Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Linley's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, December 11th, 2003
2:27 pm	Public Service Announcement for those who like to give head A study conducted by researchers in nine countries (including some at Johns Hopkins in the U.S.) found that oral sex increases oral cancer risk, particularly cancer of the tonsils. It appears to be due to transmission of HPV, the same virus involved in cervical cancer. Oral cancer affects about 40,000 people in the U.S. per year, and about 7-8,000 of those cases are tonsular. Oral cancer is primarily associated with tobacco use, but the study found HPV in 4% of non-tonsular oral cancers and 18% of tonsular cancers. HPV was detected more often in oral cancer patients who reported having oral sex with more than one partner per year than in ones who used tobacco. Yes, the risk is really quite small. But it's something to think about. Abstract for the study: http://jncicancerspectrum.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/jnci;95/23/1772 (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2003
11:31 am	From today's SF Chronicle: "A poll commissioned by Trio, the quirky arts network, and TV Guide, the unquirky little book of what's on TV, found that 3 percent of people asked believe that the House of Representatives votes for the Golden Globes." (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 8th, 2003
4:39 pm	Public Service Announcement Note to anyone who drives a car: Parking garages suck. But they suck even worse if you do not give the car in the space you want enough room to get out before you start fighting someone else for that space. Also, it really would not hurt you to walk more than 20 feet to the elevator. Thank you. Current Mood: annoyed (Comment on this)
Monday, August 18th, 2003
10:27 pm	kisses 0 Good things: * I have plane tickets to Berkeley and Seattle for the beginning of September! And I plan a trip down to Portland as part of that. Trees! Trees! * My passport arrived today, waaaay early. Thus, I can go to Canada with Doug if he still wants to! * My new credit card also arrived today. It's a banana slug card, and I earn points toward travel when I use it. I don't really need another credit card, but my mother's been after me to get a Visa in addition to my Mastercard. I pay my bill in full every month, but it's nice to know that if I get into trouble in the next few months I have $13,000 in credit to fall back on. * My sister will be here any time now! * I have gas! If any of you have paid attention to the news, you will know that the pipe that carries gasoline from Tucson to Phoenix broke last week. They're still fixing it. Tankers are bringing gas from Tucson, but there's only one place to fill them there and as soon as a station has gas everyone runs and fills up, so we've had lines that look like the early 1970s, according to people who were alive then. Anyway, I filled up last Wednesday, before gas stations began running out. ("It's not a crisis. It's a problem we're working to fix." -Janet Napolitano, Governor) * According to the September Harper's Index, the average age at which an American believes that adulthood begins is 26. I'm not an adult! Woo-hoo! This is from the September issue of Atlantic Monthly, which took it from The Bell Curve ("the first, noncontroversial chapter"). Think of your 12 closest friends. Got them? Okay. If you had chosen randomly from the American population, the odds that half of those 12 would be college graduates is 6 in 1000. The odds that half would have advanced degrees is less than 1 in a million. Have any of your 12 closest friends graduated from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Caltech, MIT, Duke, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, Chicago, or Brown? If you chose your friends randomly from the American population, the odds against you having four or more friends from these schools is more than a billion to one. Despite the fact that a large percentage of my 12 closest friends did their undergrad at a college that only sounds like Harvard Med, I can still count a Duke, a Columbia, and two Cornells among my 12--and Columbia starts at Harvard Law this fall. This is all part of an article in Atlantic about how despite all the talk about diversity we still segregate ourselves into groups of similar people, whether by race, socioeconomic status, political views, age, or whatever. One marketing firm, Claritas, breaks down the population into 62 psycho-demographic clusters. "Members of the 'towns & gowns' cluster are recent college grads in places such as Berkeley...They are big consumers of DoveBars and Saturday Night Live. They tend to drive small foreign cars and to read Rolling Stone and Scientific American." I don't know about that, but it's true that we form our little cliques. I was thinking about the group I plan to invite to my monthly dinner parties in the Bay Area. Bret, Ari, Ian, Melissa, Christina, Jono, Anna, Katherine, Jeremy, Ed. No one over 30. All college graduates. Four graduate students. One already holds an advanced degree. White and Asian. All high achievers. Interestingly, the political views run the spectrum. But it shows that I have chosen my friends according to specific criteria--not necessarily demographics, but qualities such as intelligence that often lead to college degrees. (If you're in the Bay Area and want to come eat good food with me once a month, let me know!) Anyway, the article is in the September issue of Atlantic Monthly if you're interested. Current Mood: excited (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 1st, 2003
10:45 pm	With apologies to Bret for being slow Interview questions, as asked by grimhild. 1. Do you have an idea of the ideal family, or a set of things that should be present in all families? Why or why not? If yes, what's it like, or what are they? Every family is unique, but lots of love is essential. Parents should also be able to spend lots of time with their children. Beyond that, well, I think that each family adapts to its circumstances and the personalities it contains. There is no ideal family. 2. In your opinion, should the progress of science be constrained toward or away from any particular areas? Why or why not? If so, by whom and with what degree of control? Some potential scientific discoveries make me uneasy. But, I don't think we could ever really control discovery. Scientists will just go under the radar with their work, which can be much more dangerous. I do think graduate and medical schools could do a much better job discussing ethics with future researchers so that individuals can make responsible decisions about their work. 3. If you met a guy, and hung out with him frequently, and eventually became interested in being more than friends with him, but had no signs from him either way on whether the feeling was mutual, how (if at all) do you think would be the best way of letting him know how you felt? If the answer is not at all, how would you want/expect him to make it known to you if he were also interested? I usually get kind of shy and wait for the guy to make the first move. But, if I felt really comfortable with the guy, I would tell him how I felt. Sometime, when we were alone and sober, I would say, “Hey, I think my feelings for you are becoming romantic, and I don’t know what that means for our friendship.” I hope that would allow us to enter into an open, straightforward discussion . If it didn’t, then I wouldn’t want to date him anyway. I would hope that he could say the same thing to me if he gathered his courage before I did (although I certainly don’t mind unexpected kisses...). 4. What would be the first thing you'd do to take advantage of your new-found power if you suddenly discovered that you could turn invisible at will? The first thing that came to mind is that I could get back at my siblings for all the terrible things they did to me when we were growing up. Then I thought about following Bush around to figure out what he isn't telling us. 5. Chivalry and pedestal status versus women's liberation. Good and bad aspects of each, in your opinion? Any common ground? Any irreconcilable choices between contradictory good aspects? I like chivalry, but I think it can and should go both ways. So many things that are considered chivalrous, like opening doors and pulling out chairs, are really just common courtesy kicked up a notch. I see no reason why I can’t act as doorstop of pick up a check. (My relationships generally contain very little fighting, but on one memorable occasion I did get in a check tug of war across a table in a restaurant. He, being stronger, managed to wrest the check out of my hands and pay for it. Grumble grumble.) Putting someone on a pedestal is another matter. I like being worshipped, especially in the bedroom. (I wrote a poem once that included the lines, “Once he treated my body as a temple / But he never comes to worship there anymore.”) But if the worship is consistently one-sided it creates an imbalance in the relationship. The person on the pedestal is likely to become dependent on the worshipper, financially and otherwise. The worshipper is more likely to be distraught or become a stalker if the one on the pedestal decides to get off and go elsewhere. A loving, healthy relationship should include an element of worship, of feeling so lucky to have the other person and wanting to make him/her happy, but it needs to be on both sides. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2003
10:39 pm	Creation Science Fair! http://www.objective.jesussave.us/creationsciencefair.html (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 7th, 2003
8:43 pm	interview meme (from leech) 1. Have you ever had fresh lychees? (They're very sweet, and probably innocent as well.) I believe Doug gave me a fresh lychee to eat once, though he and I ate a variety of non-standard fruit, so I'm not sure. 2. To what extent, if any, do you believe in the supernatural and/or divine? This is a very difficult question for me. Part of me really wants to believe that there's something divine out there. At the same time, I'm too much of a scientist to have faith without a shred of (what I consider) reasonable proof. At times I feel very connected with the world--with other people, with nature, with myself. I don't know where it comes from, but I try to promote that feeling when I can. That's the spirituality I have right now, and it seems to work. As for the supernatural, well, again, I'm too much of a scientist. Give me some proof of ghosts and ESP and such. I'd like to see humans learn to use psychic powers (a la Anne McCaffrey's Pegasus and Rowan series), but most if not all of the people who profess to have such abilities now are quacks. 3. If you could switch bodies with somebody for a day, who would it be? A hetero or bi male with an active sex life. I'd like to experience male-female intercourse as a man does. 4. Would you rather be blind or deaf? Deaf. As a writer, my sight is more important. 5. What language sounds best? Oooh, tough. Um, I've always liked how French sounds. (Oh no, I am unpatriotic!) Gaelic is fun too. Ok, so this is how this works. You post a comment to this entry. I reply with five interview questions. You answer them in your lj, and offer to create interview questions for others. Ready, set, go. Current Mood: hungry (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 13th, 2003
9:06 pm	ProfNet is fun **3. TODAY/FOOD: ARE SPORKS TAKING OVER? - NEW YORK DAILY NEWS (US) The spork is a combination spoon-fork that seems to be popular in school cafeterias and some fast food chains. My question: Is the spork going to replace the fork and spoon? When? What will this mean for society? And does anyone know the history of the fork itself? Did it truly civilize Europe? I'm looking for historians, fast food experts and maybe even a school cafeteria lady or two to explain all. It's even funnier if you read the first line with the alternate meaning of spork. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2003
12:27 pm	On the way to work this morning I noticed a new billboard along the side of the freeway with a photo of a smiling child eating a sandwich. It read: Feeding kids meat is child abuse. A few months ago there was a billboard that featured an elderly man in flowing white robes that read "Thou shalt not kill. Go vegetarian." I thought that one was funny. But accusing people of child abuse for feeding their child a ham sandwich is going too far, at least in my opinion. Current Mood: bored (Comment on this)
Friday, April 19th, 2002
8:40 am	http://www.randomdudes.com/bush/bush.html A classmate, Christian, sent this to me. Oh my lord... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 27th, 2002
7:00 pm	the poem I told Ian was going to write I know what?s wrong I know what?s right I just need to Hold on tight I won't assume I won't tell lies Or I?ll get cut Down to size Take everything in Breathe it all out There?s no need To flail and shout I am strong I am bold Out of the box Breaking the mold Self in check I?ll let it come Day by day I?ll let it sum. I'll reach the prize That I know Along the way I'll learn and grow. So patience now And some reserve Down the road I'll get What I deserve (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 25th, 2001
10:38 pm	random entry while iming with pava Hey all, it's Christmas. Merry merry. It just didn't feel right. Not much family togetherness. Well, not as much as in years past. I don't know quite what I'm looking for, but I know I didn't find it. I tried to outline my novel tonight. Three big gaps. Two in the middle, and then the end. I have no end. I don't know what I should do with it. I'll ponder a bit. Yesterday my dad gave me a lesson driving stick. We just went around the neighborhood, but I got into fourth gear once. I'm not sure if I am comfortable with it, or if I could be come comfortable enough fast enough. Maybe. There's about a million movies I want to see, but I'm never going to see any of them. Well, maybe that isn't true. But it feels that way. Current Mood: blah (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 21st, 2001
10:42 pm	Nineteen boxes shipped. Sixteen to Jon in Santa Clara, Three to home in Phoenix. Total cost: $392.16. Dimensional weight can suck it. Off to play the white cards game (we gotta play in Portland) and use up champagne, courtesy of the chem dept. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 22nd, 2000
12:51 am	one, two, cha-cha-cha "Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly." -- Rose Franken, Playwright (1895-1988) It?s funny. I feel like I?m back to frosh year in some ways. Well, one in particular. I spent a lot of my first two semesters at Mudd emailing and chatting with my high school friends. I had a really close group, all female, and we did the best we could to keep in contact, scattered around the country like we were. Now I?m spending time like I did then trying to keep in contact with people from Mudd. In the shower (I do a lot of my best thinking in the shower) I started considering how different my life might be now if I had taken other paths. One of the big what ifs in my life is Mudd. If I had gone to another one of the colleges I applied to, I very possibly could have become an English major. I intended to be a biochem/English double major wherever I went, but English got dropped at Mudd. Elsewhere it might have taken priority over the biochem. My writing would have been more nurtured; I might even be published by now. Prof. Sellery has been good about nurturing me. She thinks I have talent, and she wants to keep seeing my work. But of course creative writing has been a small part of my time at Mudd. I love my writing, but I love science too. I really do. How things might have turned out...I don?t know. I also wonder what I would be like if I hadn?t spent 2 years with Bret. If I had stayed with Michael...or started going out with someone else entirely...who would my friends be? I could be in a totally different social group, living in a different dorm...I don?t know. One of the things that came to mind is what if I had fallen for one of the guys in that weird "it?s ok to date other people" time Michael and I had when I first came to Mudd. Not so much Blaine?-things didn?t feel quite right there, though we?re able to be chemistry buddies if not close friends now?-but Ryan?if he hadn?t come on so strong right at the beginning and sacred me, then it?s possible. I don?t know what his intentions were; they quite possibly could have not been "committed relationship." I may have simply appeared an easy target. I was na?ve, and if not for Michael lurking 300 miles away, he probably could have seduced me. He was certainly a Rhett Butler to Michael?s Charles Hamilton, in attitude as well as looks. He played the Prince Charming. Not necessarily the true, deep, pure lover I had imagined, but certainly gallant and, well, charming. Ok, I?m going to try to explain something, and I don?t think I?ll do it well, but here goes, since it?s on my mind even though it?s not what I intended this entry to be about. It was a dance. We hadn?t come together, and I didn?t know much, but Ryan took me out for several dances and taught me steps. He danced the last dance with me and then took my arm and led me off the dance floor, out of the building and away. He didn?t ask if I wanted to come with him. He didn?t ask if it was ok, or hesitate, or anything. Just took my arm and led me off. I?ve never gotten that from anyone else, any of the other guys I?ve dated. Ok, maybe a little from Shaun. Everyone else is intensely concerned for my feelings, asking if things are ok and if I want to do this or that. And that?s important. But there?s something intensely appealing about a man in control, who knows what he wants and goes for it. Perhaps that?s part?-no, I won?t go there. I?ve said enough; I hope at least some of it is comprehensible. It seems my entries are heading toward a common theme. I?ll blame Outlander. Which I finished, today, by the way. Then I made two kinds of cookies and managed to get a small partial thickness burn on one of my fingers. I manage to burn myself while baking every Christmas, though this isn?t near as bad as the burn I got on my arm one year. The scar?s finally fading from that one. Mmmm, cookies. Must go get some. Current Mood: ouch (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 8th, 2000
10:26 am	I edited my journal entry from last night by deleting one paragraph. I know what I wanted to say, but in my sleepy state it didn't come out right. If you read the unedited version, know that I didn't mean it that way. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 3rd, 2000
2:59 pm	in lab I'm in Prof. McCurdy's lab. She's on her way to Saddle Rock... I'm trying to figure out what the heck this stupid impurity is, or at least what it might be, so the mass spec guys know where to look for the parent ion. But I have no idea what might be that polar. I really ought to study for the GRE. Blah. I read over my entry from last night. It sounds like a lot of my paper journal entries. I talk to myself like that in them. That probably should have gone into my paper journal, but no matter. Good Linley and Bad Linley started having a conversation in my head again this morning. Maybe I'll share that with you sometime. Anyway, I managed to pull myself together last night and get some sleep. I probably should have found someone to talk to...but the people I would have talked to were either sleeping or stressing out, and I wasn't doing that badly. I wonder if I'm becoming dependent on livejournal. A little. But I've kept some sort of journal off and on forever, and it's better to have someplace where you can get it all out. I think I'm cancelling my goal for the semester. I made it just a few days ago, and it sounded good then, and I know I can achieve it easily, but the easy way to achieve it is not the way which will make me happy. Fleetingly happy, perhaps, but not long-term. Achieving it the hard way could take much longer than the month and a half to the end of the semester. So bye-bye goal. Maybe I'll make a different one. Or not. I'm obviously not into this lab thing. I think when the HPLC finishes washing in 20 minutes I'll just leave. I'm short on hours this week no matter what I do. Prof. McCurdy will understand. She's cool like that. As a total aside, I have a Word file called SweetPava now. I name my articles for the Collage on lectures after the lecturer(s)--in this case, Cindy Sweet and Justin Pava. Somehow that's just wrong. Ok, I think I'll do a little work now. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 17th, 2000
8:20 pm	i've got a gut feeling.... isn't today the only day that really matters? (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 15th, 2000
2:33 pm	But back to relationships. Getting involved with someone is one way to find someone that I can be really close to. I suppose if I had a really close group of friends here at Mudd then a relationship might not be so high on my desires list. But I am starting to think that another relationship while I'm here at Mudd may not be in the cards for me. The guys I might be interested in appear to either be taken or uninterested in me. Of course I haven't taken a survey, but that's what it seems like. I can stand on my own two feet, be independent and single. But it is a lonely road to follow, and I don't want to do it forever. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
2:29 am	i licked the wall. mmmmmm concrete. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
12:56 am	So I've finally gotten around to starting one of these. This could get interesting... Today we went to the beach. Afterward we went to dinner, nine of us. At the restaurant (the Jolly Roger) they pushed two tables together for us. One had five people: Emily, Brie, and Fess, three women in relationships whose so's were not there, and Dan and Shamik, two single guys. The other table had Bret and Pamela, his current girlfriend, and myself and Mary, his exes, both currently single. I'm not sure what that means, but I found it an interesting observation. Pamela sent a survey to lots of people to fill out, and one of the questions was "What song title currently describes your life?" I had a hard time thinking of one, and then I came up with "Jealousy." I'm not sure if that's the actual title (I'm really bad about remembering songs and artists), but that word is about right. Not jealous of anyone in particular. Jealous of couples in general. It's more pronounced for couples I interact with on a regular basis, but I experience these horrible pangs of hatred toward random people I see walking down the street holding hands too. Sometimes it is better than others; depends on my mood. It fades away and thencomes back. I think part of it has to do with touching. I miss being touched. I wantpeople to be happy. I don't want to begrudge other people their happiness, especially in things romantic. But I want it too. Which brings up the question: am I ready for a relationship? I think yes. During the spring and summer I spent a lot of time figuring out who I am and where I'm going. Now I need to figure out how I fit in to the rest of the world, specifically how to interact with the people around me. Oh, I know the basics. But I still don't feel like I have found my place here yet. Well, I could be a recluse and stay in my room and ignore the world, which I have successfully done at various times. But that's not where I want to be. I want to have friends, to have people that I am close to and can share anything with but also a wider group that I may not be really really close to but can still socialize with. I'm not there yet. But with my extra time that will get better. But back to relationships. Getting involved with someone is one way to find someone that I can be really close to. I suppose if I had a really close group of friends here at Mudd then a relationship might not be so high on my desires list. But I am starting to think that another relationship while I'm here at Mudd may not be in the cards for me. The guys I might be interested in seem to be either taken or totally not interested in me, at least from what I can see. I certainly haven't given up, and I know that I haven't evaluated all the guys that exist by far. But right now chances don't look too good. I can stand on my own two feet. I know I can. But it's a lonely road to follow. Speaking of roads, I shouldn't ride with Bret on the freeway at night. It shouldn't bother me, eight months later, but I still get scared. This has been rambly and weird, but on the whole more coherent than journal entries in my notebook. This little box inhibits me, I think. I guess I'll see if I keep this up. Linley signing out (Comment on this)