Status

Exams are killing me rn...

Vylet Pony released a new album! Monarch of Monsters. Check it out on bandcamp. I'm listening to it for the first time right now.

The album released with an accompanying novella which contains the story. ngl i was too impatient to read before listening to the album.

I've been thinking, and probably the thing that scares me the most is failure. It would explain a lot. Although i seem to be good at finding it.

Procrastinating by trying to learn javascript. After not really programming that much for these two semesters other than writing a python script here and there so it took a bit for me to get used to it (I haven't had to do major statistics or data stuff recently, and what i've had to do was with GraphPad Prism or excel). After staring at MDN web docs and looking at a few stackoverflow questions i wrote some code to update the sorting buttons on my blog page. I was extra bored today so i decided that it would be a good idea to try out typescript after barely getting started with javascript because type annotations in python help my brain follow the code better. It seems like an interesting enough thing to keep me occupied through the break anyway, because i've been meaning to learn some.

Hmmm. Maybe i should finally get around to seriously learning Julia too.

Assessments are finally done. Only exams left.

Finally handed in two massive group assessments on friday. One massive report and another relatively smaller one... and wow does it feel so much better. Just have a paper to write and the semester is finally over with just exams to go.

In more positive news, finally got webfishing yesterday! I'm having a lot of fun just relaxing. I don't really play games like this, but I think I should start.

It kinda gives me similar vibes to sitting in a runescape lobby while skilling and just talking to people, except its full of real people and there aren't any bots. Plus everyone is cool and gay (more so than osrs already is).

I haven't been playing games recently, partly because i've been super busy with classwork, but also because i've been super stressed out and overwhelmed. Turns out i've been missing out on this genre of games. I'm way too drained normally to focus on even a generally more casual shooter like tf2 or even a sandbox like terraria, so to be able to shut off my brain on something like this is nice.

Stimulates my brain enough to not have it wander off and become anxious, but just enough to not be overstimulated. Idk it's kinda hard to explain.

Also, we had a bit of fun for the final lab of my microbiology this sem, and we got the opportunity to make some agar art using various E. coli cultures expressing different chromoproteins.

We just plated these cultures onto agar to hopefully draw something nice looking. It's harder than it looks! Although I really should be better at using an inoculation loop by now.

Anyway, here's my plate. I tried to draw a simple cat. It didn't come out the best because some bits were thicker than I would have liked because I got too much broth on the loop, but it still looks cute.

Why did there have to be a quiz during the last week when everything is due? (´~`)

Coincidentally, my caffeine intake has increased to unprecedented levels.

Also, watched Patricia Taxxon talk about a specific peice of furry art by riffygriff for two and a half minutes, and it's peak content.

Tbh, everything she said is 100% correct. I don't really think about these things bc everything on social media moves so fast, but I remembered why I enjoyed learning English so much in high school, because sitting down and thinking about a peice of art and the world for a while is really nice (also I had great teachers in high school, including in English; my first senior English teacher was really inspiring despite having him for a short while before he retired). I just don't get a chance to relax much without a deadline looming over my head and making me too anxious to do anything.

I'm going insane.

I joined furryring! My first webring!

This is just my useless personal site, but I want to do some more interesting things when I get some free time though. Not necessarily furry-related as I'm not an artist, but some actually interesting stuff about academic things maybe so there's a reason to visit my site besides my incessant rambling and complaining.

I will of course continue to share whatever artist I'm currently obsessed with. It keeps me sane.

Also, follow Chise, [bsky] a molecular biologist who helped develop the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine! She's really cool. Kind of an inspiration. She posts a lot about new interesting med sci publications.

End of semester approaching. Sanity wearing thin.

Classes ending, with just assessments and exams remaining.

Did my last lab for the year today. On one hand I'm so tired and want the semester to end, but the labs for that unit were really fun and were the one thing keeping me from going insane.

So it's just the worst parts of uni remaining (´~`).

Reading goofy trope filled bl manga to turn my brain off is keeping me sane right now. I need an injection of whimsy in my veins right now uni is killing me.

How the hell do i stop my mac from making .DS_store files every time i open a folder in finder. It's completely useless to me. It just clutters up everything, especially when i need to make archives and send it to people, or transfer stuff to my windows pc. There is just a bunch of useless junk in the archive. Plus, its just another line to add into the gitignore.

It may not seem it but I'm a big fan of Tom Scott and the Technical Difficulties. I've probably watched the entirety of Citation Needed and Two of These People Are Lying multiple times at this point, along with their more recent We've been on Adventures, so I was super excited this morning when they released the first episode of what looks like a new series Reverse Trivia!

Their shows are really good fun to watch, even audio only, so next time you're on your commute, sitting on a train or bus, I do recommend watching them. You'll get some good laughs and learn some trivia on the way too!

Back with sharing animations:

This cute animation of a caramelldansen remix.

And this music video to a frums song on the command line made by a python program. I really love when people make music videosusing things that you wouldn't normally make them with. Reminds me of the ANTONYMPH music video on a browser (web).

Ended up procrastinating by writing a python script i'm probably never going to use. It's fun until you realise that you actually have work you need to do.

Found an internet radio station that plays halley labs tracks randomly! It's fun to listen to and try to identify the tracks. Also a coo, way to find new songs because em's discography is so massive.

I'm kinda surprised how much i've listened to their music, but also how much there's left to listen to.

Been going on a major nostalgia trip after youtube decided to show me furry animation memes and amvs again. I was really into animation memes as a kid and watched a bunch of people in the community. It was how i got sucked into the furry fandom in the first place lol. I didn't know what the furry community was back then, and only later found out that there was an entire group of people into the same cute animal people i liked.

I watched some released recently and holy shit are they good. These two were some that really stood out to me: an amv, this paper stop motion antimation, and this meme that had really cool animation. This prompted me to search up some of the animators i remember really liking like wolfychu, muzy frile, powdersoft, etc.

Some other ones that i liked in no particular order:

• LOADSAMONEY!!!!
• This floppy ears meme which was a really popular one thats kinda nostalgic lol
• I liked the animation on this one
• This one is really cool
• This one too
• I think this one was the first animation i saw in a long time lol. Cute character, nice song too.
• I love this little guy
• Humans, but the animation was too good for me not to add in this list.
• no iphone D: and DOKTORSPIELE!!
• this song :sob:
• Really liked this meme. This artist has a bunch of great ones. They also have a really cool animation of meet the scout but with rainbow dash. They also make music!

This list got out of hand because there are too many i liked to not include. idk i really love these animations they're like crack for my brain with the amount of dopamine it releases.

Also, completely unrelated, but here's a baking channel run by an anthro dog!

Feeling nervous (when am i not).

Went to the supervisor meeting event yesterday. Kinda freaked out. I was pacing around the room for the first 40 minutes all wide eyed and visibly nervous. I walked up to one of the professors whose lectures I've attended and tried to start a conversation but I ended up stumbling over my words. Eventually built up some courage and went around and talked to a few people. There were a lot of interesting projects there, although not everyone I wanted to speak to was there. I've got to email some of the people there and others I haven't gotten the chance to meet yet and talk to them more. Hopefully they like me.

I'm not very good with emails so I've got to work up the courage and send them out.

About to go meet some honours project supervisors. Excited but anxious. There's some cool people there with super interesting projects. Every professor i've met in my school has been super nice but i'm still nervous. I know i get nervous about everything, but i'll still find a way even if everyone around me is nice and pleasant lol.

Doing a psych-related group project and stumbled upon a psychoanalysis paper. Never been more confused reading something in my life. The combination of psychology and philosophy adds so much to the sheer confusion, along to the jargon i only have gotten vaguely exposed to.

The most i can take is listening to Slavoj Žižek because the material is balanced out with his sheer ability to entertain.

After spending a few fridays this sem in the microbiology labs all day my brain feels exhausted. It's fun, but a lot more work than i'm used to doing in undergrad labs. This is still just a taste of what actual research work is like i guess. And also a skill issue on my part probably.

The microbiology units, especially from this particular professor tend to have really well designed practical components and tend to be more interesting and challenging which i like. Where other units tend to be more chill, although some to the point they become kinda boring.

Just did a pathology quiz and i feel like i did pretty good. Although every time i feel like i did well on an assessment i tend to end up doing worse than when i felt like i failed.

I heard somewhere that you feel like you do badly when you do well on an exam because you didn't feel like you got all the information you know down on the page, while you actually did meet the criteria for a good mark; your knowledge ended up exceeding the what was required for the exam yet you feel so you failed to convey it all. This would also explain feeling good after performing badly, because you are naive to the information you should have written, so you felt like you conveyed all the information you knew.

Made kombucha this semester as a bit of a fun microbiology practical and a way to study all the biology that entails (along with the human microbiome). The biology is fun and all but we had to sample it and my batch tasted terrible and turned out extremely acidic with the acetic acid taste overpowering everything (i didn't like kombucha in the first place either ngl). We used lipton tea for the standardised batch along with a few starter cultures and table sugar. We also made another batch with our own ingredients along with the standardised one and a few of them actually tasted alright (surprisingly good considering i don't like kombucha).

I ran out of my normal tea and had some lipton tea bags around the house so i had some, but the taste reminded me of my terrible kombucha batch. I immediately tasted vinegar in my mouth and had to stop drinking.

I've been traumatised lol.

Hopefully this doesn't ruin my tea enjoyment, although luckily i think this is just lipton which i didn't really drink anyway so i'm safe for now.

Practical was still fun tho, and i'm looking forward to identifying the bacteria and fungi.

I've added code highlighting!

I didn't want to use javascript to keep the site light and accessible so i used pygments to generate the html and the catppuccin python package which provides a pygments style.

Here is a hello world example:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    printf("Hello, World!\n");

    return 0;
}

So if i ever need to include code, i have a way now. I've used pygments before to list code in a little web page for a data science assignment but i never really bothered to add it here.

Assessments are finally calming down during this bit of the semester. I can finally catch up on lectures.

Also, i've procrastinated by writing a little python script to insert in a template for a new status post in this document so i don't have to type it out each time. There's probably an easier way to do this but i don't care.

Looking to apply for honours. The different schools at my uni are hosting some honours project showcases soon where a bunch of professors are showing off some honours projects and posters of previous projects. Looking forward to find a supervisor so i can apply and do my honours next year. The events are coming up soon so i'm quite excited :), although still quite nervous bc i'm not used to just straight up approaching people like that but hopefully my desire to actually find a project will grant me enough confidence on the day lol.

There's a bunch that look super interesting, like a few on the pathogenesis of a specific infectious disease and some about antibiotic resistant Acinetobacter baumannii. I wanted to get into research in a while but the closer i get to these opportunities at the end of undergrad i realise it's actually really exciting. I've had fun with more research-style assignments with various units but the prospect of getting into the lab and actually working on a full project sounds fun.

For once i'm excited about next year. I hope i get in.

Been listening to more of em's music and checking out/going back to more aliases. Truxton's music is so fun. Provides some of the goofiness i so desperately need rn. Also The Quick Brown Fox, Mayhem, and HHSU are really good at keeping me awake and able to keep writing a report until like 4 in the morning. Nerve's Ending goes incredibly hard.

P.S. Play TIME TRIPPER if you haven't already holy shit. I watched ShallowVA's playthough of it recently and it reminded me how cool it is. Also check out ShallowVA he makes cool and funny videos :).

Found a Parafilm M fan account on twitter. Finally found another person who appreciates parafilm as much as i do.

Doing another assignment last minute.

This is so much fun.

Canva should not exist. Just use powerpoint or google slides. It's so much easier and actually has features rather than having everything but basic shit be paywalled. We already have an office 360 subscription through the uni. use it????

I wanted my text to not look weirdly spaced so i wanted to increase paragraph spacing and that doesn't exist? it doesn't have basic text formatting but has built in generative ai that you can't get rid of.

Why does powerpoint but worse need to be a product that exists.

I'm going to scream.

I have like three assignments due this week and i've been procrastinating them :/. I don't know how i'm gonna survive this. I mean i've done it before but it's really not fun.

Also just embarrassed myself in a group meeting after doing some work last minute last night. Procrastinating on my own work is fine but it's really not cool to do it on group tasks. I told myself this but then ended up doing it anyway. idk why tf i can't just concentrate on shit like a normal person.

My train was delayed due to a person on the tracks. They were fine. Hoping it was something inconspicuous like a graffiti-ist (?).

i've been listening to more Vylet Pony. I love i've still got something to teach you i've listened to it so much over the last few days along with the entire album "can opener’s notebook: fish whisperer".

i think i'm a new fan.

I mention a lot on this page how much i like halley labs/em. So, i was going through their site again and saw their animals/characters page again and it reminded me how cool it was. It makes me want to design a cool page around a certain topic like that in a kind of collage style. I'm really not that good at designing things like that, nor do i have a topic in mind to do it on, but it would be cool to learn how to do it.

This is sort of my main creative outlet right now past writing reports at uni and obsessing over making them look good using LaTeX and making fancy graphs using PGF/TikZ, R, or matplotlib/seaborn (nerd shit like that).

Speaking of, i do wanna learn how to draw because (being in the furry fandom) i see so many people make really fucking cool art, but i'm afraid i would be confined to the mspaint fanart side to the spectrum, which has its own charm.

Anyway, that page reminded me of their old page design (web archive link) which i thought was really cool. Seeing it sort of reminded me how cool i thought the idea of a personal web page was and got me inspired to make my own even though i had (still don't) anything particularly interesting to put on it. I ended up copying the aesthetic lol, which was how it looked before this update.

Got one hour of sleep. Feel dead. Forgot a presentation i had to give this morning and ended up making the entire thing past midnight again.

I've fallen asleep at like 2 of this professor's lectures at this point. He's definitely noticed at this point.

Found a really fucking cool ANTONYMPH music video made entirely in the browser using javascript and a super creative use of popup windows made by lyra.horse. Honestly the coolest shit i've seen in months.

If you can't run it in your browser, or you're on mobile, check out their youtube video recording of the animation.

Of course, this is a music video of Vylet Pony's great song and music video ANTONYMPH.

Sometimes i look in the mirror and don't recognise myself. And because it feels like a stranger is looking back at me i get scared. It feels the strongest when looking at my face.

I wonder what this is called. I hate it when this happens.

It feels like i'm inhabiting someone else's body. Like my brain doesn't belong in the body i have. It's like i'm wearing a suit.

Some days i feel normal. Some days the feeling is extremely vivid and genuinely scary. Looking at my body is very uncanny, not even in a mirror, it could just be my arms or hands. Most of the time it's in the back of my mind and i try not to think about it when looking at myself.

idk, maybe it's because i look quite masculine, although i've never had a reference otherwise. At this point it feels kind of normal to feel this way. ALthough i tend to hate my body less, it still doesn't feel 'normal', which is why it feels strange to not feel anything negative when looking at myself.

Anyway, rant over... for now. I made this place to post random shit that crosses my mind but it feels weird to use it for rants like this. Sorry, about that. I don't really know where to put this tho.

I learnt about Vylet Pony from her popular track ANTONYMPH and immediately fell in love. I got recommended i've still got something to teach you and reminded just how cool her music can be.

ANTONYMPH kinda inspired me to make this site and do something creative for once and it's been really nice to have a creative outlet (not just for writing a stream of consciousness onto that like 5 people will ever read). Even if it's just for myself, because who cares, it makes me happier.

Anyway, have a listen to ANTONYMPH and i've still got something to teach you, they're really good, and check out the rest of her music too!

I know i'm gonna after this.

There's so much stuff to do. Uni somehow feels more busy than it ever has. Especially with applying to other courses. How does everyone around me cope.

How are people excited to graduate? Thinking about the future is too stressful, scary. Things feel more simple here, even if it's already stressful. At least I know what to do. I only just feel kinda settled in (which is a bit weird to say as a third year) after finding some cool people to hang out with and i don't really want to let that go yet.

It's hard to imagine the future. Kind of feels like you're looking at it as an outside observer. You're never in it yourself. I never thought i would be around this long anyways.

:/

It's week 5 of the semester, and there's only about 8 students still attending lectures. That's 3rd year for you i guess.

For some reason the classes with the biggest turnout are from the smallest units (i really overestimated the amount of microbiology majors in my cohort).

I was browsing sharpiepaws' site and saw their status page. I was thinking of making something i could chuck my random thoughts onto that's not as formal as a blog because i'm not really comfortable using social media and got inspired, so I threw this together! (Check out their mixes!)

Anyway, feeling kinda tired now. Overwhelmed from uni. Procrastinating by doing this.