In which I fail at blog-updating, but otherwise do well

A brief check on my blog (after an email from Anna inquiring whether or not my thesis ate me -- or something to that effect) revealed that I have, indeed, not updated this thing in a while. This is, as I've explained to Anna, mostly due to the fact that once I get home at whatever time it happened to be that night, I usually have no desire to turn on the computer again. Due to the fact that this is the Quarter of Qual, turning on the computer immediately triggers my sense of obligation to check on my school email, go over my notes, and work on my qual...and it's all downhill from there.

I'm updating my blog in lab instead today, in an act of open rebellion.

...or perhaps, just a direct result of the fact that a mini-prep is something I can do in my sleep at this point and it comes with many 15 and 10 minute incubation time, which isn't really enough time to get into anything else (it takes 10 minutes just to get into the groove of writing qual -- and before you laugh, yes there is such a thing -- it's like a state of Zen, except it's a state of Qual-ness) (more on that later).

Aside from that though, all things considered, I'm doing quite well.

Last week, after massive amounts of email and comments from the PI that I shouldn't panic, panic doesn't help, I did get part I of my qual in and approved. Right now I'm waiting for a committee chair to be assigned, who will be the last member to complete my qual committee. I've started contacting many other PIs for advise, reagents, and general offers of collaboration for what I'll be doing for my dissertation. Most of them have been very gracious so far. The ones who aren't just never reply to my emails so there are, in fact, no direct refusals. (I've learned also that PIs are masters at passive-aggressive behavior. But that's neither here nor there.)

To celebrate the ending of qual, part I, I drove up to LA on Saturday to see Lucy. We went to the Getty because there was a French-themed event that weekend. There were people wandering around in paper berets.There was French music. There may even have been people there who spoke French!

Oh wait.

We discovered a sketching gallery upstairs, which was awesome since it's a quiet little corner where they provide art supply for you to sketch sculptures and paintings displayed in that area. The upshot is now I have a very large sketch of a slightly angry-looking woman rolled up beside my nightstand. I'm not entirely sure what to do with it and am trying not to read too much into the fact that Lucy's version of the same woman looks much happier.

We also discovered Solanum pyracanthum and Lucy immediately dubbed it "the Mike plant" after I commented that it's softer than it looks but very prickly if you poke it the wrong way (because, ow). It had orange spikes. And purple flowers. Lucy claimed that the purple flowers are Nick's influence. I plead the fifth on the account of imaginary people currently residing in my head. A quick flip-through in the Getty-Garden book in the museum store revealed that everyone apparently likes this plant and comments on it a lot. I'm a little puzzled and a lot amused by that, since the plant itself isn't very large or very showy, compared to all the other things that are there (purple wings, for example, or angel's trumpets). It just...has blue-green leaves with orange spikes.

Lucy put it down to Mike's innate ability to capture people's attention. I was too busy laughing at the fact that the plant's common name is "porcupine tomato" because...well, porcupine tomato.

Lucy has already mentioned our spontaneous display of desire To Get A Night Life, also known as, "Susan dithers and Lucy finally decides" (yeah), in which we went out and caught a showing of Star Trek on IMAX at 10:15pm at night and it was totally worth it because, my God, the shininess. (Overall design of spaceship, based on my personal and lack-of-engineering-training, ranks below Fifth Elements and above Star Wars.)

(Also dragged Lucy makeup shopping with me, because am fed up with mother and the cosmetics section is too scary to consider venturing into alone.)

(Then the next day was the day when I probably should've updated the blog and instead I went and...let's just say grocery shopping takes a lot longer when there are more people, later in the day.)

I gave a lab presentation yesterday. It seemed to have gone fairly well, overall. Department retreat will be Monday through Wednesday next week (half day, full day, half day). It's been changed from being held in May every year to being held in September, so it can be coupled with the orientation week of the incoming freshmen. I'm somewhat dubious about the wisdom of this decision, because is it really a good idea to ship off students who are still disoriented from coming in from all over the place (a good portion will be from CA but we get a lot of people from all over the US and occasionally a few from outside of the US) in the middle of the orientation to somewhere else? I guess we'll see.

Am currently on part II, section 3 of qual, page 4 of 7. This is the last section unless you count the works cited page, which I don't. If I get it done this week the rounds of editing will start next week. Possibly.

Wow that is a long post. It took...about five incubations to type.

Zen tried to come home on Tuesday. Unfortunately I'm gone for most of the day so there's no way I can sign for Fedex'ed things. I've arranged for a pickup so hopefully I'll get Zen back tonight.