20090624
Huh
Dad contacted the Acer company (my laptop still has about six months left of the warranty) and they sent me a few files to update the BIOS and now Ivy works again. I have no idea what was wrong to begin with or why it works now, but it works!
20090620
Maybe it's dehydration?
Have a low level headache today and, what's more unusual, I have no idea what's causing it. V. annoying.
In other news, was planning to update this & get some stuff done last night but was too tired. Ended up sleeping for about eleven hours (which was not the source of the headache) and had multiple interesting dreams, including one where Annie and I were discussion bike helmets (and then we went grocery shopping). It was surprisingly mundane. Realized at around 5'am this morning (also not source of headache) that I forgot to check something before I ordered stuff for my next experiment, so had to email my labmate about that. Hopefully it'll still be okay. Woke up at around 8ish and realized that I've forgotten to send out the card I got for my dad three weeks ago and remembered, with some eye-twitching, that this is exactly why I usually don't plan out things more than a week ahead of time when I know I'll be busy.
Still drowning in kittens at the animal shelter. They're ridiculously hard to keep track of since they put multiple kitten per cage and when the door is opened to take one out, all of them try to escape.
Was informed I can start moving stuff into the new place next weekend, which will give me a head start and hopefully mitigate the insanity that is early July. (Even one year is enough to accumulate stuff. Especially since my parents keep bringing over things. At least now I have a convincing excuse to get to start carting some of the stuff back.)
On a note about the email, since I know most of the people who are coming do (somewhat) follow this blog: the reason why I requested for brightly colored clothing is that although yes, calling me on the phone will tell me when people get here, unless I can answer the phone I have no way of knowing which exist people are at. This way if there's no space for my car and I'll have to circle around I know what color I should be keeping an eye out for as I'm going by. It'll be possible to find people without it, since SD airport isn't that big, but this'll just make my life easier. And less hazardous in the sense that I'll be navigating around some of the crazier SD drivers.
I cannot shake off the feeling that I've forgotten something important.
[edit 14:15]
It is dehydration. (Was it something I ate?) Am better now and, for some reason, with the opening theme for Ouran High School Host Club stuck on replay in my head.
[edit 17:22]
Just got the notice: if I were to continue at the same apartment my rent will be going up starting September. Heh.
In other news, was planning to update this & get some stuff done last night but was too tired. Ended up sleeping for about eleven hours (which was not the source of the headache) and had multiple interesting dreams, including one where Annie and I were discussion bike helmets (and then we went grocery shopping). It was surprisingly mundane. Realized at around 5'am this morning (also not source of headache) that I forgot to check something before I ordered stuff for my next experiment, so had to email my labmate about that. Hopefully it'll still be okay. Woke up at around 8ish and realized that I've forgotten to send out the card I got for my dad three weeks ago and remembered, with some eye-twitching, that this is exactly why I usually don't plan out things more than a week ahead of time when I know I'll be busy.
Still drowning in kittens at the animal shelter. They're ridiculously hard to keep track of since they put multiple kitten per cage and when the door is opened to take one out, all of them try to escape.
Was informed I can start moving stuff into the new place next weekend, which will give me a head start and hopefully mitigate the insanity that is early July. (Even one year is enough to accumulate stuff. Especially since my parents keep bringing over things. At least now I have a convincing excuse to get to start carting some of the stuff back.)
On a note about the email, since I know most of the people who are coming do (somewhat) follow this blog: the reason why I requested for brightly colored clothing is that although yes, calling me on the phone will tell me when people get here, unless I can answer the phone I have no way of knowing which exist people are at. This way if there's no space for my car and I'll have to circle around I know what color I should be keeping an eye out for as I'm going by. It'll be possible to find people without it, since SD airport isn't that big, but this'll just make my life easier. And less hazardous in the sense that I'll be navigating around some of the crazier SD drivers.
I cannot shake off the feeling that I've forgotten something important.
[edit 14:15]
It is dehydration. (Was it something I ate?) Am better now and, for some reason, with the opening theme for Ouran High School Host Club stuck on replay in my head.
[edit 17:22]
Just got the notice: if I were to continue at the same apartment my rent will be going up starting September. Heh.
20090617
What IS it with me and Wednesdays?
WARNING: whining post.
Good question, Lucy. I'm not entirely sure. Everyone sometimes have one of those days, when plugging in a laptop can result in electrocution. For me, it just happens that about 90 to 95% of those days always happen to fall on a Wednesday. Not every Wednesday sucks, thank goodness, but even so I've learned that when a day has turned out to be awful, it's most likely Wednesday again. (Yeah my grasp of days of the week can be a little shaky at times, and grad school is not helping.)
Take today, for example:
The day began with me, oversleeping. Yes, me. I usually wake up at least once at 6:30am, 5:30 if it's bright outside and not cloudy like it usually is in the mornings here (it's because of the ocean). (This tend to make me wonder what'll happen to me when I'm seventy. Will I wake up at three in the morning when everyone else wakes up at five? Will I forgo sleep altogether?) For some reason I was out cold last night and didn't wake up once until I opened my eyes and saw it was 7:48am. Which was immediately followed by panic, since I have experiments and I need to go to the bank today, because my application for the studio apartment was approved and in order for them to hold the place for me I need to get the deposit (money order or cashier's check only) to the place within 48 hours or something, and I got the message at 7pm last night, after the bank (Chase) had already closed so it'll have to be today. Conclusion: short lab day just got shorter.
Then I left home, and had to come back less than five minutes later because I forgot the stuff. Which hasn't happened to me in...what? This level? Two years?
Then I missed the bus.
And then my laptop failed me. Ivy for some reason wouldn't output to its screen when I booted up. I tried directly plugging it into another monitor with the reasoning that a basic functioning computer must have a boot drive, power supply, hard drive, an input source, and an output source -- and so if it's something fundamentally wrong with the connections (such if something shorted out), then the output source'd be gone and if I plug it into a functioning output source while the original one was out, what's in Ivy should show up in the plug in monitor.
Nope. Got nothing. Which means when I get the time I'll need to take Ivy apart, manually disconnect the screen from the harddrive, and plug it into an alternate monitor to do further diagnosis etc. Current prognosis? Not good. Since I did have to drive down to Pacific Beach today after lab (by the time I set out it was past 7pm already, and the rush-hour traffic had cleared so at least I wasn't stuck in traffic) for the deposit and further paperwork, that took another hour out of my time. After dinner, shower and such, I've just now got a chance to connect to the internet and looking at the clock? I don't think I'll take a stab at it tonight. I plead mild exhaustion.
I did get my Hep B titer results back today though, and now I'm (finally) immunized. In addition, the PI got us each a nice USB drive for lab stuff and chocolates for the lab meeting, so the day wasn't a total loss.
Good question, Lucy. I'm not entirely sure. Everyone sometimes have one of those days, when plugging in a laptop can result in electrocution. For me, it just happens that about 90 to 95% of those days always happen to fall on a Wednesday. Not every Wednesday sucks, thank goodness, but even so I've learned that when a day has turned out to be awful, it's most likely Wednesday again. (Yeah my grasp of days of the week can be a little shaky at times, and grad school is not helping.)
Take today, for example:
The day began with me, oversleeping. Yes, me. I usually wake up at least once at 6:30am, 5:30 if it's bright outside and not cloudy like it usually is in the mornings here (it's because of the ocean). (This tend to make me wonder what'll happen to me when I'm seventy. Will I wake up at three in the morning when everyone else wakes up at five? Will I forgo sleep altogether?) For some reason I was out cold last night and didn't wake up once until I opened my eyes and saw it was 7:48am. Which was immediately followed by panic, since I have experiments and I need to go to the bank today, because my application for the studio apartment was approved and in order for them to hold the place for me I need to get the deposit (money order or cashier's check only) to the place within 48 hours or something, and I got the message at 7pm last night, after the bank (Chase) had already closed so it'll have to be today. Conclusion: short lab day just got shorter.
Then I left home, and had to come back less than five minutes later because I forgot the stuff. Which hasn't happened to me in...what? This level? Two years?
Then I missed the bus.
And then my laptop failed me. Ivy for some reason wouldn't output to its screen when I booted up. I tried directly plugging it into another monitor with the reasoning that a basic functioning computer must have a boot drive, power supply, hard drive, an input source, and an output source -- and so if it's something fundamentally wrong with the connections (such if something shorted out), then the output source'd be gone and if I plug it into a functioning output source while the original one was out, what's in Ivy should show up in the plug in monitor.
Nope. Got nothing. Which means when I get the time I'll need to take Ivy apart, manually disconnect the screen from the harddrive, and plug it into an alternate monitor to do further diagnosis etc. Current prognosis? Not good. Since I did have to drive down to Pacific Beach today after lab (by the time I set out it was past 7pm already, and the rush-hour traffic had cleared so at least I wasn't stuck in traffic) for the deposit and further paperwork, that took another hour out of my time. After dinner, shower and such, I've just now got a chance to connect to the internet and looking at the clock? I don't think I'll take a stab at it tonight. I plead mild exhaustion.
I did get my Hep B titer results back today though, and now I'm (finally) immunized. In addition, the PI got us each a nice USB drive for lab stuff and chocolates for the lab meeting, so the day wasn't a total loss.
20090614
Google map satellite is still kinda creepy
Good news was: the weather cleared up while I was at the animal shelter yesterday, so I DIDN'T have to drive through the rain in the afternoon.
I think I've mostly got my apartment picked out (unless the other person who emailed me in the morning yesterday and told me that I could come over in the morning yesterday via email after I've already left for my day manages to check his mail in time today AND tell me that I can visit today and his place is VERY good -- I mean it'll cut maybe ten to fifteen minutes off of my transit time and is cheaper, but I don't know how the place is, so I'm not going to make any commitments just yet) (that is possibly the longest in-parenthesis run-on that I've ever had to inflict on anyone).
That involves a lot of uncertainty in the many variables.
If most of them don't resolve I'll be moving to a place just off of Grand Ave in Pacific Beach. The rent is just over two hundred dollars cheaper per month (yea) and the utilities such as gas etc (the stove is gas) are included. It's, one small block away from the bus stop that'll take me to campus (which Google estimates will take me two minutes to walk to, so no more sulking in the dark parking lots in the winter, hopefully). The outside needs a new layer of paint, but the inside is clean enough, has a small kitchen and separate bathroom. What's more, the place that's available is second floor, and has a large, south-facing window (yes fiat lux!). It's just one building, and the other tenants are super nice. Two of them both went to call the landlord so she'd come over early, because I arrived early and they didn't think I should need to wait (and then I got involved in the downstrair's tenant's discussion on tomato plants, which another tenant gave her since he had some extra). It's also supposedly really QUIET there (enough to hear people snoring at night sometimes, but that remains to be seen), so no more jets passing by overhead while we watch things, Lucy. (lol It does make the trips to my place memorable, doesn't it?) It's next to a bunch of military housing and three of the six doors in the apartment facing the street was left open while I was there while the tenants were...somewhere, wandering around (sometimes with their shirt off, which was vaguely disconcerting at first, but this is Pacific Beach, so I guess that's expected?), which I thought was a very nice statement about the safety of that area (and one of the tenants has a very nice plasma screen).
The down side? It's still can take up to an hour to get to the campus (takes me thirty minutes right now). There's no on-site laundry place (I was told there's a laundry place two blocks north). The parking is on the street, so no parking spaces. I have to start paying rent by July 1st, since that's the longest they can hold the place off the market (but now that I got the other half of my salary at least I can afford to, for a brief while). And I would still like a bigger kitchen, but I've mostly given that up now since I still remember the apartments from last year's hunt and even the larger apartments have small kitchens. I should be glad I get a kitchen.
I think I've mostly got my apartment picked out (unless the other person who emailed me in the morning yesterday and told me that I could come over in the morning yesterday via email after I've already left for my day manages to check his mail in time today AND tell me that I can visit today and his place is VERY good -- I mean it'll cut maybe ten to fifteen minutes off of my transit time and is cheaper, but I don't know how the place is, so I'm not going to make any commitments just yet) (that is possibly the longest in-parenthesis run-on that I've ever had to inflict on anyone).
That involves a lot of uncertainty in the many variables.
If most of them don't resolve I'll be moving to a place just off of Grand Ave in Pacific Beach. The rent is just over two hundred dollars cheaper per month (yea) and the utilities such as gas etc (the stove is gas) are included. It's, one small block away from the bus stop that'll take me to campus (which Google estimates will take me two minutes to walk to, so no more sulking in the dark parking lots in the winter, hopefully). The outside needs a new layer of paint, but the inside is clean enough, has a small kitchen and separate bathroom. What's more, the place that's available is second floor, and has a large, south-facing window (yes fiat lux!). It's just one building, and the other tenants are super nice. Two of them both went to call the landlord so she'd come over early, because I arrived early and they didn't think I should need to wait (and then I got involved in the downstrair's tenant's discussion on tomato plants, which another tenant gave her since he had some extra). It's also supposedly really QUIET there (enough to hear people snoring at night sometimes, but that remains to be seen), so no more jets passing by overhead while we watch things, Lucy. (lol It does make the trips to my place memorable, doesn't it?) It's next to a bunch of military housing and three of the six doors in the apartment facing the street was left open while I was there while the tenants were...somewhere, wandering around (sometimes with their shirt off, which was vaguely disconcerting at first, but this is Pacific Beach, so I guess that's expected?), which I thought was a very nice statement about the safety of that area (and one of the tenants has a very nice plasma screen).
The down side? It's still can take up to an hour to get to the campus (takes me thirty minutes right now). There's no on-site laundry place (I was told there's a laundry place two blocks north). The parking is on the street, so no parking spaces. I have to start paying rent by July 1st, since that's the longest they can hold the place off the market (but now that I got the other half of my salary at least I can afford to, for a brief while). And I would still like a bigger kitchen, but I've mostly given that up now since I still remember the apartments from last year's hunt and even the larger apartments have small kitchens. I should be glad I get a kitchen.
20090613
Oy.
My schedule today is animal shelter from 9:30 to 12, appointment at 13, 14, 15, and 16 (yeah one of the five managers annoyed me in the email so I didn't set up an appointment with him). I was cleaning out my papers from my school year this morning (4.5" stack left of just articles after I've thrown away everything else...that's still larger than a stack of unopened papers) and just now I was going to go out and throw away more papers...
...and then it started raining. It does not look like it'll stop soon. The weather forecast gave today as partially cloudy, so I've given up all hopes on it.
Well, driving around today should be fun.
...and then it started raining. It does not look like it'll stop soon. The weather forecast gave today as partially cloudy, so I've given up all hopes on it.
Well, driving around today should be fun.
20090612
Can you say dimethylpimelimidate?
It took us (meaning me and three different post-docs) the longest time to try to figure out how to say it without stuttering over the "imelimi" part.
Anyway!
School year's officially over, though lab isn't, of course. However, I do not have any extra readings outside of what I'm doing in lab and I have some time this weekend which means, of course, that by this point I've filled it up close to 80% already. However, I do believe that with careful time management I'll be able to clear up a lot of the items on my to-do list, possibly catch up on all the back-log work where I've said "I'll do this as soon as I...". It will be wonderful. Yes it will. Clear slates and crossed-out to-do lists give me a nice glow of accomplishment.
Hmm I need to get more somen. Looks like I'm out.
Now: onwards to dinner, house cleaning, harddrive cleaning, shower, and printing out directions to all the places I need to be tomorrow. I'm in the mood to leave the radio blasting the entire way.
Happy Friday everyone! And congrats to those of you who have/are graduating this week! (My there're a lot of you.)
[edit 18:37]
Dude, I went over to Pandora and first song that came on is Vitamin C's "Graduation".
Anyway!
School year's officially over, though lab isn't, of course. However, I do not have any extra readings outside of what I'm doing in lab and I have some time this weekend which means, of course, that by this point I've filled it up close to 80% already. However, I do believe that with careful time management I'll be able to clear up a lot of the items on my to-do list, possibly catch up on all the back-log work where I've said "I'll do this as soon as I...". It will be wonderful. Yes it will. Clear slates and crossed-out to-do lists give me a nice glow of accomplishment.
Hmm I need to get more somen. Looks like I'm out.
Now: onwards to dinner, house cleaning, harddrive cleaning, shower, and printing out directions to all the places I need to be tomorrow. I'm in the mood to leave the radio blasting the entire way.
Happy Friday everyone! And congrats to those of you who have/are graduating this week! (My there're a lot of you.)
[edit 18:37]
Dude, I went over to Pandora and first song that came on is Vitamin C's "Graduation".
20090610
No one quite believes it
Having talked with a few of my classmates it's safe to say, at this juncture, that none of us are processing "End of School Year" yet. Somehow it doesn't seem entirely possible that a year has passed and yet, somehow, here we are.
Last class tomorrow! I've already presented so it's mostly showing up and asking intelligent questions on my part. I also need to find some time to go and get my Hep B titer checked because I'm getting trained to work with lab animals (mice) and they need our health record.
... ...
My cell phone's call plan's going to end in about a month, I think, and I'm thinking of switching to using a phone card since I get calls once, twice, a week and they're generally short. (Have had the dubious pleasure of being reached via the lab phone now, and now that I have my access card, at least I'm fairly sure during school hours people are not going to be trying to reach me via cell phone.) On the other hand, I want to try text messaging, and possibly sending images to people via my phone. I've yet to check to see what the policies on that are, for a phone card. Anyone who does have text / image sending as part of their call plan know how it works and how much it costs, on average?
Hmm my phone's three years old this year, I think. It's working impressively well, still.
Last class tomorrow! I've already presented so it's mostly showing up and asking intelligent questions on my part. I also need to find some time to go and get my Hep B titer checked because I'm getting trained to work with lab animals (mice) and they need our health record.
... ...
My cell phone's call plan's going to end in about a month, I think, and I'm thinking of switching to using a phone card since I get calls once, twice, a week and they're generally short. (Have had the dubious pleasure of being reached via the lab phone now, and now that I have my access card, at least I'm fairly sure during school hours people are not going to be trying to reach me via cell phone.) On the other hand, I want to try text messaging, and possibly sending images to people via my phone. I've yet to check to see what the policies on that are, for a phone card. Anyone who does have text / image sending as part of their call plan know how it works and how much it costs, on average?
Hmm my phone's three years old this year, I think. It's working impressively well, still.
20090609
NSC NGF GDNF
Presentation at 9am!
(And then all the turning-stuff-in portion of this quarter would have concluded, thank heavens.)
(And then all the turning-stuff-in portion of this quarter would have concluded, thank heavens.)
20090606
Prospects ahead
I came up with a vague outline of my dissertation at around 7:15 this morning (those thoughts are immediately followed by "wow it ate my brain, clearly"). I'll need to check with my adviser to see how plausible it is.
Mostly I just feel like writing right now and can't afford to spend hours on it. I've slept lots last night (about ten hours -- great, isn't it?) and it (well, and the prospect of tea immediately after this) has put me in a chipper mode. (I think we can safely add "sleep" to the list of things that makes me happy.) I thought I should make a post with the images I've saved up this week while a) I still remember b) I still have the right laptop open and c) before incurable cases of brain disorder suck all the optimism out of me. (I could've chosen leprosy instead, and peripheral neuropathies, but it's hard to take something with armadillos seriously.)
Right. First of all, there was unexpected thunderstorm in SD on Wednesday. I was outside, eating lunch, when I noticed it getting darker and darker. Then it started sprinkling, and I thought, "Okay, well, odd SD weather, it'll probably pass because it's CA and it doesn't rain here in the summer." Shortly after that there was thunder and a downpour. I spent the rest of my break bemusedly trying to dry my glasses on my shirt in the bathroom.
I took two screencaps of my gmail, because I have the tree & sky background on and I've never seen a thunderstorm there before:
I do have my cell images on Ivy, too, but it's a) unpublished data, technically, and b) very large file so I'm not going to upload it.
Conferred with Lucy on who might be coming this summer (hi Victoria! I got the thing in gmail) and will be scrolling through more ads for housing this week to try to find a place and figure out the details for move-in when I do find the place. An option (if they're okay with partial rent and the rent is, in fact, cheaper than my current place) is for me to pay double rent for a month and a half, which will a) give people two places they can stay (hmm someone still need to bring an air mattress or sleeping bag or something; I have one spare cot mattress and a sleeping bag, that's all) at when they come down to SD and b) give me more time to move so that I can pack / move a little bit of stuff each day in the time after lab and c) still leave myself with enough time to clean up this place so I won't my deposit. (One of my classmate tried this last month and it seemed to work out okay with her.)
But yay, people! (Lucy, I think I have further proof that I should list each person as an individual item.)
Okay, tea and project.
Mostly I just feel like writing right now and can't afford to spend hours on it. I've slept lots last night (about ten hours -- great, isn't it?) and it (well, and the prospect of tea immediately after this) has put me in a chipper mode. (I think we can safely add "sleep" to the list of things that makes me happy.) I thought I should make a post with the images I've saved up this week while a) I still remember b) I still have the right laptop open and c) before incurable cases of brain disorder suck all the optimism out of me. (I could've chosen leprosy instead, and peripheral neuropathies, but it's hard to take something with armadillos seriously.)
Right. First of all, there was unexpected thunderstorm in SD on Wednesday. I was outside, eating lunch, when I noticed it getting darker and darker. Then it started sprinkling, and I thought, "Okay, well, odd SD weather, it'll probably pass because it's CA and it doesn't rain here in the summer." Shortly after that there was thunder and a downpour. I spent the rest of my break bemusedly trying to dry my glasses on my shirt in the bathroom.
I took two screencaps of my gmail, because I have the tree & sky background on and I've never seen a thunderstorm there before:
I do have my cell images on Ivy, too, but it's a) unpublished data, technically, and b) very large file so I'm not going to upload it.
Conferred with Lucy on who might be coming this summer (hi Victoria! I got the thing in gmail) and will be scrolling through more ads for housing this week to try to find a place and figure out the details for move-in when I do find the place. An option (if they're okay with partial rent and the rent is, in fact, cheaper than my current place) is for me to pay double rent for a month and a half, which will a) give people two places they can stay (hmm someone still need to bring an air mattress or sleeping bag or something; I have one spare cot mattress and a sleeping bag, that's all) at when they come down to SD and b) give me more time to move so that I can pack / move a little bit of stuff each day in the time after lab and c) still leave myself with enough time to clean up this place so I won't my deposit. (One of my classmate tried this last month and it seemed to work out okay with her.)
But yay, people! (Lucy, I think I have further proof that I should list each person as an individual item.)
Okay, tea and project.
20090605
I was going to put something else here, but I forgot
I'm currently talking to Lucy about the UCLA commencement speaker issue(s) and how they might get someone from Lincoln Park. I'm ashamed to admit that I completely forgot who those people are (maybe my subconscious was trying to protect itself by repressing the memory) until Lucy sent me the link to "Somewhere I Belong." I suddenly recalled very vividly the presentations they made us sit through in high school.
It's an unfortunate association. Even more so since if they do get that person, then Lucy's graduation from college will remind her of high school. When she wanted to know why they can't find something more original I got a sudden flashback of Kate singing "Cows In the Morning." Whatever else you might say about it, THAT certainly would be original. (Though perhaps it's more suited for UCD graduation, and not UCLA.)
... ...
A week in conclusion: the seminar class has ended. I've spent a great deal of time sitting behind the curtain imaging cells at 100x, which looks very cool but drives your eyes nuts since you are sitting in the dark, staring through a microscope at dimly florescent things for hours. The issue with my account turned out (after being sent from the program coordinator to the student business office and back again) to be a change in my funding source, which resulted in half of my stipend now being deposited via payroll and the other half being sent through my school account, which is not enrolled in direct deposit. At least I know both sums are mine, which makes me happy since the half of the salary that got deposited in my bank account is enough to cover my housing, but that's about it.
So yay food. I ought to go and eat chocolate, to celebrate.
Final project's due on Tuesday. I'm going to look at an apartment tomorrow. It's further and slightly cheaper, but mostly I'm after a safer area and a place that doesn't quite so resemble the North Pole. (Though I'm keeping the polar bear.) There have been no other promising postings of places for rent so far, but then again, I haven't been haunting the sites and probably won't do so until after Tuesday.
Cheers.
[edit 21:28]
Ahh almost forgot! I found the neutrophil-chasing-a-bacterium video that I mentioned a long time ago (the one where my classmates and I cheered for the neutrophil).
The round things floating around are red blood cells. The vibrating black speck is a bacterium.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your white blood cell at work.
Go neutrophil go!
And now I can sleep.
It's an unfortunate association. Even more so since if they do get that person, then Lucy's graduation from college will remind her of high school. When she wanted to know why they can't find something more original I got a sudden flashback of Kate singing "Cows In the Morning." Whatever else you might say about it, THAT certainly would be original. (Though perhaps it's more suited for UCD graduation, and not UCLA.)
... ...
A week in conclusion: the seminar class has ended. I've spent a great deal of time sitting behind the curtain imaging cells at 100x, which looks very cool but drives your eyes nuts since you are sitting in the dark, staring through a microscope at dimly florescent things for hours. The issue with my account turned out (after being sent from the program coordinator to the student business office and back again) to be a change in my funding source, which resulted in half of my stipend now being deposited via payroll and the other half being sent through my school account, which is not enrolled in direct deposit. At least I know both sums are mine, which makes me happy since the half of the salary that got deposited in my bank account is enough to cover my housing, but that's about it.
So yay food. I ought to go and eat chocolate, to celebrate.
Final project's due on Tuesday. I'm going to look at an apartment tomorrow. It's further and slightly cheaper, but mostly I'm after a safer area and a place that doesn't quite so resemble the North Pole. (Though I'm keeping the polar bear.) There have been no other promising postings of places for rent so far, but then again, I haven't been haunting the sites and probably won't do so until after Tuesday.
Cheers.
[edit 21:28]
Ahh almost forgot! I found the neutrophil-chasing-a-bacterium video that I mentioned a long time ago (the one where my classmates and I cheered for the neutrophil).
The round things floating around are red blood cells. The vibrating black speck is a bacterium.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your white blood cell at work.
Go neutrophil go!
And now I can sleep.
20090603
Palliate, always
Dear Diary,
Today I am grateful for not being attacked by birds.
Like the guy in front of me was.
Yours truly,
S
Today I am grateful for not being attacked by birds.
Like the guy in front of me was.
Yours truly,
S
20090601
But have you ever shaved a zebra?
Sometimes the PIs ask the oddest questions. Then again, I suppose someone who's studying the melanin pathway probably would be very curious about a zebra's skin tone.
Am having some trouble with my accounts right now. My salary has been reduced by half in the recent payroll and strange checks have shown up, with amounts just over of what would be half of my salary. The graduate program coordinator promised to look into it. I am just confused, and a little concerned.
Speaking of concerned, I feel as if the area where my apartment is has gotten progressively less safe. Last fall it was the safety issue of walking home alone at night, beginning of this quarter were reports of people whose cars have been stolen. This week it's acts of vandalism by people who are, apparently, racist and anti-gay-rights. Most of this is about one block away from where I live (Lucy, you might know where Regent is? It's near the crossing of that and La Jolla Village Dr). I feel like I should be braver about it, but I still can't quite bring myself to answer the door after dark when I know I'm not expecting anyone and there's knocking.
(Which has just happened.)
Ate an entire mango by myself today. Was late to class again because of the way class fell in the middle of labwork. Final project due next Tuesday!
Am having some trouble with my accounts right now. My salary has been reduced by half in the recent payroll and strange checks have shown up, with amounts just over of what would be half of my salary. The graduate program coordinator promised to look into it. I am just confused, and a little concerned.
Speaking of concerned, I feel as if the area where my apartment is has gotten progressively less safe. Last fall it was the safety issue of walking home alone at night, beginning of this quarter were reports of people whose cars have been stolen. This week it's acts of vandalism by people who are, apparently, racist and anti-gay-rights. Most of this is about one block away from where I live (Lucy, you might know where Regent is? It's near the crossing of that and La Jolla Village Dr). I feel like I should be braver about it, but I still can't quite bring myself to answer the door after dark when I know I'm not expecting anyone and there's knocking.
(Which has just happened.)
Ate an entire mango by myself today. Was late to class again because of the way class fell in the middle of labwork. Final project due next Tuesday!
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