Lilamaru の Journal

Relaxing Song

lilamaru — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 03:02:15 GMT

This is one of the ending themes from "Natsume's Book of Friends" (Natsume Yuujinchou).

Happy Halloween!

lilamaru — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:59:38 GMT

Happy Halloween people!

Scientists, Your Gender Bias Is Showing

lilamaru — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 23:45:45 GMT

[link]

That’s the conclusion of a new study in PNAS by Corinne Moss-Racusin and collaborators at Yale. (Hat tip Dan Vergano.) To test scientist’s reactions to men and women with precisely equal qualifications, the researchers did a randomized double-blind study in which academic scientists were given application materials from a student applying for a lab manager position. The substance of the applications were all identical, but sometimes a male name was attached, and sometimes a female name.

Results: female applicants were rated lower than men on the measured scales of competence, hireability, and mentoring (whether the scientist would be willing to mentor this student). Both male and female scientists rated the female applicants lower.

I wish I was surprised but this, but I'm not. In my own grad school experience, I encountered male peers (and even a couple professors) who made a point to try to make me feel inferior. One that stands out most was a professor who's class I was wanting to use in my research sample. I came to talk to him about it and the first thing he said was that my study was stupid and doesn't prove anything. Excuse me? I didn't come here to ask if you liked my research topic. I just want to survey students in this area of coursework. As if his first comment wasn't enough, he made a point to be difficult throughout the entire research process.

Happy Halloween!

lilamaru — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:07:07 GMT

Out with the old, in with the new!

Honeymoon Stories: Flora and Fauna

lilamaru — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:13:25 GMT

So we saw a lot of unfamiliar plants and animals while we were out and about in Hawaii, so here's some of them (I'm glad I figured out the birds!):

Animals

Common Myna - These things were everywhere. For every 10 birds we saw, usually at least 5 were one of these.
Red-crested Cardinal - We didn't see so many of these, but they are very pretty. The ones we saw were feeding their big babies.
Zebra Dove - These guys were the quiet non-confrontational ones.
Grey Francolin - We only saw these a few times overall. They are pretty big and didn't seem to like flying really. They lived in the flowering bushes near our room.
Nēnē (Hawaiian Goose) - We saw a big baby one near the summit of Haleakalā. So cute~
Small Asian Mongoose - We saw one running away when we were at the black sand beaches. It looks like a ferret.
House Sparrow - Not that uncommon here at home, but they were everywhere. They are frequent guests at the restaurants, waiting for scraps.

Plants

Red Ginger - Not terribly common. They were on the wetter parts of the island.
Silversword - They are pretty rare. We only saw them at the top of the volcano.
Plumeria - These were trees with dark green leaves and bunches of white flowers. Most of the ones we saw were white/yellow, but we did find one pink/yellow. And yes, the flower petals feel and look a little like foam.
Bougainvillea - These were kind of like large poinsettia-like shrubs. The purple "petals" were the leaves nearest the flower.
Heliconia - I got a stem of this from the flower lady on our tour. The ends of the petals are really pointy.
Adenium - We saw this near the Banyan tree as well. :)
Banyan Tree - We saw the same one as mentioned in the link. Roots that look like vines grow down from the branches to establish new trunks. But all of the trunks are all connected together.

Honeymoon Stories: Trip to summit of Haleakalā

lilamaru — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 03:02:28 GMT

I'm not going to load this post with facts on Haleakalā, but there are just a few things I want to share. The quick overview though: its the dormant volcano that makes up the bulk of Maui. It is 10,023 ft above sea level (a.k.a. reaches above the clouds).

First off, we drove to the top of the volcano ourselves (unlike the trip to Hana). Our little rental car did just fine (both on the way up and on the way down). The road has lots of twists and turns in it, but the scenery is just amazing. And it changes based on the different elevations.

You start off in the valley, where the sugar cane fields are. (The temp was about 80°F). As you go farther up, more and more trees start appearing until you finally reach the cloud forest, where the cloud levels usually are. It looks like a regular forest that you might see anywhere else, except for there are clouds/fog everywhere. Once you break through this layer, you can see over the tops of the clouds like an airplane. (The temp was about 70°F).

The trees are more of the evergreen types at this level, transitioning into scrubby underbrush and grasses. There are cattle ranches at this level even! Around here is where the National Park entrance is (and you pay $10 to keep going). As we went up the snaky road upwards, the terrain changed to large rocks and desert-like vegetation. Eventually, it just looks like you are on Mars with large red rocks everywhere. At the top, it is surprisingly mostly sand of different colors. It almost looks like someone painted it as a picture. (The temp here around the car registered at 58°F. We checked with the park service afterwards and they reported a 44°F wind chill at that time.)

And yes, on the way down there were frequent reminders to "use low gear to avoid brake failure." A fun fact from Wikipedia as well:

Tour operators used to run bike rides down the entire 27 miles from the summit, but in 2007 the National Park Service suspended all commercial bicycle activity within the park boundaries, following multiple fatal accidents.

Pictures will be added later, I'm too tired to size them down right now.

Finished main part of cosplay~

lilamaru — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 01:12:04 GMT

The hardest part of my cosplay is now done! Only took... 2 months. Now to finish the others parts really fast. :O

Edited 5/7/2011: Apparently this was not a public entry. So now it is. Carry on.

Writer's Block: Give me a sign

lilamaru — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:13:19 GMT

Nothing changed...

"This story [of changed zodiac signs] is born periodically as if someone has discovered some truth. It's not news," said Jeff Jawer, astrologer with Tarot.com.

For anyone who has ever taught. Or even been in school.

lilamaru — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:20:35 GMT

I know I've had this very discussion with at least 3 students while I've taught.

Forget 2012. New "end of world" is May-October 2011

lilamaru — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:29:49 GMT

Harold Camping, an influential Christian radio broadcaster and president of Family Stations, Inc., says the end of the world will begin on May 21, 2011. The 89-year-old retired civil engineer bases his calculations on his studies of the Bible. According to him, the true believers will be taken to heaven on the May date, while everyone else remains on earth for period of torment, concluding with the end of time in October.

From here.

Further explanation:

On May 21st, 1988, God finished using the churches and congregations of the world. The Spirit of God left all churches and Satan, the man of sin, entered into the churches to rule at that point in time. The Bible teaches us that this awful period of judgment upon the churches would last for 23 years. A full 23 years (8400 days exactly) would be from May 21 st, 1988 until May 21st, 2011.

From here.

I thought the world was supposed to end 3 times or so already. Geez.

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable

lilamaru — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:27:09 GMT

The average number of close friends we say we have is dropping fast, down dramatically in just the last 20 years. Why?

http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html

Why I Don't Care About Success

lilamaru — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:13:17 GMT

I’ve been a success since Day 1, because even when I had zero readers, I was doing what I loved. Even when no one else would have called me a success (I really was a nobody then), I absolutely loved writing my posts, and though I don’t agree now with a lot of what I wrote back then (in 2007), I was happy.

Success isn’t about achieving something in the future, but about doing something right now that you love.

So doesn’t that mean I care about success? Well, sure, if you define success as whatever it is you care about, then of course you’re going to care about success. But then “success” really doesn’t have a meaning, does it? If it can mean anything, then it means nothing.

So forget about “success”, and just find joy, passion, love, awesome-ness right now, in this moment. *That* is a success you can achieve, without any self-help course, without any method. Just go out and do it.

http://zenhabits.net/anti-success/

This Man is a Genius

lilamaru — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:54:34 GMT

He wrote the songs of my childhood. Alan Menken on piano playing a medley of songs he composed for movies.

lol, "We love the hawks and we'll always love the hawks"

lilamaru — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:03:09 GMT

Fruits Basket wisdom: おにぎり

lilamaru — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:03:20 GMT

This is cute (from the manga):

If you think of someone's good qualities as the umeboshi (plum) in an onigiri (rice ball), it's as if their qualities are stuck to their back! People around the world are like onigiri. Everyone has a umeboshi with a different shape and color and flavor. But because it's stuck to their back, they might not be able to see their umeboshi. "There's nothing special about me. I'm just white rice."

That's not true.

Maybe... the reason people get jealous of each other is because they can see so clearly the umeboshi on other people's backs. I can see them too. I can see them perfectly. There's one on your back too...

Thoughts?

lilamaru — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:41:08 GMT

Found this on my computer today, I forgot I had saved it.