The sad life of a college freshman

This is a sad era for Adam the Klocperk. Days pass by, one by one, all the same shade of grey, boring and interchangeable. Mind you, this is not the early winter and downfall of public greenery talking, I suspect my new lifestyle to be the underlying cause.

When I look back at my high-school studies, I envy myself so much it actually hurts a little. I was so young, carefree, easygoing, had so much time on my hands, whole life in front of me... Now I'm an old fart with little humour, declining physical condition, average academic achievments at best and an empty flat to sleep in. But the motive for me to write this post, besides the uncontrollable urge to whine a little, was the lack of diversity in the days that I manage to live through.

My time consists of attending lectures paying variable amount of attention, attending seminaries trying to get the most bang for my actual presence, hours spent in the public transport, studying at home, wasting time in front of the computer calling it "rest", too sporadic meetings with my girlfriend, ravening whatever food is currently the easiest to prepare and finally the highlight of almost every day, sleep. This life is now measured from one anatomy test to the other. This is not life how I imagine it. This is simply spending the hours we were given hoping that something better will come along in...around 15 years.

One of the initial sparks that ignited this fire of disgust, nudge that pushed me down the slippery slope of hating my life may have been the new movie "High School Musical 3: The Senior Year". I have not seen it yet, but Eva is as I'm writing this post. She, as you all know, is also in the senior year, graduating this May. I've realized these days of my life are gone now. I'll never again be a high school senior. Movies won't be filmed about me. The amazing fun all the characters are undoubtedly having in that flick is now gone and I won't experience it anymore. Man, did this revelation suck.

True, I may be a little more mature now, more self-dependant and generally somewhat more "advanced" in life, but is this the advance I want to go through? Might it not be the case, that the true advance is towards what people like doing the best – having fun, friends, sex, making money, doing sports... The moral still is: I'd trade my high-school years for this anytime.

How do you feel, are you as disillusioned as I am? Would you too prefer being in high school? Does seeing how much fun others have make you feel so crappy as it does to me?

Loved talking to you lot,

Adam

Whatever shall we do with old people?

OK, an idea occured to me just this morning as I was waiting for the tram. There were too many old people around. Yes, that might sound a little too harsh, but it really got me thinking about how our society works and what can we really expect from the future. More than one half of all the people at that tram stop were seniors, quite obviously not productive and working anymore. Now, we spend on average 45 years working and 35 years leeching on the society in one way or another during the course of our lives. The first twenty are quite fair, in my opinion – your parents feed you, clothe you and take care of you directly, thus being able to see what happens with their money and all in all being quite content with it. Most importantly, though, those years have a reason – you're being trained how to function properly in the society you're going to live in. Not much anyone can do about that, to be honest. Perhaps make school a bit more intense or something, but that's about it. The last 15 years of your life, however, say 65-80 years of age, you don't really have an excuse for yourself, do you? While your skills might remain the same, the amount of work you'd be able to accomplish diminishes rapidly and its quality deteriorates at a saddening speed and there's no real future for you either – not exactly a promising outlook. So, if you have no expecancy – unlike the 0-20y.o.'s – you should be either doing something in the present or live from what you did during your life. Here I seem to be reaching a conclusion of some sort. We should either abolish taxes that fund pensions and leave people work/save up for themselves. Or we should make pensions scale directly with the salaries the person had during his/her life, as to accomodate some mechanic of fairness – who did more and better work during his life should be better rewarded in his old age. This, of course, would require salaries to be just indicators of the real VALUE of the particular job, which, frankly, is far from the case. Then again this would require someone to judge the importance of individual jobs and that is dangerously close to playing God. Seems like my reasoning reached a dead-end here J

Guess my point is, that I dislike the idea of paying high taxes just so that a bunch of old chaps and chappettes can goof around on a shitty pension (seriously, 6,5k CZK or how much it is, that's a spit in the face) for a couple years. I think we should probably abolish the taxes and let people save up money for themselves. Yes, Honziq and other lefties will spout sulphur about how everyone should have the same pension, but that's nonsence. If you sucked during your productive age, you're likely to suck in your fall of life and there's no reason why the society should give you the same amount of money as to someone who did better.

This argument is very flawed, but I have a lecture right now and need to end it. Might finish later.

See you guys around.

Adam

Hello, dearly beloved

Hello, dearly beloved.
This entry might get a little long, so you’d do well to bright a cup of tea, perhaps a slice of cake, blanket to warm your legs or a cat to pet in your lap while you’re reading. Inspired by Daněk’s blog (http://waste4noreason.blogspot.com) in which his author presents existential topics with the skill of a seasoned essay writer and makes them look witty and interesting at the same time I decided to stitch one of these together myself. Sadly enough, the read will be much less tasty. But it will be in the Swan’s own language.
I’m sitting in a one-and-half-person bed, wrapped in sheets and surrounded by cushions on all sides. I also feel like crap. This is one of the things that suck oh-so-very-hard about living by yourself. There’s noone to tell you „Man, you look sick, go lay in bed some and I’ll fetch you some Coldrex from the pharmacy“ or something, offer consolation and prepare a bucket next to the bed. Even though I completely kicked ass this morning during the beach volleyball practice, I’m now quite certainly ill. I remember once in Oundle I had a flu. I didn’t know about it, I was just a little tired and woozy. It took my Gov. & Politics teacher telling me to go to the sickbay to make me break the school routine. People say doctors are the worst when diagnosing themselves. I concur.
But I have to say, it’s mostly nice to live by my own. I get to decide what’ll be for lunch, I get to buy the food (while I do not enjoy spending money, I love the feeling of acquiring a tasty piece of something I can eat without a moment of hesitation afterwards), I get to decide when’s the bed time, I get to hide from everything in my bed listening to music and there’s noone to disturb me, I get...lonely, from time to time. Luckily enough, I’m now living a romance of some sort which I’m quite thoroughly enjoying, hence I also get to have a free appartment whenever I want to have the girl come over. That’s nice, yes, it is.
Back on the track. The school’s successfully „offblasted“ (as Vladko would say) and is keeping me extremely busy. I study all the time and whenever I don’t, I think about how I should be studying instead of whatever I’m doing. Unfortunately, even with all this effort I don’t find enough time and energy to allocate evenly among the various subject we’re being taught. 90% of the time I study anatomy. The remaining 10% are stretched among histology, latin and some biochemistry.
Ugh, my stomach hurts. And I’m cold. This might be flu, but I’m not experiencing the neck-muscle ache which is a trademark of the classical flu...
Aaanyway, I’m quickly losing my will to study this hard. We all know the prospects of a young wannabe doctor – 6 years lost in med school, the hardest field of study around, 4 years of acquiring the attestations, low salary, night shifts, being a slave to the patients... This may not apply to ALL of the medical branches out there, but it does to those I find interesting – urgent medicine and with the exception of low salary also surgery. Now, people say „Your fault, you shouldn’t have gone to med school, you knew what it’d be like“. Yes, they are right. I was warned and what I’m experiencing now is vanilla ice compared to, say, pathology. Still whenever I stop for a while and think about what I’m doing and where am I going, I’m terrified. Much like Dan I ask myself „What do I want to do, where do I want to go?“ and I’m finding that my current life is not the answer. Still, I think I will simply and blindly push on and hope for the best.
Seriously, my insides feel wrong and I’m shivering.
Also I’m experiencing a streak of low-confidence induced/inducing events. Bowling with my family and my dear’s family this Saturday I didn’t even score 100. ONE HUNDRED! I usually get over 140. Also, I feel fat. The scales at my parents‘ showed 78kilograms, my all time maximum. My headset appears to be having some technical difficulties. And I’m sick. And I write a test tomorrow for which I planned to revise today, which I can’t do as I am now. And there’s no way I’m going to memorize the 150-200 latin words along with their declinations for this Wednesday.
Unless I want to delve deeper into my love affairs – which I don’t, at least not here – there’s not much else for me to write about. I wish I could just go throw up again to ease the poor sac of meat that calls itself my stomach, but I fear there’s nothing left in it. Apologies for the oral diarrhoea and various disgusting lines and references.
I’ll be back in a day or two. Stay tuned.
Over and out,
Adam

Matriculation

So I was officially accepted into the ranks of academics and can wreak havoc on the reputation of such a well-established institution as Charles University undoubtedly is. Oh, by the way, it will be commemorating its foundation's 666th anniversary the year I get my title. How timely.

I must say, the event was not as comical and meaningless as I thought it will be. After one failed attempt to commence the ceremony (the organ started playing, we all rose and were quite solemn only for the music to be stopped without any warning mid-beat and us all being told to sit down and wait a bit longer after about a minute of silent waiting) it went rather smooth.

As the music played and professors in stylish black robes and hats strolled in from behind I was moved. While the university's anthem sucks donkey balls, our national one is cooler than it used to be. We all touched the head of the vice-chancellor's staff (pretty shiny, but his outfit could use some update - bright red gown with white ermine and squashed hat was funny, if anything) and shook hands with our dean taking vow not to...I already forgot what.

It turns out that us young medical students can tell right from left - we were clearly instructed to touch the staff on the left first, THEN shake hands with the dean on the right. Of course, the first person got it wrong and noone had the balls to change the precedent.

One last thing - the spoken English of the professors (dean, the secretary or god-knows-who and others) is apalling, simply apalling. They said a few words to the foreign students and boy, was I ashamed of them. Pearls such as "change in 180 percents", "fulfil a promise" where "make a vow" was intended were on sentencely basis. Then again, who am I to criticize. My Latin is awful, as is my German.

Be back for more updates later.

Adam

P.S.: I'm doing this so that I have an excuse not to study, because whenever I huddle with a textbook in my bed I fall asleep. Studying outside bed is out of question, it's far too uncomfortable.
P.P.S.: The weather is terrible, it should really get a grip.

Blog CPR

Hello lads and ladies,
it's been some time.

As I was walking from my parent's to my appartment just minutes ago, showered gently by tiny droplets of cold water falling from the sky and thoroughly enjoying the cold and fresh air, I decided that holding a housewarming party wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

I know, I know, I'm not much (or any, for that matter) of a party person, so it seems a little weird. True, I'm troubled by numerous things. Will people enjoy themselves? How many should I invite? Should I think a lot about the entertainment I and my place will be able to provide, or just leave it up to the visitors and booze? Those are just a few things that race through my head right now.

I was thinking of inviting many different people that don't usually meet each other - or know each other at all! Some of the BS crew (well, most of it, if not all), some of my other ex-schoolmates, some of my new schoolmates, some of Eva's surroundings (and her as well, of course)... It might be interesting to see if some of the people click together. What do you think, is it too much of a dangerous risk?

The date is not set in stone yet, nor is it set in anything else. I was thinking Friday night, because - you know - that's when the best parties take place. 31st might be the day, who knows. When would you lot like to come?

In completely unrelated news, I learned today, that I'm a proud owner of not just one, but TWO vaginas! They are called vagina synovialis musculi bicipitis brachii capitis longi. Yes, all that. And I have two.

Also, I'm beginning to like it here. Might be thanks to the weather, which most people find horrible and depressing - yet I find it, in its own peculiar way, strangely invigorating and fresh. I like cold weather and now it makes me appreciate my comfy appartment even more, so it's a win-win.
The only downside now is the trip to Točník. I want to be there and I promised a great many people that I would see them there. But I don't want to get smashed too much, as I write my first anatomy test on Tuesday and need to study for it quite a bit, and if the weather keeps up, it won't be pleasant AT ALL. Especially because I don't intend to go by car and therefore I would need to sleep in a tent - much less comfy than a car, believe me. Oh, and by the way, the forecast says it will be below zero on Saturday morning. Joy.

I might even go vote tomorrow. As much as I'm ashamed of it, I will admit one thing - I had to ask my parents who to vote, because I haven't been paying ANY attention to the political scene lately.

Awright, this was the adrenaline injection for my beloved blog. Peace out, suckers, and get Facebook accounts y'all!!

See you in the afterlife,
Adam

So

I've moved. More on that later, if anytime. I seriously don't have time for blogs lately.

On College

So I have, like, the UK ISIC card now, I can has loginz to UK computer system, I can has index and I'm totally a college student nao.

Aaanyway, in related news Adam Jaroš sent me link to my (probable) new timetable and applicant division into the "circles" (classes). The timetable is not 100% definite to be like this, but this is what last year's freshmen had and one of the teachers Adam has spoken to confirmed that we will have the same. Please inspect it here.

Not much informative value to you, unless you also know what circle am I in. Well, you can check that out here. I think it's enough to say that I'm in the same circle as Filip Grimm and in different one than Anča is - actually we are the only ones that have someone they know in their circle.

All in all, I'm quite happy now. Only thing that troubles me is that during the summer semestre I will be one of the 30 unlucky students to have school on Friday - which will suck big time. But it'll just "Nursing" so I might skip every now and then :)

Enough for the moment,
sleep tight.

Adam

Not dead yet

...though nearing the state. Wait for it. After all, now I finally hold the title of my blog true. It's not like nothing's happening, it's only that I can't be arsed to blog about it and you ungrateful lot wouldn't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock anyho. I mean, you all know about Dr. Horrible, nobody cares that our guild started raiding T5 content, photos from my newest trip to Beskydy can be found at my rajce.net page and I seriously do not feel like writing about neither the "birthday party" I had the guts to attend last night nor my other emotional turmoils. Seriously, what do you want me to do, post pictures of giraffees, bananas and kittens?

I s'pose I could do that, yes. FYI, the second picture is so called Karma Banana and the third one was shot during the Beskydy trip I mentioned earlier and had to be cropped due to Eva's request.

Peace,
out,
Adam

Definite call

So it's definite now, from September or October on I will be living all alone in a small 1+1 flat near the Podbaba station. No college colleagues, no girlfriends, no parents, nada. Congratulations accepted, though not encouraged.

Just to let you know.

Adam

Confidentiality of the blogosphere

People,
I don't know how much I have told you about my friend Anička's personal life, but I would very much like you all not to divulge that informations any further. Although she granted me the permission to talk about them some time ago, under the condition that I won't malign that boy of hers, she somewhat changed her mind now. So please, keep it to yourself. No sharing the secret "with your friends only!", nothing.

Thanks.

Adam

P.S.: I'm attending her birthday party during the 15.-17.8. period. That will be nice, but also dangerous. I'm looking forward to it.

Housing, OSes, more holiday, work

Hello all,
once again we find ourself amidst a considerable amount of my life. This time I will ponder the questions of housing, flats, college, operating systems, jobs, perhaps some psychologists and maybe something else too.

The main thing that is on my mind is as follow. Our family, amounting for two adults, one me and one brother of mine aged 11, lives in a rather small, 2+1 perused as 3+kk, 63 square meters tiny flat. This is by far not enough for us, we have too much stuff and too little privacy, so my mater has been looking for an alternative since this January or so. We could, theoretically go live to a house of ours situated at the outskirts of Prague a bit behind Kobylisy, where my grandparents live. Some of us, however, are reluctant to do this, as living with one's stepmother under one roof can prove to be quite daunting, and as it isn't as close to the city centre as we are used to be. We can also rent it for a considerable amount of monthly income. So we could either buy a house or flat (we've got the money), or rent one. But because it is not certain, that both grandparents will live much longer (>5 years is not certain at all, especially with my grandfather) (and should one of them die we'd pretty much have to move to this Chabry house to take care of the other one) and because it is not certain, that in three years' time I will not decide that I want to live alone, and because everything is damn expensive and no suitable flats and houses are being sold around anywhere sensible, my parents sort of decided to simply rent a bigger flat and live there until I decide to move to my own place or one of the grands dies.

Sorry for such a long introduction, it was a necessary evil. Here comes the catch. A new possibility was introduced to me last night - they could remain in the present flat where we live now and rent me a small flat in Koulova street, that is near Podbaba, 5 minutes walk from Vítězné náměstí square (aka Kulaťák). It belongs to my uncle and could be rented for some 8k/month. Being 1+1 with a pass-through kitchen, little balcony, little hall, bathroom and toilet, it would be more than comfortable for me to live in. They would probably pay me the rent and energies (heat, water, electricity), but not food (probably) and some other neccessities (clothing, school-expenses, house-keeping expenses) in order to make me take care of myself. And also to give me an incentive to find a room-mate that would pay me some money "for the rent" that I could use for these generic expenses. Once again I stress, that the position of the flat might not be as ideal as our current one, but is still pretty good (5 minutes of swift march to metro, 2 tram lines just around the corner), and I would be within 15 minutes of fast walk of my parents if anything got fucked up.

What I'm asking you is: would you go into this, if you were me? Take care of yourself, cook, do the laundry and pay for some stuff, on the other hand gaining self-reliability, training into life, your own place to live in/party in/anything? Would you try to get someone to live with you? Would you use the loneliness as a kick towards richer social life? What do you think?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next thing - operating systems. I have installed Vista Ultimate on this new desktop of mine, but it's getting quite creaky now. I have problems with InstallShield Wizard, sometimes my soundcard stutters, I even had one monitor blackout, it takes too much darned space with all it's stupid updates, it often renounces Unreal Commander as my sole tool of trade and refuses to delete/move stuff with it and it's generally messy to navigate in. So I will be either getting a dual-boot installation with XPs, or simply revert back to XPs. While Adam Jaroš, from whom I have the Vista installation, claims that his system runs without the slightest glitch and with no signs of any errors, this is not the case for me. Now I wonder, whether I should give Vistas one more chance and simply reinstall them, or whether I should really return to good ol' XPs I know so well and am happy with how they work?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you work? What do you do? I still translate and it pays darn well, I must say. Do parents pay you for holiday trips? How about music festivals and such?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I still do not have anything planned for the rest of my holidays. I am too occupied by making money, playing World of Warcraft and excercising my head over Anička Novotná and her partner's (...who is an outright idiot and should be banned from life, honest, this is not jealousy speaking but simply a common sense. If only you knew...!) case, that I didn't plan anything yet.

This is probably it for now,
have fun living,
Adam

P.S.: I've downloaded Magikano (fun), Cowboy Bebop (kinda mindfuck), Ouran High School Host Club (fun), finished Jeeves & Wooster (the BEST!) and started downloading The Scrubs (said to be awesome) and resumed watching House MD. Contact me if interested.

The big post, as promised and postponed several times

Hello people, or those of you who read my blog in the very least.

First: the setting. I'm sitting in my comfortable, adjustable, very prominent chair, typing on my new desktop, as my laptop is still broken, it's raining cats and dogs outside, I'm having my tea done and meanwhile I'm sipping refrigerated sangria, thus further fueling my mild drunkness that, as usually, lingers around from two days ago.

Now, the trip first. I went on a cycling trip with Vocta, Tomba, Slev, Hořec and Mikee. It was quite pleasant experience, it took 4 days of actually moving and one day of sighseeing in Budapest. We did some 300kms, two thirds of which in two days. I must say, that with the heavy bags on the back of my bike (we carried tents and sleeping bags with us) my legs did hurt rather badly the fourth and fifth day. The weather was more than nice, it was searing hot during the days, very sunny (guys got burnt, I didn't, having been tanned from Croatia already), though the first two nights it rained and was quite stormy. The sighseeing in Budapest was rather tedious, as the city is very similar in nature and sights to my beloved hometown, Prague, only much larger. We had no problems on social level among our group, which was good. I can recommend the way along Donau to everybody and anybody, as the tracks there are very smooth, well-maintaned and it generally is possible to find a camp or some sort of accomodation (we only had to sleep outside a camp once, because we timed out journey somewhat wrong).

Next: the United Islands of Prague. What I had chance to witness was pretty nice (though I had serious problems determining the gender of the lead singer of Bratři Orffové band, in higher positions he sounded 100% like a female, at lower he was somewhat weird male, and he looked like a guy too) and I feel a great moron for leaving. I met there with a female friend of mine, Al the great friend of mine and some other known faces too. I left without uttering words of goodbye and without a reason. Well, almost. As I already told those of you that this matter involves, at times I get really lonely when surrounded by people having fun, be them my best friends, it doesn't matter. This feeling was stronger than I and I had to leave to be by myself, as I couldn't bear it. I know this doesn't make much sense and I hereby humbly apologize to those of you that this affected. Sorry, I will try not to do this next time around. It's stupid and insensitive towards you and it makes me miss out on great fun and stuff.

What's next, hm? My job is fine, I still translate for the Winsite company that provides services to the Prague City Hall, it's fun and it pays really well. My desktop is awesome and also a lifesaver - as my laptop broke on me. My plans for holidays are...well, next to none. I don't have nothing planned, but I would like to do things. Any ideas, any suggestions, any invitations?

I shall not delve into the intricacies of my love-life in this post, as they are rather bleak and disturbing and I do not wish to make this an emo-like post. I could, however, use your advice on this matter, preferrably in person, actually. Should anyone feel up to the task and would like to give me a tip or two on this matter, invite me for a beer or something, we'll make something of it.

I don't see anything else to post about in this very moment, so this is it. Any suggestions are welcome and you know it, right?

Toodle-pip!
Adam

Leavin for a trip

Hai,
there is a couple of things I could report on now (my fiasco with United Islands of Prague and the Theatrical Festival at GJK, my job, my desktop, my plans for holidays etc. etc.), but I think I'll leave it for after the cycling trip I'm departing on tomorrow with a bunch of my friends. I promise to make a big post about it and other things too, kay? Some pictures may or may not be included.

Cya around.

P.S.: Also we should get together and throw a party or something. Who's up for a beer or two, a game of pool or anything even vaguely similar in the 2.7.-whatever period?

Exams over - Aftermath

I scored 9th out of the ~1450 applicants, hence got into the second round (oral interview) and I think I passed it rather well, which should have gotten me into the school I wanted to get into - 2.LF UK, Motol.

Good for me, right?

That's about it, folks.

Adam

Exams OVER

Well, the first part anyway. It was rather difficult and some parts were an outright mindfuck. Just outside the lecture hall in which we sat someone was working with a pneumatic drill and other funky instruments causing us all a terrible headache.

The first knowledge test was pretty standard, nothing worth mentioning.

The second test, so called OSP, was much harder. It consisted of several categories of tasks to perform.
First category: you are presented with a complicated picture made of various lines and dots and circles and shit and 5 smaller ones, only one of which is a true cutout of the bigger one. The differences were negligible and very hard to find, especially when obscured by the number of complicated structures abound.
Second category: one picture of a spider/butterfly/cherries/whatever and 5 small clones of which only one is the same. Mark which one it is. Again, the differences were near impossible to find, little dots, lines... I can't really describe it.
Third category, the mindfuck one: you are presented with a photo of a glass cube, inside which there are one or two cables/ropes intervined and twisted around. Then there is another photo of the same cube, but from one other point of view (the first one was from the front, this one is either from the bottom, right, left, top or back). This really did stretch my imagination and I felt my brain twisting the same way the cables inside were :)

All in all I think it was rather hard, but I did OK I think. I might not get in, but I think it could have been even worse.

With 3 more exams to go + possible second rounds bidding you adieu,
Adam

Exams - today

The day has arrived and today, on Friday 13th, I'm doing the first (and most important) round of college entrance exams. I hope the unfortunate date will not affect my performance (I don't believe in stuff like that anyway), especially because this is the round that could get me into Motol, 2.LF, where I want the most.

This will consist of one biology/physics/chemistry test (all-in-one) that I expect to be about 2-3 hours long, 30 minutes pause and one general qualification test (said to be quite the killer, altough these are usually a breeze).

All in all, wish me luck. 9:30-~13:00 or even more. Crossing of fingers, holding thumbs, sticking pins and other success-inducing rituals are all allowed.

Over and out,
A*

DotA

Hey peeps!
I downloaded the AMV 4 - The Last One today and while watching it I took notice of what song was actually played with every single anime clip. Well, one caught my ear, as to say - I remembered my friend Martin saying something about a song in which the singer only sings about playing Defense of the Ancients (DotA). That time Martin also wondered how lame could songs like that get. Well, I kinda liked the bit that way played in the AMV, so I youtubed it and listened to the original version.

Check it out here.

It'd pretty standard trance/dance, but there are times when I like such music (e.g. to keep me awake while studying or to kick me up while playing a game), hell, I've been known to listen to DJ Mystik for a bit (the Für Elise remix drew my attention to him).

The music is nothing special, although it's likeable and I think I'll be listening to it for a while. It's the video that made me post about it. It combines gamers sitting in dark rooms, lit only by the light of their screens, endulging in DotA goodness, with a giant dance party featuring a LOT of rather hot girls and the main protagonist (the artist Basshunter himself) sings on a stage and functions as a DJ too. I didn't quite get the connection, really. Anyone care to explain it to me?

However this combination of repetitive music, view of young people having loads of fun dancing and looking cool and hot chicks truly made me want to go party :) No matter that I'm not really that type of person, for a moment I wanted to wear this cool worn jacket, awesome shirt, wave myself to the rhytm of the poounding beats, flirt with the female counterparts, get slightly high and have a blast.

What a weird song. I know I won't do that, I'm simply not confident enough for that.

This post's over. I realize it didn't have much of a point, but I wanted to share the feeling with you :)

Over and out,
A*

P.S.: One more thing - I just got an article to translate (you know I work as a translator for the Prague City Hall). It's basically just an annex to one regulation (regarding public consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages, tell me if you're interested in what it says) and it's only a list of places. The thing I would like you guys to ask is - how should I translate stuff like "Vrchlického sady"? I usually don't translate the original name and only add "street" or "square" for the english reader to know what's going on but also for him to have the possibility to find the place on the map and in real life, knowing the original name. So I end up with stuff like "Betlémská street" and "Hradčanské náměstí square" - I know it's not the most ellegant, but I think it functions the best. But here I'm kinda lost. With orchards, parks and gardens you can't really refer to a map in order to learn the proper name and simply add "gardens" or "park". So should I go with "Vrchlického sady gardens"? Or "Vrchlického sady park"? It's, of course, not only about this one term - e.g. "Růžová zahrada" atop the Petřín hill should become "Růžová zahrada garden"? Or "Růžová garden"? Or even (because it might be just a made-up name describing the place) "the Rose garden"? Help me decide, please :)

Don't drink in the morning...

...it makes you sleepy in the afternoon. That is probably a widely known truth, but I have only discovered it today.

There might be another side to the story, however, and that is that I only feel sleepy and my eyes tend to close on their own accord when I sit down above the study materials and try to focus :)

Anyway there's not much to write about right now, I'm thinking of getting a new desktop for gaming purposes, the current setup I'm considering is something along these lines:

Processor	Intel Core2 Duo E8200 2,66GHz 6MB 1333MHz 775pin BOX	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=51827
HDD	Samsung Spinpoint F HD753LJ - 750GB SATA II	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=51152
RAM	A-Data DIMM 2048MB DDR II 800MHz Extreme Edition	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=43143
Power source	Eurocase SuperSilent (PFC) 450W	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=28702
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-P35-S3G - Intel P35	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=52014
Graphic card	Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3870 Blue PCB 512MB, PCI-E	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=52007
Case	Acutake ACU-Target (ROHS version)	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=49406
Mouse	Acutake Sky-O-Mouse 3D, 800DPI	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=53973
Keyboard	KME 2201 silver-black	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=23932
Monitor	Acer AL1716F - LCD 17"	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=45712
DVD	Lite-ON LH-20A1S-15C OEM black	http://www.czechcomputer.cz/product.jsp?artno=44859

Which would total for about 17500 CZK. That is a lot and I'm very apprehensive of spending so much money. Please share your opinions in the comments.

So long for now,
A*

Hold on, bitches...

Things are not looking very bright.

Now the question is...

...what kind of loser am I, rejecting several girls seriously interested in me in the past, then picking a girl that actually loves me, only to fall in love with her AFTER i treat her too cold and she decides to move on? The answer is imminent - a hopeless loser.

This makes another question springs to mind - what is there to be done now? An answer to this one I don't know. Should any of you guys know, please tell me. It's quite the issue. Getting over her isn't very sound idea for me now, despite its obvious logic and probable best results.

---------------------------

In other news, I got bursitis of the knee, wonder why. It doesn't hurt, but it's annoying, I will have to attend 4-5 more suctions spread in the next 3 or so weeks and in the meantime bend me knees as little as possible. To the contrary of Black I won't get any money for it. Bad for me. It doesn't hurt, which would usually be a good thing, but these days it would at least help me take my mind off more serious matters (stated above).
Also walking up/down the stairs makes me look funny.

EDIT: Worst thing being there really is noone to blame but me. Well, perhaps the God, but I'm not such a coward to blame him when usually I'm cautious in admitting his existence. I did ask him to help me several times, before and after today's showdown, and he obviously couldn't care less, which further destabilizes the little faith I have.

On near future

OK people, for those of you that come by once in a while: I was away for the last week, in Croatia, namely. I could post about that. Then I could post about the wonderful experience of being rained on in Stromovka park yesterday (no kidding, it really was amazing). I could also post about some serious relationship & feelings issues I am having lately.
I don't see much of that happening at the moment, as I am feeling quite depressed and therefore I wouldn't be able to help but write in a sad and a little bit too emotional way as well.
Worst of all, I can't say the stuff I'm going through is unique and enduring it will make me better than most people - it's all odds on that most people have had this too. Though there are some characteristics that make it even more painful, this way of enlightening oneself just doesn't work.
Well, in case anyone is interested, ask me directly. I will tell you my sad story.

Finals OVER!

It's done, at long last. I managed to pass with pride, being marked straight A's ^^ This was mostly due to having a lucky hand picking nice topics, but hey, it's still awesome :)

And now let's party for two days or so and then get down to college entrance exams preparation -.-

A*

Fun Facts Mk. II (Chemistry)

There are tons of amazing things to learn in chemistry. It's pretty much the second most fundamental science on which the recognition of the world could be based (the first one being physics). Most of them, however, elude my understanding and would require a vast knowledge of chemistry as itself to show their true uniqueness. I don't know many of these, so I'll just try to write down some other things that are somewhat better than your average chemical equation.

• There is an universal number, saying, that any catalyst will lower the activation energy of a reaction it can catalyse by 42kJ/mol.
• Beryllium dihydride creates polymers. Actually, many hydrides do.
• Disulphidic bonds are a great thing. They are largely responsible for the formation of tertiary structure of proteins, curly hair, vulcanization of rubber (the process of making it smoother, less adhesive and more resistant to damage) and also for maintaining a redox equilibrium inside an organism.
• Many of the clouds obscuring our vision of Venus are made of sulphuric acid. The UV rays dissociate carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon oxide (CO) and atomic oxygen (O). This oxygen is higly reactive and fuses with present sulphur dioxide (SO2) thus creating highly hygroscopic sulphur trioxide (SO3). By fusing with water fumes that are also present in the atmosphere this creates the sulphuric acid (H2SO4).
• CO bond to hemoglobine creates carboxyhemoglobine which is unable to transfer oxygen. This is widely known as CO poisoning. We all, however, have stable levels of carboxyhemoglobine even when not inhaling CO at increased rate. The ratio would be about 5%, ranging up to 9% in smokers. 25% is dangerous for health while 70% is the fatal dose.
• CO is also a neurotransmitter!
• NO is a hormone responsible for vasodilatation and thus is called endothelial relaxation factor (ERF). It is created directly by the endothelium of the veins. But it's also toxic air pollutant!
  
• Phosphazenes are compounds containing the bond between a phosphorus and nitrogene, often chained (...-P=N-P=N-...). They function as burning retarders or special plastic matters.
• TiCl4 (titanium tetrachloride) is used in skywriting.
• The compounds of internally transitive metals (so called d-elements) are often colorful due to the d-electrons absorbing various specters of light.
• Not only do pi-bonds create delocalized electron clouds (as in benzene), but contrary to popular belief even sigma-bonds do! Hence methane contains a delocalized electron cloud of four electrons orbiting around the central carbon atom affecting all four hydregenes in the same way.

So much for now, I gotta go have breakfast and study more.

Fun Facts (a.k.a. my only ammo for the finals)

Yo peeps!
I decided, that the only way for me to pass the finals will be to gather some fun facts about stuff I find interesting and put them into the actual topics. I hope this works out, otherwise I'm screwed :) Nevertheless I think it'll be way more interesting than reciting taxological system or all possible reactions of a certain element.
You may not find them interesting, but I'll share some of them with you anyways. These are not all of them, of course, but I just cba to recall and write down all of them.

• The eldest, largest and heavist living organism is Pando, a single tree that spreads as underground rootlings, occasionally growing into full-grown tree again, thus creating what appears to be a forest made of identical trees. It's 80 000 - 1 000 000 years old, weights about 6600 tonnes and covers like 43 hectars.
• Pafish (well, that's the czech transcription anyway, they don't have similar category in english system as far as I'm informed) have like 10 times larger brain-to-body ratio than regular fish. This is caused by very low density of neurons in their brains and allows them to function consuming less energy.
• Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria are divided into these two categories according to their reactiong to Gram's coloring using crystal violet (trisphenylmethane).
• The way branches grow out of pines, that are not circles, those are actually very tight spirals. I don't think I need to tell you about the Fibonacci sequence relating to nature in general :)
• You can cut apart some worms and some polypoda and they will regenerate back into working condition, thus reproducing. It's like with cells and protoza, only with large animals. I think it's cool!
• Human (and other) liver can regenerate too! Up from 75% mass loss (you cut away 75% of the liver) it regenerates into working, 100% condition.
• A veliger (larva of some molluscs) looks like rastafarian head atop an octopus-like tentacle bottom...and it floats in the water! I'd snatch you a picture, but then again, do you deserve it?
• The largest snail (way, in a way, the sea one) can be as big as 60cms, like a hare.
• Well, axolotls... Those are one big fun fact ;)
• Birds are gimped! They have no alveoli.
• Did you know this? The phases of mitosis (interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase) can be abbreviated as IPMAT, which can be easily remembered as "I Passed My Awful Tests" :D Only after finding this out I could remember it correctly.
• Protozoa have a neural system! A series of tubes that supposedly function somewhat like nerves.

So much for biology. I cba to do chemistry now, I gotta go study czech literature.

Peace,
out.
Adam

Ah! My Goddess

On one of my endless journeys through the deepest marshes of wikipedia I happened to stumble upon the title of Ah! My Goddess anime series. I downloaded it and I like it. That being said, it's nothing really special that would spark the interest of otherwise anime-unfriendly audience like you lot, but it makes me smile and that's what matters.

Also the main heroine is totally beautiful (like, totally, forget Chidoris, Chis and the like) :)


Well, not much else I wanted to say, really, but if anyone would be interested, here is a link to the wiki page about the phenomenon, this one being the one about the TV series . In the remote chance some of you guys wanted to, I will be happy to provide you with the avis.

I Love My Computer

This is a song I first encountered in the ever so popular AMV 3 - Hell being glued together with a scene from the anime Chobits. I though it funny and also the tune got stuck in my head for a while, so I youtubed the full version (only to end up with full Bad Religion discography downloaded in no time). Give it a shot, it's quite a good song.



Should anyone be interested in the youtube video (not Chobits, mind you), it's here.

Peace,
out.
Adam

P.S.: There is also a Chobits version in the related videos on youtube. If anyone is interested, I can provide you with the whole series.

Holy shit

Or, as some are known to call it, holy week. I really do not know, what is so holy about it, as I find it utterly depressing at best. Not only do I feel less ready for the finals day after day, I'm also losing the last bits of confidence I have secured over the last year. While I know, or feel, I should study way harder than I do, I lack any kind of moral strenght to do so. Not to mention the fact, that all the bits of information simply appear to be sifting through my head, falling out at no time.

I want to get over with this. It's killing me. The finals AND the college entrances. Just kill me already >.<>

Head's Zones

Hey chaps! How's been life? It's quite hectic over here. Some pretty freaky stuff happened too! But that's not why I'm writing this post.

Browsing through my biology finals topics, medical dictionary and an atlas of human body (all three of these are truly beautiful books!) I came across a term "Head's zones".
These are zones on the human body - skin, to be precise - that are inervated from the same spinal chord segments as particular inner organs. One example of Head's zone would be inner side of left hand ranging from elbow all the way to the pinky, which corresponds to heart.
The result of this intervined innervation is slight connection between impulses from/into these two parts of one's body. That is the reason, why people with angina pectoris/upcoming heart attack feel the pain shooting into their left hand.
I also think, that it is the underlying explanation of acupuncure/massage therapies. While massage would - quite obviously - relax the directly massaged muscles, it's sometimes also said to be helping certain organs. Same goes for acupuncture. I think it's possible that stimulation of sensoric, afferent nerve-paths from the skin can stimulate action in sympatic/parasympatic neural pathways and thus improving/affecting one's insides.

Anyway, that's just a short random piece of knowledge I thought I'd share with you :)

Stay tuned for the occasional bursts,
peace,
out.
Adam

Slime molds

Just a side note: I encourage you all to take a look into what slime molds are and can do. These funky single-cellular, tens-of-centimeters long and multinuclear protists are something a sick 50's horror would feature. They show signs of intelligence, despite their lack of any organs they can coordinate their movement and inner processes, they can schedule all their nuclei to divide at the same time (across these huge bodies!) and they are pretty hard to kill - cutting, shooting or stabbing won't really do.

Start here, continue here and follow wherever you like. Post comments with more info on these living foams!

Peace,
out.
Adam

Wrong picture, Charlie's Angels

Check this picture out. It's so gay and so wrong it actually became great from the other side of the spectre.

It would certainly deserve a rant which I have boiling up in my mind as this is an issue I have strong opinions on, but I can't be arsed to write one right now - going out again. I'd say it might be coming up later, but I know myself - I will forget about it. So nevermind.

Tell me what you think about it, please, though.

Adam

EDIT: Yes, I did miscopy the link. Sorry for that, should be fixed now. Happy to see you interested :)

BBC News: Tumour growth block hopes raised

I would like to tell you about this article I found today on BBC News network. It's only one of approximately zillion other articles, but it's my decision to link most of the interesting health/medicine-related articles I find on the web here.

Follow this link to its original location.

Catching up...not

I know noone really gives a damn about this place so I could cut all the excuses, but I'm not going to do that - one has to maintain some decorum.

So anyway, things have been rather hectic lately with school (yes, even I got tangled in its time-consuming webs), WoW (finally got to raid) and my new girlfriend leaving little to no time for funky stuff like blogging and sparing me no energy and desire to blog anyway. I don't think that's going to change much and honestly, I'm quite happy about it :)

One other thing that kept me from visiting this place is Facebook - my new way of Web 2.0-ing (although Web 2.0 is a lie, as we all know). It's pretty neat, with picture adding, lots of friends and everything - too bad it doesn't have some blogging/journalling feature built-in. You can go poke me on my profile.

On a completely unrelated note: Daněk has recommended me Audiosurf, which is kinda like Guitar Hero but without the instrument and PS (or whatever console it runs on). I'm gonna try it out, he says it's awesome. Stay tuned for a review :)

I think that's all for now,
so long and thanks for all the replies!

Adam

You're missing out!

We somehow managed to forget my birthday, which was on 11th January.

Also I got myself a facebook account (search for Adam Klocperk, I'm the only one). I like it, because it helped me find my long-lost friends from by trip to Oundle. Get one too, it's pretty cool :) And you can look down on myspace users, because facebook is way leeter ^^

Unghhhh...

I only recently (like an hour ago) returned from the prom and afterparty (and after-afterparty) I was on yesterday. That makes some nifty 25 hours of which some were rather (read "very") exhausting without sleep. What now? Should I go to bed? Because I don't think so, I'd rather stay awake and not kill the day and not offset my time balance. But the bed is to comfy and tempting, mhm....

Duh, am I tired!