Neuromanic

Just comment here if you would like to read my journal, or just leave a message or something. Also, can ya tell me how you know me, even if it is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of mine :P Random interest search, communities, real life buddies, what ever, I want to read your journals!

Not all posts will be friends only, though, but some will be, now that I know how to keep this banner up the top ;)




If you are not an lj user and just want to leave a message, please do so here ^.^ Or, if you want to advertise your comunities. Whatever.

Dear Kristina

I am pleased to advise that you have been accepted as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
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(i)Accepted under: Probationary candidature
(ii)Enrollment status: Full time
(iii)Department: Psychological medicine
(iv)Supervisor: Dr. Jillian Broadbear
(v)Approved field of study: The role of oxytocin in social cognition
(vi)Commencement date: 20th July


Fuck yeah!

OMG HAI LIVEJOURNAL!!!!

How r u?

Hmm, interesting...

Hmmm, I need to start using this again...

So, dad has one of those weight lifting set things. You know, witht the bar bell at the top, a thing to lie on, and weights at the feet. And a TONNE of get fit-lose weight-gain muscle, etc type books and videos. It's funny, some even talk about the physiology of muscle. I approve lol.

He never seems to use these things, maybe he thinks having it all lie around will help him lose weight or whatever he wants to do. So I use it. I've always been saying... I'm gonna gain muscle and get fit. Though you won't catch me at a gym no way. I'd totally embarass myself. So this set is perfect.

Anyway, I've been looking at The Book Of Muscle by Men's Health for different weights exercises. So, lets try out the bench press. EZ! Man, I'm good. Until I have to life what would be over my head if I were standing up. Damn, I can't go any further. Well, looks like my biceps are alright... but my triceps and shoulder muscles... suck. So, I can lift things off the ground well, but not past a cirtain height.

My aim is to get fit (reduce resting heart rate!) and increase muscle mass. Oh yeah! SO dad and I go for a walk, and I jump on the weights every 2-3 days, depending on how I feel.

I also don't like that most women's fitness books that I have seen are aimed at weight loss. I haven't seen any women's body building books around. Men cheat, they have extra hormones to help them out. Not fair. But anyway, the men's books still have instructions on how to do the actual exercises, and that's what is important at the moment, and I don't assume they're much different for women.

I found this interesting article on bodybuilding.com. 's bf got a job as a writer there, so I checked it out. This article: http://bodybuilding.com/fun/other44.htm
is about the issue of female body builders. The basic point is that nobody likes a muscley lady. On a man - the men like it because that's awesome, great work mate, and the women like it because it's hot and manly. But both sexes are 'eeww, that's gross' to a female. The article talks about competitions where women need to actually reduce muscle mass for 'health reasons'. Moar like making the women look hotter so more guys watch. And there is not much you can really do about that I guess. It's the way life is.

The article points out that men being like women is now getting better attention. More people have prollably heard of and seen drag queens, but drag kings isn't as big thing. It's there, but it's on the sidelines. For a woman to do men's stuff, you have to look hot. Take female wressling and boxing. The women have to be slim and feminine while fighting, and that's the appeal. Take even warcraft. Female orcs are the least popular, and even in game, people make comments about why I chose that particular race!

Well, for me, this is the way I like it. As I am not worried about sex appeal, it's great :) But for all the aspiring women out there who want to do things in men's domain, it's not so hot.

( DING 70!! )

Basically, the depression hypothesis. 'think emo' = percieve stress, which releases stress hormones (of which cortisol is one). These have been shown to cause cell death/prevent neurogenesis in the hipocampus (part of the brain most known for its role in declarative memory). It has also been shown that some types of antidepressants can stop this.

Srsly, who can be fucked writing up a thesis?

Yeah, so happy new year and shiz. I went to David's party (well, his school friends really) because I got asked/heard about it first. It was sooooo awesome, and I would have made more people come had I knew they overcatered lol. Srsly, they hired out a function room with a balcony, there was free grog and a BBQ. And it wasn't full of drunk arseholes (those that were that drunk where over the toilet bowl). The music was ALL GOOD. It was old school stuff I like, like blink 182, good charlotte, AC/DC, etc. The alcohol? It WORKED!

On Christmas, I had some Jagermeister at my dad's. I was trying to make a jagerbomb, and I laughed when the shot glass sank to the bottom of the cup. I don't really laugh these days spntaneously. Like I find things funny, but the laugh is controlled. Later I got this feeling of, I guess, hopelessness. It's a real gamble of what mood I'll get. Lucky I scored a good mood last night, because I wasn't feeling so good before. I had this shit dream, my cat woke me in the middle of the night, mum woke me up angrily, then I had to go to work, people at work were in a bad mood, etc. I was so close to just not going.

Oh, jedi_amara was remembered from my brithday, as David explained to his girlfriend Izzy that he'd seen someone wear me out :P

( Shit Dreams, they are a little bit morbid )

Oh, Taz is also back from Adelaide :D:D:D:D:D:D She brought this cool movie called 'Dragonfly' over. I recomend it.

I got a package from Monash (uni) in the mail today after work.

It was

OFFER FOR THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE NURSING AND HEALTH SCIENCES HONOURS PROGRAM

THE HONOURS DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF BEHAVIOURAL NEUROSCIENCE (physiology)

Fuck yerrr! I was pretty sure I'd get in because I got the marks required to get in, but I wasn't sure if I filled out the forms properly and handed them to the right place. My neuroscience degree is under the faculty of medicine, nursing and health sciences, but the department of physiology is really weird. They seem to be considered part of both MN&HS and Science. So I was like wtf, what form do I fill out? Now all I have to do is accept the offer.

I'm glad now, because I am one step closer to becoming a mad scientist research. And then I'm gonna be the stress expert! Well, the neuroscience of stress expert anyway. Unless I do this project and think stress is shit. I'd like to also do some work on animal welfare, it would be nice to do welfare of the lab animals. And ofcourse mood. Would be nice to integrate mood and stress. Anyway, that's just me dreaming.

Gah, haven't been in the mood to update my LJ, been playing games instead. I'm really enjoying Metroid Prime, I never realised how good this game is. I have made some private entries - mainly because I didn't finish writing them, so I just posted as private :P

Thalamus ???? - Nov. 2007

Thalamus the rat passed away while I was at the LAN. Before I left to go, she seemed fine. Though she has always been sick, her condition was not any worse when I left her, she was eating and drinking and running around happily. When I came home, she was lying there dead. I left her for just one night and this happened.

Thalamus was a fantastic little rat. She came to live with us when my mum's friend's son no longer had the time to look after her. She had mites, causing scabs all over her body. In the middle of this year, she copped some sort of horrible infection, and unfortunatly, the vets around here don't know too much about rats. She responded to anti biotics, but perminant damage was done as she could no longer walk and balance properly. She fought on though.



We had fun going for little walks, and like rats, she loved the dark and hiding places. When I was lying down, she liked to sleep under my neck. Even Sara the cat got along with her... well, they never really cared about each other. Thalamus would be crawling all over Sara, who wouldn't really give a damn. Rats can bring a lot of happiness into our lives, though the horrible downside is the extremely short life expectacy of 2-5 years, depending on breed, and where I read the information from! I only knew Thalamus for one year. She lived about a year at her old home, and who knows how long from where she came from.

Thanks Thalamus for being such a great little buddy.



I had a great time at the LAN and going out with jedi_amara and woffmon. I'll post about that later :)

Copypasta from hikaizer.

X-Lan, Ex-Lan, or whatever you want to call it. SVGA is holding their regular end of exams event this year once again!

Where: G02 Building 33, which is our regular room.
When: Tuesday the 20th of November and Wednesday the 21st of November. The event shall be kicking off at noon and ending noon the next day, but you are welcome to drop by any time you like. (20/11 12:00PM -> 21/11 12:00PM)
Cost: $10 for non-community card holders, $5 for community card holders

What: There will be consoles (Wii, XBox and PS2) along with PC lanning. If you've got a console game you'd like to play, bring it along with some controllers if it's not a Nintendo game! There will be pizza and drink as well which is included in the attendance price. Bring all your friends along and celebrate the end of exams with some friendly gaming! If there are enough people, there may be some small tournaments held as well. If you want to bring your PC but have no way of bringing it along, rock up anyway and somebody can probably help you out.

With all of this, there's no reason not to come along! Bring a friend, or many friends even.


We don't usually have heaps of people for laning, like those organised ones with heaps of computers all lined up. So come and increase the size. Come along and own me in counterstrike and Civ IV. I'm in it to get new shit for my computer... which means on Monday I need to go get a portable hard drive... or some DVDs before I go, since I'm low on hard drive space. Srsly 200 gig space (I thought I had 80) beats the 20 gig I was used to on my computer and I thought it would be stacks. But if I want that many movies and shows, I guess not....

And this means I double booked myself for Tuesday, sorry jedi_amara and woffmon, but you can take Piplup along for the photos :P

So I was at work yesterday talking with Marisa.

I was thinking about my life. My social life sucks and it is my fault because never do I ask people to do stuff. A lot of that is my anxiety/depression. I know that if people ask me, they want to do whatever. But if I ask them, they'll probably won't be in the mood and might feel obligated to come. Whatever, I can think up any excuse not to do something.

But we were talking at work, I don't have much motivation to go out in the first place, as I can fall back on my computer. I spend most of my time on it because there is so much to do. So we wondered what would happen if I locked up the power cable to the computer for one week. Possible now that I don't have uni. I'd have a lot of time with nothing to do, so then I would have the motivation to go out.

Could I really do one week without computer. Of course it would probaly be next month if I did it.

I am afraid I will lose the friends I made in uni. I think people have no idea how much I really do appreciate them because I can't show it at all. I don't know how.

We sit here on the computer,
Studying the amygdala.

I hear ya mon.

We sit here on the computer,
Studying the amygdala.

I feel ya mon.

So, I am studying for the last exam EVAR. I'm up to the bit on memory. It's a lol because I did a whole subject about lame memory last semester. This is just a few lectures in intergrative neuroscience. And they gave one poopy slide to the amygdala and a whole lecture for lol term potentiation. Fisrt learnt about it in first year, so I'm kinda over it.

Playing WoW. One more level 'til 60. Then 10 more 'till 70 and end game :D I found a guild that is good... so far. I always wonder while playing WoW, will I ever run into someone I might know, or know of was I changed to Aussie server. More likely someone that will live near me though.

I bullied someone on WoW. They were alliance 51 rogue gnome. I was a 59 orc rogue. We were fighting it out for northpass tower. There were like 6 alliance NPC guards outside, so I couldn't really do anything, but I was flagged PVP. I just kept sapping the guy over and over untill he was running around mad, trying to find me. It was fun, like rogue hide and seek. He would taunt and do whatever emotes into thin air, since he couldn't click me. Every now and again, I'd let him know I was there with my own emotes and more saps. Because you know, sapped guys can't say no. Normally I'm quiet nice to the enemy, but that was fun :P

I have a bunch of stuff planned for after exams, but I don't know exactly what, I hope I haven't double booked myself. Looking foward to SVGA Lan.

So, it's swot vac, meaning I am attempting to study away. I thought you might find one of these lecture slides quiet interesting:



ETA Here is another.

Narrator: In A.D. 2007, war was beginning.
Nervous Neuron: What happen ?
Amygdala: Somebody set up us the depression.
Operator: We get signal.
Nervous Neuron: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Nervous Neuron: It's you!!
CATS: How are you nervous neuron!!
CATS: All your mood are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to major depression.
Nervous Neuron: What you say!!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
Operator: Neuron!!
Nervous Neuron: Take off every luvox!!
Nervous Neuron: You know what you doing.
Nervous Neuron: For great mood,
Nervous Neuron: Take off every luvox!!


Went to psych today, got more of this awesome fluvoxamine maleate. For the past week or so, I have been feeling alright. I don't care if this is a placebo effect (as I think it was too early for meds to work), I don't want to feel like that. It's this special kind of tiredness. I call it a soul sucking tiredness. It was just the other day when I had to wake up early I noticed that I was tired and sleepy, but it wasn't that special kind of tiredness that makes me want to do nothing and it makes everything bland. And I just noticed how lame I am at knowing my own emotions and mood. Now I am more sleepy, I always want a nap in the middle of the day, which wastes tonnes of time. Oh, and he finally acknowledged that I am phase delayed with my sleep, and trying to be a sleep nazi is a good thing.

I also went shopping for mum's 60th b'day present, which is a mobile phone. I also did a sneaky pokemon shopping but it wasn't as fun without jedi_amara. I checked out myers for mini plush, and they had ALL OF THEM. Took me for ever to decide on who to get. In the end, I decided on piplup to go with my chimchar. I also bought moar pokemon cards. BAD I don't need any more, but I like opening boosters. I did manage to pull a Dialga, so that was good! Shiny, but only normal holo. I also saw SERIES ONE ZUKAN at K-mart, but they were all sold out :(:( That series was full of good pokemon.

I also got some Halloween shit from toys r us, and score, that stuff was already like 50% off. Though I didn't stock up too much, because I didn't want to waste my money on stuff I won't use much. There were some awesome swords and shields that were goth style, but wtf am I going to use that shit for. Now that I think of it, it could have made some nice wall decorations. I got this black hood thing that I can see out of, but people can't see in. I dared myself I visit work on the way home and wear it. It induced lulz. While I was there, a new girl was being trained in the deli. They introduced me and told her this was completely normal behaviour from me. Well, yes, depends on my mood.


What I wore.

As I'm not having a Halloween party (why do people always complain that it's so american), I will probably wear my Grim Reaper outfit to my exam (I has an exam on Halloween). I probably won't wear it on the train (attention is good. I don't like it when I am by myself) though.

hikaizer is evil! He is trying to convert me to Satanism! Look, I have proof!







Today = another okay mood day. Thanks. Our group finished the LAST ASSIGMENT for the bachelor of behavioural neuroscience. I can't believe it is going to be over. I enjoyed uni and I met some awesome people there. I learnt so much, but there is still so much to learn! Hope I make it to next year, and then PhD! I was saying that I can't imagine being anything other than a student. I have been going to school all my life. But after honours, I will need a proper job, not some shitty deli job that pays $11.50 an hour. I'd like a lab job, because I seem to suck in the social skills department. Only retail I'd go for is EB or any other gaming shop. If there was a nintendo shop... *drool*. It would be tops if I could work at uni, demonstrating at labs or being a tutor.

Looking at jobs, I can't seem to find many neuroscience related ones. They are very rare. There are a few biomed jobs here and there, depending on where you look. Those all require either research or honours. There are heaps of lab jobs though, but that's like soil testing and other boring non biomed related crap. I think I'd settle for biomed if I have to, but aim for neuro. If I don't get my PhD, that is. Mum doesn't like the idea of me doing that. Unless I manage to find a part time job, and a biomed one seems hard. Though there are a lot of PhD students working at uni. I'm not sure how it works, but apparently you get like $20k for the PhD scholarship. That would be helpful. I was talking to Sarah, potential honours supervisor, and she is willing to help me go for the publication and scholarship.

It was funny, the other day I was going through my tapes. When I was about 11 years old to about 15, I would talk into a tape recorder, like a diary type thing. In one of the ones where I was talking about going to highschool next year, I was saying something like 'when I want to grow up, I want to be a science profressor. But I'm too stupid. Well, actually, maybe I'm not, I am at the top group in my class' So, I have planned my life out for myself early, but I wonder if things will go as predicted?