Adventures of Sushinobi

Megs:

HEY GUYS! Remember Nobi? The guy I totally didn't waste time on (drawing and writing about, that is). XD I've decided to dedicate a whole blog to him. Yay!!

I'm going to slowly upload all the pictures and storyline I've ever done.

Check it out here!

http://adventuresofsushinobi.blogspot.com/

PS. This is kind of under construction, pictures will change a bit atm.

Toilet Roll of Certificates

Megs:

OMG GUESS WHAT, this is actually officially the 100th post of Frivelocity. HOORAY!*
Do you know what this blog needs more of? Pictures. Paradigm shift, people!

Here's one to start off :D



It's cynical but it happens. Figuratively, that is.

Oh and Happy Easter break, everyone!

*Actually there are fewer published posts, because we actually have heaps saved as drafts, but 100 is 100.

Behind The Antioxidant Song

Megs:

So yes, I said I was going to update on the awesome-thus-far Semester. So here's what I've been up to:

- Not violaing at AYO. Do I miss some good times? Sure. Do I feel free? HELL YES.
- Watching Glee
- Saying I'll study, but not committing very well
- Making a video.

The Antioxidant Song. from Comvita on Vimeo.

This was project that I pretty much worked on all month. At the beginning of the first Medsci202 of this year, there was a slide up advertising the Comvita Science Challenge.

Mission: make a video explaining the science behind some of Nature's healthiest ingredients. Incentives: first prize $5000, second prize $2000, plus other "Comvita prizes to be won!". And they threw in words like "your creativity!" and so forth. My very first thought was I WANT TO DO THAT.

-Making the Video-

This video was a hell of a lot of fun, but no picnic. I stressed (as I tend to do) about a lot of unnecessary things: Wondering for about a week about what they meant by "Nature", "Healthiest", and "Ingredients", riffling through the 'Nutrients' chapter in my old T&D textbook, and considering doing it on 'Vitamin A' and dressing up as a carrot.

This was before I realised that Comvita had actually set the topics for us. Phew!

The topics for 2011 were:
Honey
Propolis
Olive Leaf
Broccoli
Grapes/Grape seeds
Kiwifruit

So all I had to do was agonise over which one to choose from. Yee!

I think I jumped between Honey, Propolis and Olive Leaf several times. I wanted to do something that I had some back-up knowledge about. Medsci203 last year taught me a little about antioxidants, so I decided I'd focus on that.

In the end I went for the olive leaf - both because I found so many articles on it, and for a good friends' namesake! (Hi, Olive :D)

*

Other stuff in the process:

I was fully preparing to rock up to my old primary school and taking a fistful of leaves from outside the school ground and, I dunno, make them dance using stopmotion animation or something (you know, like Pingu).



I also spent time during breaks drawing different storyboards. I'd planned this thing with a mug of tea and chucking all these olive leaves in and thought about technical things like Panning and Tracking and Voiceovers with Science Talk

and then I thought OMG THIS IS BORING.

So I decided to tell it in song! And draw everything. I have a bit of a soft spot for rhyming, even though nothing rhymes with Megan. And I <3 drawing.


Sources for inspiration for the Antioxidant Song:

DINOSAUR by Ke$ha. Yes, I went there. It's where I got the "spell out the title" idea from.

The Llama Song by Burton Earny Perhaps one of the battiest songs to ever hit the internet and make it as a meme.

Watch the Llama Song!


Both of these are crazily catchy and get really annoying to the uptight person after a while. The main thing I was gearing towards was repetitive fun. You might find these on Youtube if you don't know how they go. Look out, sanity.

*

Equipment used:

Some budget Mp3 recorder
A PC


Software Programmes used:

Noteworthy Composer
This is where the background music came from. I've been acquainted with this for about eight years now. I used to play with this a lot, both arranging and composing instrumental scores. User friendliness is about 8.5/10 if you are music-savvy; with dozens and dozens of instruments 'voices' you can choose from. The files can only be published in .MIDI format, which is a minor drawback - this gives the instruments a very synthetic quality when you play back your composition.**

Wavepad Sound Editor
This is how I merged my singing and the background music. I was SUPER excited when I found Wavepad in March, not least because it had the function to speed up/slow down any Mp3 recordings and change the pitch of my voice. I'm not sure why I liked sounding like a 5-year-old, but I did.

Adobe Photoshop 7.0
At home, my best friend and time-killer during high school. Handy, because of, well, drawing. More specifically, drawing in a way that doesn't look as budget as something done on MS paint (with all due respect to MS paint).

Windows Movie Maker. Budget, and kept freezing on me - more and more as the number of images stacked up on my hard drive, but it got the job done (EVENTUALLY). The Antioxidant Song was the first video I ever made, so I followed the words of Sensei Google as I went.

**NOTE: I also used some programme to convert the MIDI to an Mp3 before using Wavepad, but frankly I downloaded and tested so many of these that I can't remember which one I finally ran with. Sorry. If it helps, I found it on Google. In the end though, what mattered was that the synthetic-ness of the music magically vanished, and I had a shiny and pretty backing track :D

*

Stupid things I wasted time on:

Thinking I was done with my lyrics, recording, then realizing that perhaps they weren't all that "scientifically correct". The final song is pretty much version 2.5. Before, the lyrics implied that Antioxidants just pop up now and then randomly in the body. Also, I nearly said that "getting [antioxidants] is as easy as drinking a cup of tea." It rhymed with something else.

Recording all the verses separately, without a metronome, and trying to string them together on Wavepad. No, just no. There was just no rhythm and I couldn't get it to work. Had a lot of fun squeakifying my speech but wasted a whole evening on this. In the end I recited three sections of the poem and pasted them together.


*****


The video was submitted onto Dropbox and I sent my entry in to Comvita. Now all I had to do was wait! The only thing I stressed about at this point in time was that someone had somehow managed to hack into Dropbox and removed the video from my Public Folder, or something glitched and Comvita didn't get my email, or something.

I was relieved to find that they hadn't, when Comvita put up all the entries on Vimeo. Well, my initial stress was gone, but I can tell you watching the other thirteen entries made me spaz, because damn they were GOOD - funny and creative to the max. My favourite one was A Friendly Vege. I TOTALLY recommend watching this on the Comvita channel. Epic laughs!

Getting into Finals
I got a call on my cellphone during a Medsci202 lecture (look, it came full circle!). Usually I'd turn the thing off but that day I took my phone sprinted towards the back of the lecture theatre. I was so excited to hear from Comvita (and startled by myself for bolting out in a middle of a lecture) that when the lady on the other end said she was from Comvita I forgot to say hi. With my heart pounding I just said, "yes?!". And she must have been expecting something else because she paused before talking.

I still feel bad about forgetting my manners.

Dear Anyone, If I ever not say hi if I'm on the phone with you, I apologise. Sincerely, Megan.

Anyway, what it came down to was that I was invited to the Prizegiving at the Business School. I GOT INTO THE FINALS :D And the rest was all fun and games. I got to meet the other finalists, and also Comvita hired a camera guy to ask the finalists about their opinions. I realized then that I'm kind of video-camera shy but I said a little bit. Yay! Maybe I'll be on TV :D

At the end of the day, I got a bag full of comvita gifts; honey and boxes of skin creams and propolis lozenges and that sort of thing. Though the thing I was happiest about in the whole process was the fact that my friends liked it so much. And I repeat: most amazing and supportive lot EVER. Much love!

And that's how it went.

Pop Quiz on NZ!!

Megs:

Fwaaaaaah Wil, we are terrible bloggers. We visit this thing like every three months. :( Good thing tending to a blog isn't, like, looking after a cat. Hmmm I haven't seen or heard Tiger for a while either... (Just kidding, folks. I've never owned a cat). Anyway, here's to coming back to blogging with a bang!

The following's a quiz sponsored by GPSmyCity.com. They've made this awesome application that's something like a tour guide, except it can go in your pocket. How awesome is that?!

Readers that get the following questions correct will win three free city walk iPhone apps, to the cities of their choice. Woo!

Answers must be sent to quiz@gpsmycity.com.

Good luck!

1. What was the name of the horse that the Duke of Wellington rode at the battle of Waterloo?
a) Copenhagen
b) Paris
c) London

2. Wellington is the world's:
a) sunniest capital
b) most southern capital
c) most densely populated capital

3. Wellington has the most hectic ... in the South Pacific.
a) Airport
b) Port
c) Nightlife

4. Who are the biggest contributors to New Zealand's Tourism earnings:
a) the British
b) the Australians
c) the Americans

5. How many national anthems does New Zealand have?
a) 2
b) 3
c) 4

6. New Zealand is one of the world's leading exporters of dairy products. How many kilograms of butter does New Zealand produce per capita?
a) 50
b) 100
c) 200


7. Wellington has ranked … in the world in a quality of living survey held by Mercury in 2009:
a) 7th
b) 22nd
c) 12th

8.Wellington became the capital of New Zealand in:
a) 1905
b) 1865
c) 1795

9. Name the oldest building in Wellington. It was built in 1858.
a) the Colonial Cottage
b) the Futuna Chapel
c) the Opera House

10.One of the curious facts about Wellington is that it has more … per capita than New York.
a) pubs
b) shops
c) cafes

Answer and be in to win these apps!! They beat ordinary maps any day.
Remember to send your answers to quiz@gpsmycity.com.

Yay!
Will update on the fairly awesome-so-far semester in a following post :)

Relearning the days of the Week

Megs:

Wow, you're being really productive this summer. Yay, Work Ethic!! It's no wonder you got top student in, like, 75% (3/4) papers for Part II Pharm!!!

Just had to blurt that out to the universe :D *clapclapclap*

Since my holiday just consists of wandering around and eating, repeatedly, I'll just post about something frivolous that I came up with two days ago.

Once, quite a while back, I watched this TV game show in Taiwan where there featured a little boy who, upon given any date of any given year, could tell you what day of the week it was. And everybody said Wow! and OMG and all that sort of thing, and wondered how the hell he managed to memorise all the dates in the history of time, and their days.

I like scrolling through the calendar on my phone. In fact I love holding the the Up, or Down button and watching the weeks fly past, forward into 2014 or back to 2006, for no particular reason. There's something beautiful about time. No, scrap it, there is everything beautiful about time. I love Time traveler's themes, as found in Chrono Trigger, and the Time Traveler's Wife, etc etc. I think History is ugly and macabre, and grand and beautiful. I like marvelling at the fact that I've only been alive for 7522 days, and, hopefully, counting.

(Note: this is a pretty fun website. I came across it when I was trying to figure out the age difference between myself and someone I had a crush on a while ago. Not that it was a big difference, I was just curious, and anyway shut up:

Calculating the Duration between Two Dates)

ANYWAY, I started this blog post to announce that I worked out how the freaky talented kid boy did it. At the time I just thought it was because he was seriously smart, and maybe autistic. It actually doesn't require you to memorise all the dates to the days of the week there have ever been.

What you do is:

1. Work out what the first day of the year was (e.g, 1st of Jan 2011 this year was a Saturday).

2. Memorise this sequence: 1, 5, 5, 2, 7, 4, 2, 6, 3, 5, 3, 1.
This is the sequence of Dates in all the months (January, Febuary, March, etc) on which the first Saturday will land on. For example, the first Saturday of May will land on the 7th this year.

3. Then you can figure out all the Saturdays of the given week, by just adding 7 onto the given date in Step 2. (Ergo: Saturdays in Feb will land on the 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th.)

4. Then you can work out whatever the day of the week a given date is, by just counting from the closest Saturday.

Note that the sequence in #2 is also different, for every Leap Year. Uh... I'll memorise that later. Actually you can just subtract 1 for all the months after Feburary.

This is handy, if, say, you want to plan a party on a specific day but don't have a calendar nearby. You could use your phone, I guess. Note: I can't tell you what the day it was on, like, the 5th of August 1345. I have to know the date of 1/1/1345 to do that. But it doesn't matter. All of this is frivolous. You can probably whip out your phone and find the calendar app in the time it takes for me to process Step 2, but what the hey. It's entertaining.

Your birthday, incidentally, lands on a Monday this year. :D

Summer Studentship 2010/2011 Update #2

Wil:

Hey Megs. I guess it's time for another update...

Well, it has been 7 weeks into my project and I have yet to do the interviews. I'm starting them next week on Monday. I'm now a bit concerned that I only have 3 weeks to finish the large majority of my project which will involve transcribing and analysing my interviews, then forming a discussion and conclusion.

So for the past 7 weeks I've been doing a myriad of tasks. One of the most significant activities was writing up my report. So far I've pretty much prepared a literature review on selected topics on rural health. That has taken me a long time. Before Christmas I sent my supervisors a draft copy. They've provided me feedback and have told me to "bulk it up" some more, which I'm currently trying to do. I predict that my report is going to be some 35 pages long upon completion. Although somewhat short of my supervisors expectation of 50-60 pages, at the moment I just want my report to be done!

I've decided that I'm a very slow reader. I spend a lot of time reading over journal articles and I feel like it's taking an unhealthy amount of time for me just to get through one article. Tell me your secrets, Meg! I know you're a very efficient reader.

Apart from writing my report, I've been doing all sorts of things which are helping me to build my knowledge about rural pharmacy and pharmacy in general. I think one of the things I enjoy most about this studentship is that I've been given so many opportunities to do stuff that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

My supervisors sent me on a little 2 day trip to Milton to work at Milton pharmacy, a country pharmacy. Its purpose was for me to experience rural pharmacy for a while. To be honest, it wasn't too different from the pharmacy that I worked at in Auckland except maybe for a few minor aspects.

I also got to spend a couple of days with the pharmacy department in Dunedin hospital. I got to following a pharmacist around as she did her rounds at the wards. There, I was looking at some outpatient processes which many rural individuals experience such as take-home antibiotics and other IV infusion medications. I spoke to a patient who lived in a rural town and the issues she had with the postal service who deliver the medications to her house. It's those sort of things that impact on the daily health experiences of rural communities.
My hospital visits were really enjoyable. I would love to work in a hospital one day.

Last week we had highschool students spend a couple of days in the pharmacy school for the Hands on Science programme. It's similar to the Rotary National Science and Technology Forum that I attended in Auckland but this one is organised by Otago Uni.
On day 3, they had a molecular modelling computer lab session organised, but the lecturer who had planned to run it was absent that day. So another lecturer pulled together a PhD student, a technician and me to collectively take over lab session. So for about an hour, I was a lab supervisor to about 12 or so highschool kids who just finished Form 6. I really enjoyed it. I tried to put the modelling that they were doing into a pharmaceutical context and relay that back to what they had learned in Form 6 and what they will learn in Form 7, since it was only about 3 or so years ago since I did all of that.

So those are some of the fun experiences i've had during this summer. As a summer student, we also get invited to staff functions like special lunches and stuff. Yay for free food! (Although sitting around with all your lecturers is sort of awkward..)

Next week I'll be visiting Roxburgh and Lawrence to interview a pharmacist and depot operator. Hope that all goes well.


Well, it looks like both our summers have been quite eventful so far. But yours is more on an international scale! I hope you're still having fun in Taiwan. Bring me back lots of presents :P

To those with an opinion

Wil:

I've just found this wonderfully amazing video on the internet titled, "Skewed views of science":



Essentially, it explains why and how one would require an open mind when deciding to agree or disagree with a scientific claim. It also goes into what the right (and the wrong) way is in going about challenging a current scientific belief.

While it would probably be most sensible to keep my promotion of this video completely neutral, I cannot resist the urge to challenge those who outright doubt vaccines, evolution, the big bang theory (and other secular ideas) to watch this video and question the source (and credibility) of their disagreement.

Points from the video that I like:
(1) Your own personal intuition or bias does NOT form a valid rebuttal;
(2) You are not allowed to impose your own intellectual limitations upon others;
(3) Guilt and fear do not invalidate scientific discovery or alter facts;
(4) Think carefully about the technology and medical treatments you take for granted that wouldn't exist without the science you readily attack;
(5) Discouraging people from studying science or questioning their beliefs is nothing more than social control;
(6) You can turn non-fact into fact (or the other way) by scaring people.

This video is a refreshing change from all the crazy (and plainly ignorant) things "the public" (e.g. lay people and the uneducated) yap on about in newspapers, talk-back radio and on the internet whenever they feel confronted or at edge by science.

Show me those peer-reviewed journal articles!