

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Clicking through some stuff this morning, I stumbled upon somebody’s account of life in China, and in particular, a funny observation about hanzis:

Turning now to Chinese characters: We are learning them again at last, and many make me pleased. The character for “to endure” is a knife held to a heart. A tomb is required to draw “antique.” There are other things, too, of course: the local glyphic idea of “peace” is a woman in a house, while that of “family” is a pig in a house. This surely explains either less or more than it purports to.

Like most people, I too struggle to give more or less apocryphal interpretations to kanjis in order to make them more memorable. Some of my findings are quite far-fetched. Yet, this particular set never occurred to me before (as usual: mouse-over to get kanji pronunciation and meaning):

  • 忍, as in 忍ぶ, is made of 心 and 刃
  • A woman (女) under a “roof” (宀), becomes 安… Though in japanese, the 安 character doesn’t really hold the meaning of “peace” as in “war and peace” (usually written 平和), but rather a “spiritual, inner, peace” (安心). Interestingly, it is frequently used to indicate “cheapness” or “easiness” (安い).
  • A “pig” (豕) under a “roof” (宀), becomes a “house” (家) and by extension: a “family” (家族).

Funny how the semantic oddity has been perfectly preserved in the transition from Chinese to Japanese (commonplace, indeed, but certainly not the all-encompassing rule).

Of course, there are hundred of these observations to be made, and I could probably come up with stories for nearly every kanji I know, but to stay with the farm theme, there is this one classic I really can’t get over:

Japanese kanji for “beauty” (美) is none other than a combination of “big” (大) and “sheep” (羊): makes way for all sorts of weird thought processes when a friend points out a 美人 in the street…

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Small quid pro quo today reminded me of an old conversation:

Tomomi: But Dave-san, is there really a difference between English and American?

dr Dave: Of course there is. British are civilised people. Americans are ruthless barbarians: they couldn’t make a cup of tea to save their life.

T: Maajii-de?!?

drD: When Americans try to make tea, they use cold sea-water and don’t even bother taking the leaves out of the box. And that’s Boston we’re talking about. The further west you go, the worse it gets.

T: Aa, so-ka, so-ka. It all makes sense now.

Anything I can do to bring greater cultural understanding between people.

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Decent week-end, slow news evening.

I’m sure nobody’s eager to hear the fascinating tales of my uneventful yet appropriately social week-end: birthdays were celebrated, morning were slept in, lazy afternoons sitting in the sun, sipping on drinks and writing physics were spent, ice-cream while people-watching on the steps of Shibuya’s Oy’ Oy’ department store(*) were had… Nothing quite blog-worthy, as you’ll realize: no waking up in puddles of bodily fluids in some unknown street/train station/love hotel, no unexplained whip marks in the lower back, no kidney unaccounted for in the morning. Only routine Summer week-end stuff, minus the drink-till-you-puke and hangover stories.

Luckily, I have just what we need for such an occasion!

And thus, let me introduce our generic cultural blog-filler of the day:

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  • OK, did Michael kill Fredo in pt. II? Are we supposed to know it, by the time pt. III starts? I don’t remember. I’m all confused now. Annotated family tree, anyone? please?
  • If there ever was a Godfather, pt. IV, taking place in the 90’s, Anthony would definitely make his gay coming out in it. Of course, I realize announcing to your dad you won’t be a lawyer and will embark on a fruitless artistic career is sorta the 80’s equivalent of a gay coming out.
  • I too want a wise sicilian uncle I can turn to, when I need answers to intricate questions about life and work. Preferably one who knows about PHP and mySQL.
  • Gee, is the acting bad in this episode.
  • Good thing hot cousin sex will save practically anything.
  • It probably won’t save Christmas (good point Andy). Especially if taking place under the family Christmas tree.

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One thing that nearly all people have in common is that they like to know when another person send them something. Using a variety of sources, I think I have a pretty good handle on finding other people who send me stuff. In fact, I think I find about 90% of all packages sent to me — but I may be wrong.

This is an experiment to see how “findable” my house is. Put me to the the test, fellow retarded monkeys bloggers science-inclined readers.

All you have to do is send a $100 bill to this particular postal address (i.e., the one I’ll email you privately). Just call it Dr Dave Postal Tracking Experiment or something like that. After a few days, I’ll post a list of every people I found have sent me a $100 bill. If you’re not on the list, I’ll invite you to send me your tracking number. I’ll report these unfound bills to the Post Office, and we’ll try to figure out why I didn’t get them.

By the way, this is not just a cheap way to get some money (although it won’t hurt). I really think it will be a useful experiment. I’ll reveal all of my sources and, hopefully, learn about some new ones. I think other people and the postal tracking companies may benefit from the results.

Inspired by Mr. J-Walk and his brilliant scheme idiot-trap Blogger Experiment.

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