Chasing After Rainbows

Old man's voice: "Ah! She's finally awake!" Woman next to him: "It's a miracle! I'll inform her friend outside right now!" I opened my eyes. Where am I? And why does my body feel funny with weights on my chest and my bottom feels different? Also, why can I understand that unknown language that those people are saying? Someone entered the room I was in, running towards me. Girl 1: "Thank goodness! I have been waiting for many months for you to wake up!" Wait.... Who are you? I don't know who this person is, but my head tells me that she is my close friend, Sasagawa Nagisa. Eh, how can that be? Me: "What is the date? Nagisa-chan" Those words automatically came out of my mouth, but in a voice that was not mine but sounded familiar. Well, I too want to know what is today's date. Nagisa: "Today's Saturday, May 14, you have been unconscious since February where you suddenly fell onto the floor in cl...

Being surrounded by languages that you know little or nothing about can be frustrating. Ask anyone on the street and most likely they would not understand (or are too shy) to understand what you are saying. Even if you know at least some of it, your head can get fried (i.e. dizzy) when trying to read a language that you are not used to (i.e. not yet at a near-native level) for a prolonged period of time. If for example the language that is spoken is the same as the caption/subtitles, it doesn't really help you understand what it means, but it does help on how the text is read (eg. "Rendezvous" ["promise/(gathering) place to meet"/"meeting"] would be pronounced as "ren-da-vu" or 発売中 ["on sale now"] as "hatsubai-chuu"). Even difficult if the writing system is in a writing system you are not familiar with (eg. Arabic) or look very much with what you are famillar with but it's not (eg. Russian). You probably won'...

Yay! Germany! Look at the infrastructure and the design of places! (and how cold the place is) I need to exchange for some Euros before spending in Germany though.... or at least an ATM that accepts my debit card.

When I'm dead tired, like after carrying several tables and chairs all over the school followed by carrying a box full of books that weigh as much as myself back home for an hour, I would just want to find a place to lie down and take a nap. I get so tired from carrying all the heavy stuff that I no longer care about what people would think about me in public places. By the way, ignore the previous post . I wasn't in the right state of mind when I posted that.

今日、2008年8月6日から、私は、生徒会を出ると決めました。 From today, 6th August 2008, I have decided to leave it . 今週一度にそれの皆が起こる主要な出来事で忙しい1年以上後のそのような突然の通知での生徒会を後者のままにしてすみません。しかしながら、生徒会と共に私にままでいるのは名誉より拷問に似ているです。 I am sorry that I left it on such sudden notice after more than a year in it at a time when everyone is busy with a major event that would take place latter this week. However, to me, staying with it would be more like torture than an honor. じゃあぁ　生徒会員の皆さん、 さよなら。 Well then, farewell to everyone in it . ー（私の本当の名前）より - From (insert real name)

It's been a long day today and I badly need my sleep right now for another busy day for this week. So busy that I have to reduce/omit some of the things I normally do. By the way, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and gifts. It was certainly better than previous years (including last year) where only my family would acknowledged my birthday. For those who are interested, registration for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (日本語能力試験) in December should be around now for a month and comes in 4 levels of difficulty with Level 1 (級) being the hardest. All questions are multiple choice questions (Read: Use a HB/2B pencil to shade an option on a separate machine-readable paper). You would be informed of the test venue closer to the exam. More info here .

The enzyme xanthine oxidase , or XO , (bovine milk enzyme is PDB 1FIQ , EC 1.17.3.2 ) catalyzes the oxidation of hypoxanthine to xanthine and can further catalyze the oxidation of xanthine to uric acid Reaction hypoxanthine + O 2 + H 2 O ↔ xanthine + H 2 O 2 xanthine + O 2 + H 2 O ↔ uric acid + H 2 O 2    Protein structure The protein is large, having a molecular weight of 270,000, and has 2 flavin molecules (bound as FAD), 2 molybdenum atoms, and 8 iron atoms bound per enzymatic unit. The molybdenum atoms are contained as molybdopterin cofactors and are the active sites of the enzyme. The iron atoms are part of [2Fe-2S] ferredoxin iron-sulfur clusters and participate in electron transfer reactions. Active site and mechanism of xanthine oxidase The active site of XO is composed of a molybdopterin unit with the molybdenum atom also coordinated by terminal oxygen ( oxo ), sulfur atoms and a terminal hydroxide . In the reaction with xanthine to form uric ac...