Merlin is a protein

Don't believe the title? Then look here. Kind of a ridiculous name to give a protein, but what the hell :P. I've seen worse names.

Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine for example is worse.

I couldn't even bother to colour all the 267 amino acids that make up this thing. As you can see, I gave up after colouring ten.
Luckily some clever people have decided to shorten it to tryptophan synthetase A. For which I am quite grateful.

Be happy I didn't write up the scientific name for the protein titin. That one has 189819 letters.

I've now been at university for one and a half week of my second year. And I've decided to go to Australia to Monash University for the first semester of my third year. It's quite a process to apply for this, and right now I'm going around asking teachers to write a letter of recommendation for me (which the universities need). So far I've gotten 1 out of 4, that I plan to get. By the end of this month I need to have gotten at least 2 as well as having researched exactly what courses I want to take at the university, plus writing an essay about why I should be the one to be accepted to the university. Meh.

I've also met the freshmen who started on my course this year. They seem alright, even though according to the tutors from my year, the girls (who outnumber the boys 5 to 1) are skanks. Yep. And they sure can drink :P. Last Friday I drank shots with two of them, and omg they're crazy :P. That night was generally pretty weird. I ended up missing the last night bus at 5.30 and had to take a taxi home. Never tried that before, and it wasn't especially fun. Luckily I shared with two other people, so it didn't cost me a fortune. I slept until around 4 the next day. Meaning my Saturday was kind of lost. And I can't really remember what I did Sunday. Fact is, I'm way behind with the reading. But I'm trying to catch up now.

I also had my first Japanese course yesterday. It was kind of fun. But it annoyed me that I already knew everything we were taught. And the next lesson we're having I know all the stuff as well (the use of the particle "wa" and the word "desu"). But I'll see what happens. Some of the people there were REALLY weird. So I don't feel so weird when I'm there, lol. It's also weird that nearly everyone there also knows some Japanese like me and watch anime. I'm really not used to that. And it freaked me out that an emo guy dressed entirely in black with black coloured hair who sat in front of me to the right, kept looking back at me during the class. Scary. I haven't really talked with any of the others yet, but I plan to do that next time. The trouble is that we don't really get breaks, so we don't have that much of an excuse to talk. Maybe group work will be introduced though, and that should be alright.

The first thing we had to do in the class was tell the others why we had chosen Japanese. The weirdest explanation came from a guy whose job it was to program. He told us that while he programmed he had a second screen beside him which would play television series. And since he had now watched about every long English series that existed, he had turned to Japanese anime. The only trouble was that he had trouble programming while also looking at the subtitles. So now he wanted to learn Japanese so he wouldn't have to look at the subtitles all the time. Yep.

As the last thing that I'm going to bother to recount, we had some quite weird lectures these past few days. We tested some kind of new lecturing system, where we're each given a kind of remote control, with numbers on it. During lectures, multiple choice questions suddenly pop up, and we have to press the button that we think corresponds to the answer. It's actually really fun, and makes you not fall asleep and actually listen. I really hope they're going to implement it.

Finally, I'm getting a bit tired of those annoying spam mails, that claim to give you such amazing "opportunity". I don't know how many people from Nigeria who have offered me millions, if I would just help them transfer money to some weird bank account. I've also won the British lottery about five times now, I think.