Back in the Big D

I got back from Canada a few days ago, and while I am glad to be back home, I am not glad to be going back to work. I totally have this brain block on thinking about my project. I go into lab, do my experiments, and go home. I really need to compile my data, but this molasses of inertia just prevents me from doing anything about the mountain of numbers and blips on a screen.

The family reunion went well overall. We ate a ginormous (now officially a real word!) amount of food, mostly Chinese. The big family dinner was at a chinese buffet. I know what you're thinking (groan), but actually it was really good! They even had all you can eat sashimi!

We had about 35 people in attendance! with about 11 kids ranging from 5-13 years old. Needless to say there was a lot of chaos. We totally took over the hotel pool. I felt sorry for the other guests, who left after it got crazy with balls being pelted and kids jumping around.

It was great to catch up with my sister who lives in NYC and cousin who is an internal medicine resident in Hong Kong. We got to get away for a few hours to walk around downtown and meet up with my sister's Hot friend. And he was SO nice, too. This is after we spent an hour bashing men. Men are TOXIC. But luckily, Hot friend restored our belief that there can be mega good lookin, genuinely nice guys out there. Thanks Hot friend.

Of course no family reunion is complete without drama. I lost my temper and blew up at my sister.. way to go for reverting back to tween behavior. I was mostly upset at myself for ruining such a fun occasion. Luckily, HB was there to advise and be supportive. He helped cheer me up by buying me a baby Gloomy bear... so cute! Here is a picture of Gloomy although mine is plush and not bloody ;)

Fortunately, I was able to work things out and salvage sentiments before my sister left for NY. In the end, I was super sad to say goodbye to everyone. Time was too short, and with so many people it was hard to spend enough time with everyone.

Canadia

I am in beautiful Toronto right now enjoying the gorgeous weather and the company of family. Everyone on my Dad's side of the family will be in town for our first family reunion. I am so excited to see people!

After some minor traveling disasters yesterday (thanks Dallas monsoons), we finally arrived at our hotel at 2:00 in the morning. We picked up my sister from the airport this morning, and had dim sum...yum!! Seriously good food rivaling even Hong Kong dim sum. I think the best dish was the turnip cakes- so deelicious. I have a feeling the rest of my posts in Toronto will focus on food, either that or the 10+ kiddos that my cousins are bringing.

I can't wait to see my 13 year of pen pal Cassy! I bought her a copy of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess's (what's the proper way to do the apostrophe?) Stardust!! I hope she likes it- I know I would have loved Neil Gaiman when I was a kid.

Tomorrow I also pick up HB from the airport. It'll be interesting for him to meet the more normal half of my family.

Blueberries and Fireants

Did you know that you can go blueberry picking not too far from Dallas? I went yesterday with my friend, AF, who was visiting from New York. Her boyfriend organized a group of 8 people, and we all packed in to a surburban headed towards East Texas. It was a fun day of driving in the rain (luckily by the time we got there, it had stopped), stopping by at Ranch Hands, a bbq buffet, and blueberry picking!! We had a bunch of fun, except that I was wearing sandals, and stepped into some ant hills...twice. I was just too excited about picking the good blueberries.

I was pretty good about not scratching the bites, and they really didn't bother me too much. Although when I am sleeping, it is a little difficult to muster up the willpower not to scratch them. This morning, the bites looked ok- i put some hydrocortisone on them and went to work. Now, after walking on my feet for a couple of hours, they are really getting huge!!! I just had to take a picture- definitely got some rubor, calor, tumour, action going.

You can't really tell the redness, but notice how the medial aspect of my right foot is bulging and angry. I guess they were fireants...

Being in Lab Blows

Just finishing up some labwork today- transfected neurons with plasmids, converted some whole cell recording data, split HEK cells, made fresh 4% paraformaldehyde fix, and am just overwhelmed with how much lab blows these days. I used to really enjoy doing this stuff, but it has become such a chore.
I am also unhappy at how some things are SO inefficient. For example to record from neurons, we use a program called Labview to log all the data. Labview is great, but unfortunately, the person who programmed it for the patch rigs...is the most unorganized programmer ever. This leads to oodles of time wasted on unintuitive clicking of random buttons with a crappy mouse, which leads to neck and mind and soul strain. So, it took me an hour to just extract my data from the program and convert it into an analyzable datafile. And, no the data isn't even analyzed yet. I will have 50+ hours analyzing miniEPSC data, which is just retarded beyond belief. Sometimes I just want to scream!! WHY?!!!! When I have my own lab, it will be the model of efficiency. seriously.
Okay, well I feel better after ranting: it also helps that I can leave in 15 minutes. I really need a break.

Update

So when I started this blog, I was afraid this was going to happen: that I would only post on and off due to my fickle nature. But since doctorsquared keeps encouraging me to update (thanks Dr^2!), okay well maybe she told me to update last month when I hung out with her in Swellesley, I still have been feeling the need to post something...ANYTHING.

Lately, my life has been more of the same, punctuated with random funness. Dallas has become a monsoon town. I think we have had rain every day since the end of May. Not that I am complaining, because this is much better than the usual 100+ weather that we would normally be having. Usually, I spend my life in the lab, only to go home for food and sleep.

In June, I went to my 5-year college reunion, which was a blast. I think the funniest highlight was when people tried to go skinnydipping in Lake Waban only to be caught butt-nekkid by campo.

A couple weeks later, I went to DC for a conference where I met up with a friend from college- Kermit (sometimes I think he sounds like kermit the frog, maybe this is why I think everything he says is so funny..). We had a lot of good laughs and reminiscing about past laughs. We listened to his playlist Hotness 1.1 and watched Bachelor Party Vegas- which is SO hilariously bad. I also got to see some high school friends - Bootsie and Banana Boy*! I made them watch the UFC fight- BJ Penn v. Jens Pulver. The Prodigy rocks!

Anyway, I will try to post more soon. I hope my readers haven't completely abandoned me. I love you guys!!

*Banana Boy is so named because we went to homecoming together senior year, and he got me a mum with a big honkin plastic banana. Now that I think about it, I can't believe that I went around a full day of high school wearing that thing. I totally should have made the toilet I put on his garter much much bigger. I'll try to post a picture sometime for people who didn't grow up in Texas, although it is sort of embarrassing that I participated in this commercial sh*t.

Reaching 30 and Out of Shape

HB is in town for a week! I have been bugging him about losing weight lately, so yesterday, we spent two hours "playing" tennis and throwing the pigskin around. Yeah, I throw like a girl, but sometimes I can get a good spiral even though it doesn't go very far. And we both suck at tennis. Too bad there isn't a badminton court around. But then we canceled the exercise out by going to Braum's and getting ice cream... irresistible.

I realize that I am getting close to 30 now, and still not in great shape. It's now or never! I am going to try to lose the belly fat, butt sag and unsightly thighs before then. I have three years, so that should be plenty of time. :)

Also, HB helped me pick out new eyeglass frames, but they are bright red!! I am sort of freaking out about them now, but oh well. I'll post a picture once I get them.

Cici's Pizza

I organized a lab lunch this week...at Cici's pizza. All-you-can-eat pizza for only 3.99!! It was the ultimate gorge fest including but not limited to: taco pizza, mac-and-cheese pizza (really good), spinach alfredo pizza, buffalo chicken pizza and cinnamon rolls. I have not been to Cici's for years, even though there is one two blocks from where I live. In high school, when it only cost $2.99, we would have eating competitions there and line up the leftover crusts on the table to see which side won. I believe that I was always on the winning side- since I always chose to be on the side of Iron Stomach (you know who you are) and/or HB. I also remember going to Cici's fondly because of the Simpson's arcade game that we would always try to beat every time we went.

As a result though, I feel so gross right now. Bloated and thirsty...mmm. But I would say lunch was still worth it. I feel like going home to take a nap now, but maybe I'll drum up the willpower to go work out instead.

Busy to the Max

Lately, I have been swamped at work. I am working on multiple projects now, and some days at work are crazy. It's weird because most graduate students start out with a few projects and narrow it down, once one becomes more promising than the others, but I did the opposite- started on one project and am branching out 3 years later. I feel better spreading out the chips a bit, and it has been fun starting new things.

For example, I transformed and grew bacteria for the last couple of days in order to purify some DNA. This is so exciting for me, because I have never done much molecular/micro biology, and at the end, you get a clear reading of how much DNA you have...in micrograms! Is it just me, or does LB Broth smell like chicken broth? Every time I pour some to grow bacteria in, I think about what LB would taste like. Yep, I'm totally that person who wonders what dog food tastes like. I'll try to restrain myself.

Another new technique I have been trying to master for the past month and a half is performing whole cell recordings in neurons or "patching". I still think it is so nuts that you can place an electrode into a neuron and record its electrical activity. This week, I finally started getting the whole procedure down and successfully patching into healthy neurons.

I guess this is the neat thing about doing research- once things get routine, you can always switch things up a bit, approach the problem from a different angle. Okay well, off to start another busy and hopefully productive day.

RSI

Lately, I have been analyzing a lot of neuron images. This involves clicking on hundreds of regions and as a result my upper trapezius is killing me. Additionally, in order to prepare the cells for fluorescent labeling, I have to pipette... alot. Last night I was sitting at home, and my lower right neck started twitching. I am beginning to understand why computer programmers have such problems with repetitive strain injury. HB has chronic problems with his upper back, and I always thought he was a big wimp with bad posture, but muscle strain really blows. So now I am trying to use the mouse with my left hand, even though it is slow going.

Easter- the best holiday

I have had an incredibly busy week, so I can barely find time to post about things. But I have so many things to write about! First off, my week began with an immensely awesome surprise. My roommate from college just happened to be in town for a work-related project!! I'll call her Atalanta (since that will be the name of her sailboat). It was so great to spend time with her, and to hear about her new life plan (which sounds so much more fulfilling than her current job). I love how hanging out with friends lifts you out of the foulest of moods.

Wednesday night, I hosted a Passover Seder dinner at my apartment. Even though the turnout wasn't as big as in the past, I enjoyed sharing a meal with friends. I love Seder dinners, and I'm not sure why more Christians do not celebrate it, since it was the last meal that Jesus participated in, especially since the Jewish traditions are so beautiful and strangely (or not so strangely) complementary to Christian beliefs. My favorite part of the Seder meal is probably the charoset, because it is supposed to be a sweet reminder of the mortar used between the bricks (can be symbolized by matzoh) and because it is SO tasty.

Friday morning, I was in charge of bringing Krispy Kremes to the 5 am walkabout. Our pastor superimposed Jerusalem onto Lower Greenville, so every year on Good Friday we walk to the sites that Jesus visited on his last day, starting from The Temple (Whole Foods), across from the Garden of Gethsemane where he was arrested and ending with where Jesus went before Pilate for the second time (next to Shell gas station).

Easter Sunday was great, too. Because of some freak weather, where we actually had snow flurries on Saturday (after 84 degree weather three days before), we moved our sunrise service inside instead of the usual outdoor spot at White Rock Lake. The best part was watching all the little kids hunt for Easter eggs after brunch, oh and the annual peep jousting tournament of course (aged peeps work so much better).

Can you tell I love Easter week? It is always such a renewing time for me, especially going through Lent, trying to focus on meditating and centering on God, yet remembering that no one is perfect, nor do we have to be- which is the whole reason for Easter in the first place. And all of this coinciding with the beginning of spring is always uplifting. I look forward to it every year.

Atrophy of the Analytical

I met with the Russian professor today, (the one that gives me such a hard time in my thesis committee meetings) and he was surprisingly cordial. He helped me derive all these equations for my receptor trafficking studies and it all makes sense now! Okay maybe not, but by putting things in perspective, I have a much better idea of what is going on in my system. It makes me wish that I had figured out all these relationships BEFORE I actually performed my experiments, so I would know which parameters were important.



But anyway, the whole thing makes me realize how much of my physics training has gone done the tubes. Seriously, these are simple equations, and I really should have figured them out myself. On top of that, I am taking a statistics class, and yeah my math has definitely suffered. I feel sad that I can't think analytically anymore. :( And a professor from Wellesley just e-mailed me asking about how my major has affected my post-college career. And while I would like to say that it has enhanced it, I realize that it is a big fat LIE, and my physics professors would be ashamed.



Que triste. Oh well, Knut makes EVERYTHING better.

BINGO!

My friend Amanda is heading out into the working world of Flagstaff Arizona, so a group of 4 gals gathered Saturday night to wish her a bon voyage. We had dinner and plans to go bowling, but our plans were foiled due to a 1.5 hour wait for a lane. Clearly, they need more bowling alleys in the suburbs. Determined to have a good time, we settled on....BINGO. That's right, it's the new and exciting place to be for people in their late 20's.

So having no idea what was going on, we purchased a game set and our little ink daubers. Let me just say that first time Bingo is STRESSFUL. There was so much Bingo Lingo that we needed to learn (3 the hard way, wild number, flying elvis -still haven't figured out that one...), it was overwhelming at first, but after we figured out the whole electronic screen, it turned out to be a lot of fun! I have to say that you have to try it at least one. And I can see how it can get very addicting.

None of us actually ended up winning, but we had a good time (and the ink dauber was the best $1 spent in a while).

Exhausted and Lazy

After a morning full of meetings, I am tired and apathetic. Okay, I admit I am mostly tired from staying up late to watch Ninja Warrior on G4 and online Ugly Betty episodes. Luckily, I didn't give up slothfulness for Lent, because lately I have been nothing but. Examples:
1) I set my alarm clock for 7:00 am and snooze for 1-1.5 hours EVERYDAY!
2) After waking up, I'll take 1-1.5 hours just to putter around in the morning before heading out.
3) After 3:00 pm I feel like my brain is fried and either fall asleep or think about going home until I do.
4) I leave my dirty dishes in the sink for a week (I know it's so gross).
5) I neglect my leopard gecko Cornelius for weeks.
6) I haven't read a full scientific article in over a month.
This is really pathetic, I am the worst graduate student ever. Oh well. For now I'll just keep think about getting things done, and maybe soon it will cross over into reality.

Pop! Goes my heart

I watched Music & Lyrics with doctorsquared a few weeks ago and had this song stuck in my head for days. The movie was okay- exactly what you would expect, but this music video is priceless! The two of us laughed so hard, it was difficult to breathe.

Works-Not-In-Progress

I had to give a 20 minute presentation in front of my entire department today. Speaking in front of people is not something I relish, especially when I see people falling asleep (okay, so maybe this is retribution for me falling asleep in other people's talks, but still, okay I guess I can't blame them when the title of my talk is "The mechanisms of metabotropic glutamate receptor-mediated AMPAR trafficking". who cares?! To top it off, the two people who gave talks ahead of me, one of them showed fly eye pictures, and the other played a video with humping rats to the tune of "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard..." I can't compete with sex and anxiety studies in rats, although I do not envy the girl, who has to sit and record the amount of times the male rat mounts the female, and time to ejaculation, etc.)

In any case, I am glad it is over. I have been more looking forward to babysitting this little guy in a couple of hours!!

Reliving Last Week

So we snowboarded for four days in a row, and I feel pretty comfortable on the mountain now. I still eat the snow doing black diamonds, but it surprisingly hurts less to fall when you are going fast than when you are going slow. It is more of a psychological challenge.

On the way back we ate at Murder Burger in Davis, or actually Redrum Burger now. We had to try the ZOOM (a big plate of fried zucchini, onion rings and mushrooms), even though my cardiac vessels were scared. And HB tried the ostrich burger which has a really good taste, different from any other burger meat. Basically, the rest of the week, we did a whole lot of eating (food in the SF area is soooo tasty) and watching Battlestar Galactica. It is such a good series, every episode is well done. I especially liked the first (or maybe 2nd?) show of the third season where Admiral Adama calls his son a fatass. Because Lee Adama is such a tool, even though he is hot. He makes retarded decisions and always gets bailed out of them by the cool people around him. But I digress.

HB introduced a new type of food to me: Bun bo hue. A bowlful of spicy noodle yumminess, and all this time I thought the best Vietnamese foods were the pho's and grilled pork and sandwiches. We also had delicious Korean tofu stew, awesome Mediterranean food, and Chinese comfort food. The last night, HB cooked his cabbage dish for me that he has been raving about all month. And it basically is just... cabbage that he sauteed/steamed with garlic and some green onions. It was pretty good with some rice and tofu.

We also watched the Friday midnight showing of 300. The crowd was crazy, we even saw people donning broom heads attached to bike helmets. Overall it was a good movie, very closely following the eponymous Frank Miller comic book, except for some added scenes with the queen and the Spartan counsel, which were kinda unnecessary. Of course any reference to the Greek city-states always reminds me of this class I took in high school. It was a two years humanities course, and when we studied ancient Greece, the teachers split the class into 5 competing city-states: Athens, Sparta, Argos, Corinth and ?I forget?. For a good grade, we had to literally do as the Greeks do (wear togas, build living quarters, etc.) I will never forget marching into 3rd period with a trumpet call (okay yeah, so no trumpets back then, but we improvised) screaming "What makes the grass grow? Blood Blood Blood! and offering "human" sacrifices to the gods (our teachers) Go Sparta!!!

It's Gonna be a Long Update

Because I am a loser and couldn't find the venue for North by Southwest this evening, otherwise I would be rockin' out to Margot and the Nuclear So & So's and Pigeon John. Which is weird that they are performing in the same place because they are so different, but I was REALLY looking forward to seeing them. oh well.

Sorry for the long hiatus, I was hoping to update my blog while in San Francisco, but I hardly spent any time on the computer. I had an awesome time with my boyfriend (I guess it's time to give him a name- HB). We see each other about once a month, and this has been going on for about 6 years now. I used to worry about lots of things concerning our relationship (what would happen once we actually ended up in the same place, are we insane, why didn't I apply to more med schools near SF, what if he meets a hot California girl, etc..) but I've stopped most of that now because it is both unhelpful and unneccessary (I think).

I arrived in SF, and we immediately headed up to South Lake Tahoe. We stayed at a discount motel, which was surprisingly clean and even had a fridge and communal hot tub. Saturday morning, we headed to the slopes at Kirkwood, where it was packed! with both snow and people. Saturday was not a good day. Even though I had taken snowboarding lessons in college and have gone about once a year since then, I had a hard time remembering how to do my S-turns. And, since the snow was mostly packed powder, it hurt to fall, and I fell aLOT. My butt took a brutal beating, and at times I teared up in pain. I hated being the whiny, wimpy girlfriend, but HB was so patient and encouraging. He really deserves a big sloppy kiss for his efforts.

Fortunately, I got better the next day and continued to improve. On Sunday, we snowboarded at Heavenly, which has the some of the best views of the Lake. I lost my cell phone on the slopes, someone found it and returned it for me only to lose it again the next day, and I wasn't so lucky the second time around. After a half day of snowboarding, we took a scenic drive to a mountain town called Truckee near North Lake Tahoe. We stayed at the River Street Inn, which is this little bed and breakfast by the river. HB went all out in the planning. He's the best! (Okay, since I feel like I am gushing a little too much over HB, let me just interject here some of the downsides of hanging out with him: He LOVES farting and toilet humor. He is obsessed with pooping and all things dealing with poop. Ever since he heard about the "dutch oven", I know he has been dying to do this to me, but he knows better. While this makes for some major stinkiness, there are some upsides, like I don't feel that weird about pooping or farting at his place, since he does it all the time around me)

Since this post is already too long, I will save the rest for tomorrow.

Snowboarding in 12 hours!

I am leaving today to visit my boyfriend in San Francisco!! We are going snowboarding in Tahoe for a few days. I have new gear (I serendipitously passed an outdoor sporting goods shop that had 25% off their winter clothing! Since I also fit into Large girls sizes, I was able to score some pretty good prices on some Northface stuff.) including a new pink helmet that I am excited about wearing. Now I can carve on the mountain with crazy, reckless abandon. Okay maybe not that reckless, as it is always a little worrisome to get back into things after a whole year of not snowboarding.

Otherwise, everything else is going pretty well. I met privately with one of my thesis committee members (Professor J) to clarify his position on my project, and he had some good suggestions. Even better, he also thinks Dr. Say-whatever-comes-to-my-head-without-processing-it-first went into an unnecessary homily. phew. So Professor J is probably the professor whose opinion I most care about on my committee. We have a long history- I rotated in his lab a long long time ago. He was the ultimate teacher, and he was the best lecturer in Medical School Pharmacology (I'll never forget that tolcapone- a drug for Parkinson's causes explosive diarrhea). Also he is just plain hilarious. He can say things that will make you realize the next day that he completely made a fool out of you. Outside of science, you cannot believe anything he says. He told my boss once that I work better with the threat of a stick instead of the carrot. I could go on about the crazy things he says, but he has really made my life in school here better.

But enough about school already, I am off to the west coast!

Survived but Slightly Scathed

So, the committee meeting was brutal. I think that I did the best that I could under the circumstances. Mainly, the chair of my committee is an ignoramus, who doesn't understand my project. I would be okay with this, if only he didn't love hearing his own word vomit which came out while I was discussing valid critiques of my project with the other committee members. Since this is clearly a complaint, I will have to schedule in extra exercise this week.

Otherwise, the hardcore Russian professor who gave me a hard time on my first committee meeting asked me the same reaction rate kinetics questions, which luckily I looked over right before my meeting. Knowing the correct answer is sweet. Although it did take me a good 45 minutes to rederive all those equations beforehand. I promise that I used to know how to integrate and solve differential equations. Overall, I think I stressed out too much over the whole thing, and let it upset me too much. I need to work on developing my pachyderm. My boyfriend has agreed to make fun of me more to help with this. Not sure how that is going to work out, it might be trouble, but I asked for it.

Oatmeal and Raisins

I have my third thesis committee meeting in 2 hours. Goals for my meeting are as follows:
1) Present the data I have accumulated since my last committee meeting, which surprisingly, is a lot of stuff.
2) Convince my committee that I should graduate in a year. (This is essential for my sanity)
3) Walk out without making a fool of myself (this was not the case for my first committee meeting, where the hardcore Russian professor pounded my confidence into the ground and told me that I needed to sit in a small quiet room with textbooks to learn the material.... yeah I reluctantly admit that I started bawling afterwards and had to wear these glasses for the rest of the day to cover my red nose.)

But what I am really excited about is the oatmeal I had this morning- with raisins! Which is so tasty. I started microwaving milk and oatmeal a few weeks ago, and while it is good, the raisins just add so much. I highly recommend it, but make sure you don't let the oatmeal bubble over in the microwave...

Women, Pheremones, and Lent

I have readers now!! because I finally decided to tell someone about it, and so this collection of ramblings is officially a blog. Yea!

Yesterday, I had the honor of meeting Linda Buck, the 2004 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, for elucidating mechanisms of the olfactory system. She was an alumnae of the graduate program here, so her talk was especially inspiring. She discussed some work on TAARs, a receptor subtype that are potential candidates for pheremone receptors. They did their studies in mice, but humans have TAARs too..

Since I am on the committee that organized her talk for the University Lecture Series, I escorted her around campus to all her meetings with different professors and got to go to dinner with her last night. A dinner of 14 strongly opinionated women quickly turns into a bitch fest. Okay, well maybe it started just before dessert, but one well-known professor, who is chair of her department was of the opinion that the higher ranks in science will never approach gender equality because, "being at the top in science means dealing with a lot of crap that most women are not willing to put up with." This is disconcerting for several reasons. 1) I have heard this pessimism before (I got to have lunch with Dr. Ben Barres, formerly Barbara Barres, who feels that the women who train in his lab are less likely to pursue a career in academia, read his commentary here). 2) Does this mean I'm screwed? 3) Do I want to be one of these women who deals with crap? 4) Can I just do science and not worry about this crap?

Okay, so it is a little overwhelming to process all this information, so I am just going to focus on what needs to get done now for the time being. I need to decide what I am going to do for God during Lent this year. Give up complaining? or Exercise (at least 2X a week)? My indecisiveness kills me. On one hand, giving up complaining would be difficult to define. I mean did I just spend a paragraph complaining? - I guess Webster's says complain means to express grief, pain, or discontent. This would be pretty f#cking hard to implement. On the other hand, adding exercise routinely is pretty tough for me. This week is already pretty much over, and I just missed my plan to go to step aerobics tonight...

Community

The gorgeous and down-to-earth doctorsquared came to visit me this past weekend. We had a great time catching up, considering it has been 4.5 long years since we last saw each other. For a good rundown of our activities minus the pillowfights and making out in our underwear, go here. She provided an excellent explanation for our obsession with blogs, which may have begun in college. We went to Wellesley College, where our e-mail client was embedded with electronic bulletin boards. These forums added so much to the community, we even had a "community bulletin", which most people (students and professors) checked daily. These forums covered every topic related to campus life from student organization boards to teacher/class recommendation boards to boards about food and sex. I even vaguely remember a "Who's your Daddy" bulletin that was limited to the first floor residents of my first year dorm.

I have yet to encounter another college that had a similar system (that was so widely used across campus). I miss it! and I definitely think that reading blogs helps alleviate some of that nostalgia...but not quite.

Valentines' Day

Happy Valentines' Day!! I think there should be a movement to change Valentines' Day into a day of chocolate (and candy) loving, a day where everyone can share their love of sweets together. I mean we already do this as little kids. Heck, I'd even eat black licorice if someone wanted to share some with me on Valentines' Day. Wouldn't this be a great solution to all the angst and unrequitedness surrounding the holiday? I think everyone would benefit, except maybe dentists....

Obama '08!!!

I am so excited about Obama's announcement yesterday! Finally, someone who is capable of inspiring people to reach further, think bigger than themselves, and believe in a greater good. I find his message refreshing, in that it directly opposes the culture and politics of the "me society" in America. I think the current administration has been able to get away with their policy by playing into this type of thinking. The government can do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't affect me, here and now. Isn't it weird that even though we are fighting a war, essentially nothing has changed in the daily life we are living here? Why is there no call to save energy and resources; Where is Rosy the Riveter? Why isn't the average citizen called into action, because shouldn't we all be involved in protecting ourselves? The paternalism of the Bush leadership is just so infuriating and sadly ineffectual. Because in the end, even though we aren't giving up anything in the short term, the long term effects of this current policy- decreasing growth of funding for the sciences, education, etc will really shoot us in the ass.

So back to Obama, the cynic in me is just waiting for that fatal flaw to come out, but another voice is telling me that I am too young to be completely jaded just yet. For now, I'll just revel in the possibility of a new direction for our country that genuinely espouses the principles I hold dear: compassion and faith.

Pizza and Football

On Tuesday, my boyfriend and I decided to try the new NY style pizza at Coal Vines. The pizza was soo good, almost as tasty as the authentic slices we had in New York a few months ago. The two of us easily polished off a large pizza no problem. We are big piggies. On the way out, we bumped into none other than Troy Aikman! After gawking, we headed home to play some Zelda on the Nintendo Wii.

Truth vs. Sincerity

I know this is my third post mentioning the Pamuk book, but last night as I was reading, the narrator brought up a concept I had never thought of before. The distinction between truth and sincerity. Clearly, they represent different ideas, but can you have one without the other? Can you be truthful and insincere? Or sincere and knowingly untruthful? The example in the book cited miniaturists who portray subjects as truthfully as possible, yet only when they make mistakes do they reveal their sincerity in the painting. This is a little hard to grasp for me. I'll have to think about it more.

On a more exciting note, my boyfriend flies in today! We live in two very different parts of the country. He lives in a very very blue state, and I live in a painfully very red state. We have plans to play the Wii I got him and to watch episodes of Battlestar Galactica. So dorky, I know, but he is a big nerd. I hope things go okay when I pick him up today- I was a little annoyed when he really didn't call me that much this week (I think Sunday was the last time we chatted briefly). I e-mailed him about it, since I couldn't reach him by phone, and he responded with "Sorry, been busy this week." I understand if you are busy, but let me know damn it! We always seem to have the same beef, so obviously I am not getting my point across very well. Usually, I respond by getting upset and starting "drama" (whatever). We'll see how this time plays out...

I am called Black

Thanks to the Turkish professor with whom we share a lab with, I can fill in the missing pages of My Name is Red!!!! I told him how frustrated I was about the missing pages, and he just happend to have an english copy of the novel. This totally makes my day. I just had to find out whether Shekure got stood up by Black or not, and of course since I am all about instant gratification, I peeked (she doesn't).

It's nice to have friends from Turkey.

On a completely separate note, this was a headline in today's news. While I sympathize with the police who were on a wild goose chase, the whole situation is just funny, especially since of course you wouldn't expect the police to understand the humor in Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Waiting on Neurons

I am waiting for my neurons to do what neurons do. Process the drugs I gave them, and hopefully give me the results that I want. Mostly, I am waiting to fix them so I can go eat my lunch and browse my daily dose of blogs. Lab work can be so frustrating. My favorite part used to be analyzing data to see if your results support your hypothesis, but recently I have been dreading it. For a while I was just performing experiment after experiment and amassing a crapload of data, but that doesn't work very well. Especially when you finally analyze your data and find that you had your result last month, 4 experiments ago. Or more commonly, you have been doing your experiment the wrong way for months. But back to my neurons, they should be ready in ten minutes.

So in the meantime, I am posting my first blog entry ever. This is pretty hard, especially since I'm not sure who I want to direct my comments to?

Anyway, I am in the middle of reading this great novel by the Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, titled My Name is Red. I get to the middle, about page 149, and the next chapter sounds oddly familiar. Is this the same chapter from before, or is this some element of style? I glance at the page number, and I am back to page 115. Closer inspection shows that I have 2 copies of pages 115-149, and worst of all, pages 149-195 are nowhere to be found. Darn! What should I do? Since it is a mystery, I don't really want to skip 50 pages of rising action. Oh well I'll keep you posted.