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.