e pur si muove

I am seriously pooped from all the kankō (観光) that I’ve been
doing. There’s only so much green verdant goodness à la Kyoto that I can take. It’s just as well that I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.

So instead of trying to find things to see/view/do after 5, when practically all the tourist attractions close for the day, I’m going to hole up early in the hotel room and update my sorely-neglected blog.

It’s been so long since I was tagged for this meme that I’ve long since forgotten who tagged me. Maybe it was a figment of my imagination. But at any rate, here goes.

1. Contrary to popular opinion, e pur si muove is not Latin, but Italian. The more chronologically apropos medieval spelling would be eppur si muove. And again despite anecdotes of Galileo having muttered such words under oath during the Roman Inquisition, there is no well-document evidence either way.
2. My goal in life is to discover a way to achieve εὐδαιμονία (eudaimonia). I have wanted to do so ever since encountering the concept in Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, which is one of my all-time favorite games (probably second only to Star Control II in my lexicon).
3. I once liked someone, but never plucked up the courage to do more than just talk to her on IM. Even when she gave me a teddy bear one fine 2/14. She eventually hooked up with one of my good friends.
4. Had I been born several hours before I was, I would have been a Taiwanese citizen. And possibly on board a plane. The fact that this was even plausible is intimately related to my very atypical non-Singaporean upbringing with deep infusions of Taiwanese cultural institutions and virtually no knowledge of Chinese dialects. Incidentally, the Taiwanese social calculus is closer to the Japanese one than either culture will care to admit. Which is perhaps why Japan somehow makes sense to me. I have been told by more than one Japanese that it is surprising how wafū (和風) my manners can be.
5. I have lost 4 kg (9 lbs) since I started graduate school. Hopefully this will keep up in due course toward graduation.
6. I cannot sleep in the presence of light, unless it is on a bus or plane ride and I am really tired. Neither will I sleep well if the room temperature exceeds 22°C (72°F). I don’t know why, I just know it is true. As you can imagine, I had terrible sleepless nights during BMT with the muggy Tekong nights.
7. Owing to the circumstances beyond my control, I had to grow up really quickly shortly before turning 21.
8. I get random cravings for food after not being home for so long. The first time it was fish-head curry, the second time was fried shallots, the third time was nasi lemak, the fourth time was har kow (虾球). Now it’s sambal stingray. These are all things that I have until now detested and refused to even so much as smell them, let alone put them in my mouth. It must be my finally overcoming traumatic experinces of Mummy dearest going 不用问，吃了就知道。还不快点吃！ (No need to ask [what it is], you’ll know when you eat it. So eat it!)
9. I am cursed/blessed with an abundance of beginner’s luck. In some one-in-a-lifetime situations this unique ability has proven invaluable, such as escaping confinement in BMT by achieving a 0.8 cm point grouping the first time I was at range. But in many other contexts this isn’t as useful as it seems, because the beginner’s luck makes other people think that you got the hang to it really quickly when in reality you fluked it through and have no idea why it happened to work. These people then become surprised when I am unable to replicate the feat.
10. Despite my food cravings, I have no intentions to go home. It’s my old persona’s fault.
11. I was initially skeptical of brain activity being neatly divided into 90-minute cycles, but a short experiment with my sleep behavior quickly convinced me otherwise. For example, 9:45 is my sweet spot for going to bed, even thought it’s pretty early. If I go to bed at 10:30 I will toss and turn for quite awhile. 12:45 is my next sweet spot. This has given me quite clear insight as to when to set my alarm clock (it’s best to set it for the equivalent of 6 or 7.5 hours of sleep, as time demands).
12. I have always felt alone.
13. I have always had a knack for breaking things. I can make a computer stop working pretty quickly, and construct a setup which look like a stable configuration of apparatus which is still able to suddenly dislodge a flask at a random later time, spraying the room with all sorts of chemical vapors. As you might deduce, this has been somewhat detrimental to my education as a chemist. This has also made me physically incapable of writing computer code that involves ugly hacks just to get the job done.
14. I can think faster than I can type, write or speak. Occasionally I will freeze in mid-sentence because I suddenly discover the answer to my own question, or suddenly realize the futulity of completing the sentence.
15. Although I was never a bad student, I was a straight-A student only between O levels and the first semester of college. Before O levels I never really cared that much for my schoolwork, and in the second semester of college it hit me how absurd such perfectionism really was.
16. Despite my career choice as a scientist, I am not very good at rational argument. I work more effectively, if not necessarily more efficiently, in a creative/intuitive mode of thought as opposed to rationalistic deconstruction.
17. Attending the Orange and Blue (and volunteering at Krannert) has given me a cultural grounding in the performing arts way above and beyond my pre-college days.
18. I am a philosophical relativist, in the sense that I don’t believe in the existence of absolute truth. I once had a long debate with a colleague as to whether a scientist can ever be a relativist in that sense, but my point of view is that a scientist has to work with the assumption that empiricism is true, and that such an assumption is unprovable just as religious dogma isn’t.
19. I have been told then I can do a pretty good imitation of a crying baby.
20. I cannot roll my tongue to blow spit bubbles.
21. My hearing is sensitive enough to hear things that I shouldn’t be able to. Such as mistuned musical instruments, even though I can’t tell the exact pitch right off.
22. My old home telephone number, back in the days when they were seven digits long, can be dialed using the letters GO SADLY. Which was incredibly prescient, since that was exactly the case when we had to move out of the house.
23. My hair is incredibly dense and curly. Loreal’s Nutrisemme range of hair care products (the ones in eggy orange packaging) works wonders in keeping it somewhat sane. That and insisting on layered haircuts. I have managed to get hairdresser’s scissors (the ones which are combed) stuck in my hair during haircut sessions.
24. I have white hair. Once after an exam period I discovered a fallen strand of hair which was black except for a prominent segment of white near the root.

Have you ever had a burning question that you’ve always wanted answered about the physical foundations of chemistry, or the chemical applications of physics? I’m offering my credentialed, semi-expert opinion on the phenomena of the very small. Knock yourselves out.

Actually, if you want my semi-expert opinion on anything in particular, preferably with reference to subjects already discussed here, go ahead and join the Inquisition.

How to join the Inquisition

1. Find a burning question.
2. Email it to eliadiodati+Dear+Diodati@gmail.com

Replies will be at my sole discretion.

In other news, I will be back in North America in two days’ time, but will be immediately leaving for a crystal digging expedition the next day.

Tofukuji, originally uploaded by Elia Diodati.

The Japanese azalea on the grounds of Tofukuji is showing off its fiery red leaves during this change of seasons

Greetings from Kyoto, the self-proclaimed Paris of the East. My feet hurt, I lost my electric shaver, and I have been bleeding cash from every pocket since I got here. But that’s all part of the adventure, I guess.

The conference hall is really hot so I’m taking a break outside while they try to get building maintainence to turn on the ultramodern climate control system. Ah, modern technology.

I put up some of the pictures, mainly from Tofukuji (東福寺) and the Kamogawa Odori (鴨川をどり) performance I went to on Sunday. I’ve already reached my upload limit on Flickr so the rest will have to wait. Sorry. Unless you would care to sponsor me? *hint*

Click through the picture above to browse the photo set.

Will write more later. There are only a few thousand emails and posts to read.