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ChachaBingBing Report | 06/15/2010 4:52 pm

I haven't logged on in ages haha, Gaia hasn't changed all that much. razz How are yous?

Shaolan Lu Report | 10/11/2009 9:42 am

Happy (early) birthday, kris! Got anything special planned?

TinyRudeGirl Report | 10/07/2009 1:44 pm

Diaper TWIN!

I love you :3

ChachaBingBing Report | 08/03/2009 10:47 pm

>:3 *noms on*

Naniahiahi Report | 06/29/2009 1:39 pm

You're welcome. Thank you. Have a great summer too.

Shaolan Lu Report | 05/29/2009 4:38 pm

Okay, thanks. I'm back home in Marin County right now unpacking and trying to deal with schedule problems at work. On the contrary, I saw "Star Trek" on the night before opening day and on opening day. I do some volunteering at a bioengineering laboratory on campus where the professor and most of the graduate students are Trekkies, so the Professor decided to take us all to San Francisco to see the movie on the giant IMAX screen in the Metreon entertainment mall, and the crowd there behaved like your LOTR crowd did.

Shaolan Lu Report | 05/27/2009 9:52 pm

Well, I have the entire original series on my computer, as well as the animated series.  I am an expert in all sorts of Star Trek trivia, particularly stuff that relates to timeline issues or uniform history or technology or other tidbits about the entire fictional world.  So I did know a lot about the original characters and their lives, enough to catch all the references they threw.  The writers were just geniuses.  They are the same writers who worked on Lost, Alias, Fringe, Mission: Impossible 3, Transformers, and Transformers 2.  They're both avid Star Trek fans, and they read a lot of the novels and comics, even though the Star Trek expanded universe isn't considered canon the way the Star Wars one is.  That's where we got information such as McCoy being divorced and a graduate of Ole Miss, and Uhura's first name being Nyota.  They FINALLY made Uhura's first name canon!







However, I do agree with you about the story needing to focus on the characters.  I think that's the magic of this Star Trek movie.  That's why it worked, and why it could draw everyone in.  You see, a long time ago, Gene Roddenberry developed a philosophy that the best science fiction worked by using the science fiction as a lens through which one could tell stories about the world - about the real world and what's going on in the present and universal human themes.  The original Star Trek was so popular because, in a world dominated by utterly stupid science fiction shows like "Land of the Lost," "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," or that hideous space sitcom "Lost in Space," "Star Trek" was "smart" science fiction - sci-fi with a punch.  Gene dared to tackle the issues nobody wanted to talk about: bigotry, racism, war, corruption, propaganda, economic crisis, sexism, religious fundamentalism, you name it, he talked about it.  And above all, he proposed a dream of humanity's future, a world in which we've finally put our issues aside and realized that we're more alike than not.  So even while he pointed out all of our silly problems, he gave us hope that we could overcome them and gave us a goal to shoot for.  That, more than any piece of technology his show inspired or predicted (and there are a lot.  Our folks at UC Berkeley just invented a cloaking device, for example), was the key to people liking Star Trek back then.  But Trek has become so big, so convoluted, and so complicated that not only do people feel too scared to get into it because there's so much to learn from 43 years of history and rabid fandom, but it's as if somewhere along the way, the showrunners lost Gene's message - that in the end, it's all about people.







Zachary Quinto's acting was so good that I swear, I hope he gets an award for this.  Do you have any idea how lucky he is to get this role?  Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner signed contracts giving them some authority over any recasting of their classic roles.  Zachary had no idea he was in the running to play Spock until a friend told him that people were debating who should play Spock in the new Star Trek movie and his name popped up on the list.  J.J. wasn't too convinced after his first audition, but Leonard watched his audition tapes and called J.J. Abrams to tell him that this was the guy he wanted to play the young Spock.  J.J. then saw a second audition and agreed.  Zachary says that playing Spock was an absolute dream come true for him, because he had always considered the character amazing because of his powerful internal struggle and how much he's had to fight to maintain the balance between two two sides of his heritage, and that the character was always trying to find out how to evolve in a responsible and respectful way.  He and Leonard Nimoy became great friends - you could probably say that Zachary is Leonard's Padawan learner now.







When Quinto auditioned, he wore a blue shirt and flattened down his hair to feel more like Mr. Spock.  Once he got the role, he shaved his eyebrows off, bound his fingers with

Shaolan Lu Report | 05/27/2009 5:03 pm

It is awful, but it's totally in character for my roommate.  I think that being a rich white boy and the son of two doctors spoiled him.  He's the kind of person who makes pretenses about being intelligent, and talks big, but tends to not follow through when you have to walk the walk, which is why he's now on withdrawal from the university and I made it out on time.  We were supposed to graduate one right after the other, as he was accepted as a spring admit.  And he didn't even spend the year he had on withdrawal really studying or trying to do something that would convince the faculty that he would be ready to resume work the following Fall.  He just spent the whole year sitting around watching TV, inviting guests over (I *HATE* guests, especially when I'm working), playing video games, making a mess of the apartment and reading bad fanfiction.  He's not a bad person, but he's irresponsible and undisciplined, and I'm starting to believe he's one of those people who just tends to think he's entitled to have things go his way.  So maybe fleeing back to San Diego while I fought my way back to the top and made it was a good thing for him... but he's so egotistical, so sure that he can do no wrong, that I doubt he'll ever learn.  Oh, well.  I still wish him the best.







As for Berkeley being a prestigious school... well, we are a prestigious school because only the strongest and smartest - or at least the most diligent, ambitious, and hardest-working - survive.  I have friends doing the same major as I'm doing in other schools and they have never had to pass their tests on curves.  Here at Berkeley, if you are a science, engineering, or sometimes math or business student, you're doomed to almost always pass your tests on curves unless you're either an absolute genius or someone who is totally devoted to academics and is willing to completely give up hobbies and social interaction for grades and extracurricular major-related stuff.  I know I'm not that disciplined or mechanical.  I need to have some time out to enjoy myself.







Besides... MCB isn't a major I learn easily.  If you looked at my grades, you'd probably think I was more cut out to be a humanities major or someone majoring in the social sciences.  If I were, say, an English or History major I would probably be graduating summa c** laude.  But the fact is that although I learn those things quickly and can easily B/S a paper on the night before it's due and still ace it, it's not what I feel like I was meant to do, and science/bioengineering is.  The truth is that many years ago, when I first became a Star Trek fan, I didn't just see a TV show.  I saw a dream - a vision of who and where we could be in two or three hundred years.  A dream that, to this day, I still wholeheartedly believe in.  I honestly think that Star Trek is mankind's destiny, and I swore that I would do everything in my power to bring our world closer to Gene Roddenberry's vision.  THAT is why I never gave up my major, no matter how many classes I failed and had to retake, no matter how many setbacks I received, how many sleepless nights I had to endure, or how many summers I gave up.  THAT is why I'm so sure that the path that I've chosen is the right one for me.







And speaking of Star Trek, I thought I'd leave you with a very well done set of computer-generated plan images of the newly redesigned U.S.S. [i]Enterprise[/i] NCC-1701 from J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie.  It's done by a German fan and graphic artist named Tobias Richter, who works for The Light Works.  The movie itself was absolutely incredible.  I'm surprised that it single-handedly revived the whole franchise, and did what the old people who ran Trek couldn't do for six years.  It made Star Trek popular again all over the world - everyone's talking about it, all the news shows headlined it, the critics loved it, and the writers, director, and actors became superstars because of it.  You know, Star Trek's situation was a lot like my academ

Shaolan Lu Report | 05/27/2009 3:03 pm

I'm moving home for a year. I'm going to work at the local grocery store while commuting back to Berkeley every few days to keep volunteering at the bioengineering lab. I'll also take the GRE's and apply for graduate school. I expect to be getting ready to move to graduate school this time, next year.



The furniture moving guys just came in and took all the stuff I wanted to get rid of, which is great. My roommate did something extremely irresponsible and selfish and suddenly cut and ran for San Diego a few days before my dreaded physiology final - likely the hardest final I've ever taken here. He left all of his junk and his furniture behind for me to deal with. I had to disassemble all of that junk, which took forever, and clean up the pigsty he left behind, and it cut out a lot of the time I was going to use to study for physiology. I'm even doing more cleaning right now, on my 22nd birthday. I just don't get a break. I don't hate him, but he's often naive and irresponsible and this is one time when I didn't like being treated so rudely.



I hope you will never know the anxiety of walking on the stage at graduation without even knowing if you had passed all of your classes, because I did. My MCB department graduation was just one day after that fearsome physiology final, so I didn't even truly feel satisfied when I was celebrating with my friends and walking the stage. I kept fearing that I had failed MCB 136 for the second and final time. I was still on a form of probation this semester. The faculty told me in no uncertain terms that I could either pass all my classes, wipe the F I got last year from my record, and graduate with the rest of my class, or fail again and not only fail to graduate, but face expulsion from my major. To be honest, after walking with the rest of my class, having my granny fly all the way from China to see me graduate, being part of the first general Commencement Convocation at Berkeley to allow the seniors to walk the stage, and given the fact that most of my financial aid only lasted 4 years, I don't know what I would have done had I not passed the class. I'm just glad it didn't turn out that way.



So my birthday present ended up being getting my grades - but also my peace of mind and self-confidence - back. I can finally put these last four agonizing years behind me and truly take pride in earning the title of Berkeley Alumnus. Because of how hard my major is, most of the friends who started out MCB with me didn't make it through. They dropped the major the moment they failed organic chemistry the first time. And so, I feel that the people who did graduate with me are real survivors and should be proud of what they did, especially since most of us MCB majors don't make it out in the traditional 4 years.

Shaolan Lu Report | 05/27/2009 10:40 am

Hi Kristasia! I haven't talked to you in a while. Thanks so much for remembering me and sending me that adorable Kinzie plushie! I'm going to spend my 22nd birthday alone packing up my apartment, so I really appreciate that.