I have discovered:
1) Clients from Hell, which promptly send me into fits of giggles because, my God, yes. This is why despite of my initial considerations back when I was in high school I realized I'm never going to go into being a professional designer. Or for that matter, the local IT person. (Except friends and family. They have their own brand of insanity but they're far less likely to make me headdesk.)
2) Geek Pop, courtesy of one of the undergrads (someone else's section, more's the pity). It's what it sounds like. Remember John Coulten's "DNA"? I think that's the idea. I will need to go through and investigate that site in greater detail. In two weeks.
3) A biologist's (geneticist's, more like) Mother's Day song, courtesy of the course instructor. It's sweet. Or at least I think it's sweet.
20100530
Unexpected exercise
Dear Diary,
I consider myself to be an independent girl and, for the most part, I am happy to be one. There are rare times, however, such as finding a beetle on my bed at two in the morning, where I'd miss being able to claim "girl's privilege" and let the man of the house (read: dad) deal with it.
Damn it. Now I need to wait for the adrenaline to wear off before I can sleep again. I can now confidently list beetles as one of my least favorite ways to wake up.
Sincerely,
S
I consider myself to be an independent girl and, for the most part, I am happy to be one. There are rare times, however, such as finding a beetle on my bed at two in the morning, where I'd miss being able to claim "girl's privilege" and let the man of the house (read: dad) deal with it.
Damn it. Now I need to wait for the adrenaline to wear off before I can sleep again. I can now confidently list beetles as one of my least favorite ways to wake up.
Sincerely,
S
20100528
Oh, fizzlesticks
This week started off okay and then things started snowballing somewhere around Wednesday and now I find myself staring at my planner, wondering what on earth I've gotten myself into.
To sum up: Two problem sets next week, one to turn in and one to grade, in addition to another paper to review and a trip over to a neighboring research institute to finish off my first cohort of mouse experiments, which will take at least half a day, in addition to presenting a poster at the genetics retreat, which will take all day. The week after that includes a two hour review session for me to run, a take home final and a in-class final (open and closed book, respectively), a lab presentation, and a final to help make, take, proctor, and grade. (Given that the midterm took us five hours to go through, this will probably take longer.)
These past two days I've been going through the hell that was poster-making, because we're trying out a new sort of account for printing them and the printer system is on a separate network from the school of med system and won't acknowledge that my printing account is valid. I just sorted that bit of fun this afternoon so now the file for my poster is off being British (queuing very patiently). I hope to get it some time on Monday, but I'll settle for anything before Thursday (day of presentation).
Attendance at my discussion section still sucks, and in this past homework one of my students told me that that a prokaryote has a nucleus. Despite of the fact that I know, quite logically, this is more of an intro-to-bio issue and is in no way a topic covered & held responsible for by our upper division genetics class, I can't help but feel like I've failed my students in some small but significant way. After that I gazed morosely at my grading sheet for a while and was cheered somewhat by the fact that the few people who have been coming to my sections seem to have been scoring progressively higher on their problem sets. I can only hope that I've played some small part in that.
Oh right. Thesis committee. I'll let you guys know by the end of next week! (Waiting for one more person....) I might make it on schedule after all. (Remember? My original plan was to have that assembled by the end of spring quarter this year.)
Utterly exhausted. Will sleep now.
To sum up: Two problem sets next week, one to turn in and one to grade, in addition to another paper to review and a trip over to a neighboring research institute to finish off my first cohort of mouse experiments, which will take at least half a day, in addition to presenting a poster at the genetics retreat, which will take all day. The week after that includes a two hour review session for me to run, a take home final and a in-class final (open and closed book, respectively), a lab presentation, and a final to help make, take, proctor, and grade. (Given that the midterm took us five hours to go through, this will probably take longer.)
These past two days I've been going through the hell that was poster-making, because we're trying out a new sort of account for printing them and the printer system is on a separate network from the school of med system and won't acknowledge that my printing account is valid. I just sorted that bit of fun this afternoon so now the file for my poster is off being British (queuing very patiently). I hope to get it some time on Monday, but I'll settle for anything before Thursday (day of presentation).
Attendance at my discussion section still sucks, and in this past homework one of my students told me that that a prokaryote has a nucleus. Despite of the fact that I know, quite logically, this is more of an intro-to-bio issue and is in no way a topic covered & held responsible for by our upper division genetics class, I can't help but feel like I've failed my students in some small but significant way. After that I gazed morosely at my grading sheet for a while and was cheered somewhat by the fact that the few people who have been coming to my sections seem to have been scoring progressively higher on their problem sets. I can only hope that I've played some small part in that.
Oh right. Thesis committee. I'll let you guys know by the end of next week! (Waiting for one more person....) I might make it on schedule after all. (Remember? My original plan was to have that assembled by the end of spring quarter this year.)
Utterly exhausted. Will sleep now.
20100523
We has cranes
They are building a lot of things on campus right now...a new student housing place for the School Of Med people and a telemedicine building. (Note: Wendy and I had to google it when we first heard of that one, because telemedicine sounds like telekinesis or something and we weren't sure what it is or why it needed its own building.) I just heard last week that they're thinking of building of another building for our program (we already have a building named after that family...I guess the family/foundation is very wealthy & philanthropic) and should that ever get completed (not going to happen during my stay at here) our lab might move there.
Mostly I just look around that the School of Med area and wonder where the heck they're going to stick another building. We're pretty full. Unless they want to cross the highway and build it in the eastern campus, I suppose.
I also had spare time this weekend, most of which I used yesterday to read GAME OF THRONES. (Bits of it are unexpectedly gruesome. I mean, I really did NOT need that depth of detail for what the scars look like. Or the sounds people make when tortured.) I've also sorted through my accumulating pile of already-read mail that I've yet to deal with, and uncovered a very nice cheque that needs to be cashed as well as the Chase letter telling me to activate my debit card. A visit to the bank is in order. Or at least an ATM machine.
The weather is really good here today and made me regret the fact that I now live in a place where it's not possible to go more than what feels like five steps without stepping off of a curb and worry about being run over. (Sun's out = crowded beach, unless I want to go really early, which I couldn't today because I had errands to run that I'd prefer to get done before there is a crowd.) As it is I've opened the windows and the door to let the wind through, and enough of it had gone through to knock fridge magnets (and the papers they were holding up) onto the floor (a lack of foresight on my part, I guess). It feels nice though.
Tried a cereal called "Wheat-fuls" from "Mom's Best" brand. It's like the regular frosted wheats except...more bland. I don't know how else to describe this, but I've never been so bored by cereal before. It's a novel experience.
In addition, I've been composing a list of things I've been meaning to get, but never got around to buying, for whatever reason (some of which being that I need to do a bit of background research before buying and I've just never found the time). I've been considering steadily working my way down the list once the quarter is over, except yesterday I'm suddenly struck by the idea of whether or not it's wise of me to accumulate worldly goods, given that I have no idea where I'll end up (except it will not be here) or how many times I'll have to move in the future. Yes, there's storage space, but is it really a good idea to collect so much knickknacks when I'm not even certain if there'll be someone around to help me move in the future? Not to mention given how much thought I tend to invest before buying something (except essentials such as food and such), even if that something is not something I need, per se, (e.g. a certain book), I'm not going to be willing to just sell it whenever I have to move. (If I can part with it so easily there's a much lower chance I'd buy it in the first place.)
Then I think that maybe I'm thinking to much, and if I really wanted to get something I should just go ahead and buy it. I still have at least three years to enjoy myself before worrying about storage spaces, after all. Except this line of thought usually end with me clutching my head and thinking, "But this is such an irresponsible line of thought!"
...Yep. I don't think I'm suited for commercialism. Or whatever this things is.
Mostly I just look around that the School of Med area and wonder where the heck they're going to stick another building. We're pretty full. Unless they want to cross the highway and build it in the eastern campus, I suppose.
I also had spare time this weekend, most of which I used yesterday to read GAME OF THRONES. (Bits of it are unexpectedly gruesome. I mean, I really did NOT need that depth of detail for what the scars look like. Or the sounds people make when tortured.) I've also sorted through my accumulating pile of already-read mail that I've yet to deal with, and uncovered a very nice cheque that needs to be cashed as well as the Chase letter telling me to activate my debit card. A visit to the bank is in order. Or at least an ATM machine.
The weather is really good here today and made me regret the fact that I now live in a place where it's not possible to go more than what feels like five steps without stepping off of a curb and worry about being run over. (Sun's out = crowded beach, unless I want to go really early, which I couldn't today because I had errands to run that I'd prefer to get done before there is a crowd.) As it is I've opened the windows and the door to let the wind through, and enough of it had gone through to knock fridge magnets (and the papers they were holding up) onto the floor (a lack of foresight on my part, I guess). It feels nice though.
Tried a cereal called "Wheat-fuls" from "Mom's Best" brand. It's like the regular frosted wheats except...more bland. I don't know how else to describe this, but I've never been so bored by cereal before. It's a novel experience.
In addition, I've been composing a list of things I've been meaning to get, but never got around to buying, for whatever reason (some of which being that I need to do a bit of background research before buying and I've just never found the time). I've been considering steadily working my way down the list once the quarter is over, except yesterday I'm suddenly struck by the idea of whether or not it's wise of me to accumulate worldly goods, given that I have no idea where I'll end up (except it will not be here) or how many times I'll have to move in the future. Yes, there's storage space, but is it really a good idea to collect so much knickknacks when I'm not even certain if there'll be someone around to help me move in the future? Not to mention given how much thought I tend to invest before buying something (except essentials such as food and such), even if that something is not something I need, per se, (e.g. a certain book), I'm not going to be willing to just sell it whenever I have to move. (If I can part with it so easily there's a much lower chance I'd buy it in the first place.)
Then I think that maybe I'm thinking to much, and if I really wanted to get something I should just go ahead and buy it. I still have at least three years to enjoy myself before worrying about storage spaces, after all. Except this line of thought usually end with me clutching my head and thinking, "But this is such an irresponsible line of thought!"
...Yep. I don't think I'm suited for commercialism. Or whatever this things is.
20100518
In which life stabilizes, and I confuse the PI
After the insanity the past week I arrived at Saturday evening with the dumbfounding discovery that I have finished all my "must do" items and that the weekend wasn't over yet. In fact, Saturday wasn't over yet. I hope this will be what it's like once the quarter is over. Life will be wonderful. My tablet will no longer be gather dust. I will get a chance to read something fun that doesn't include words like "minor allele frequency".
I don't think I've gone out since the last time Lucy and I went, before quarter started. I miss fries. I cannot understand why the professor didn't pass out the paper that's due on Friday until this afternoon (but at least my presentation is over, I just have to write a review for it).
Nevertheless, the lack of immediate and time-consuming sources of stress means that I'm feeling pretty cheerful today (despite of our UV box breaking yesterday). A lot of weird little things that happen in life that otherwise would've amplified my stress on a bad day merely amused me today, to the point that when the PI asked me how I was doing, I answered, "Pretty good!" and then when he remarked that I was smiling I replied something about how odd things are happening and they're amusing and left him standing in the lobby, looking like he can't make up his mind whether to be amused or confused.
(Eventually he did try to come and find out what on earth is the matter with his grad student. I used the opportunity to try to get him to explain my partial copy of the polytene map since the lecturer utterly failed to cover it. My PI's handy that way. For certain things he's like a walking encyclopedia that likes to wander by with his mug of tea, though he is easily distracted. Which may not be a good thing.)
Other than that, I have a bruise on my knuckle and I have no clue how I got it. The street in front of my apartment is being re-paved. My mice DID get shipped last week (yay!), the person in charge just forgot the email me. My classmate has created a new acronym that I will use diligently in my studies now, called YFDO (Your Favorite Diploid Organism).
Over and out.
I don't think I've gone out since the last time Lucy and I went, before quarter started. I miss fries. I cannot understand why the professor didn't pass out the paper that's due on Friday until this afternoon (but at least my presentation is over, I just have to write a review for it).
Nevertheless, the lack of immediate and time-consuming sources of stress means that I'm feeling pretty cheerful today (despite of our UV box breaking yesterday). A lot of weird little things that happen in life that otherwise would've amplified my stress on a bad day merely amused me today, to the point that when the PI asked me how I was doing, I answered, "Pretty good!" and then when he remarked that I was smiling I replied something about how odd things are happening and they're amusing and left him standing in the lobby, looking like he can't make up his mind whether to be amused or confused.
(Eventually he did try to come and find out what on earth is the matter with his grad student. I used the opportunity to try to get him to explain my partial copy of the polytene map since the lecturer utterly failed to cover it. My PI's handy that way. For certain things he's like a walking encyclopedia that likes to wander by with his mug of tea, though he is easily distracted. Which may not be a good thing.)
Other than that, I have a bruise on my knuckle and I have no clue how I got it. The street in front of my apartment is being re-paved. My mice DID get shipped last week (yay!), the person in charge just forgot the email me. My classmate has created a new acronym that I will use diligently in my studies now, called YFDO (Your Favorite Diploid Organism).
Over and out.
20100514
...
Dear classmate,
Please do not send me half-hearted efforts at powerpoint slides (two slides! I spent time waiting for two slides?) with the excuse that you're sorry you can't do more because you are "busy". We are grad students. We are, by definition, busy. I think for a group project, which involves other people, we at least deserve a better excuse.
Also...
Dear undergrad,
Please don't use "antibodies" and "antibiotics" interchangeably. They are very much not the same thing. It makes me sad every time you confuse the two.
...
Well life, that about sums it up. But the week's almost done! Cheers!
At this point, the highlight of my week is finding out that Anna's going to be at the same SfN thing in November as me. (Mail me your abstract title at some point Anna, so I can find out when you're presenting when the session book comes out.) Definitely something to look forward to.
Please do not send me half-hearted efforts at powerpoint slides (two slides! I spent time waiting for two slides?) with the excuse that you're sorry you can't do more because you are "busy". We are grad students. We are, by definition, busy. I think for a group project, which involves other people, we at least deserve a better excuse.
Also...
Dear undergrad,
Please don't use "antibodies" and "antibiotics" interchangeably. They are very much not the same thing. It makes me sad every time you confuse the two.
...
Well life, that about sums it up. But the week's almost done! Cheers!
At this point, the highlight of my week is finding out that Anna's going to be at the same SfN thing in November as me. (Mail me your abstract title at some point Anna, so I can find out when you're presenting when the session book comes out.) Definitely something to look forward to.
20100513
ZMG a break?!
Surprisingly this week is approaching the Week of Insanity Around Midterms Period in terms of stress and barely controlled chaos. I am reduced to list-making to account for the eventfulness of the days so far:
1. Kitchen faucet leak: water will spray out SIDEWAYS along the spout when turned on. Discovered on Friday. Called Landlady Saturday, temporarily dealt with duct tape (still leaked, but at least no longer spraying) leading to...
2. Mystery cleaning: giving permission for repairman to enter, returning home Tuesday to find the kitchen sink mysteriously cleaned and that the sink that always clogged a little no longer clogged. The faucet was still leaking.
3. Presentation Friday morning: GROUP presentation tomorrow morning. We didn't get the material assigned to us until Monday morning. I just found out yesterday evening that at least one person in my group of three (supposed to be four, but that person never showed and no one knows who that person is) has yet to read the paper. (I'm waiting to hear back from them right now.)
4. TAing duties: Problem sets due today. To sum it up in a word: grading. (Which I do not have my pens for right now but will shortly after this hour is over.)
5. SfN flailing: abstract deadline today at 2pm. Sent final draft to PI on the 4th of May (because I knew this week may be insane and I didn't want to deal with it this week). Found out YESTERDAY at 5:30pm that he can only sponsor one person and so he has decided for me to join SfN and submit my own abstract, probably because the student membership is cheaper than the postdoc version. Joining requires sponsorship of two PIs, CV, and forms. Managed to find sponsors & get all forms together and submitted by 9pm yesterday. Submitted my own abstract by 10am today, which happens to be my TAing day (8am-12pm occupied with TAing related stuff) (yes there is no one at my office hour, which is why I have the time to do this, which I wanted to do last night but had NO TIME FOR). There was a lot of frustrated flailing involved.
6. Mice: Still. Has. Not. Been. Shipped. WTF people. Because of age constraints between cohorts if they don't get shipped within the next week I'll have to forfeit my first round of data. Considering each round takes about 6 months to generate this makes me feel a bit like crying. But at least...
7. Faucet got fixed yesterday: No leaking, no spraying, yayness.
8. Need to present poster at Genetics Retreat: Which is on my TAing day. Which requires me to set up my poster at 8:30am. Which required emailing back to explain that I am gone from 8-12 that day. (Still waiting to hear back.) Which also requires me to finish my poster in two weeks. Which involves sorting through my gigabytes of data into figures on top of dealing with the lamprey tissue samples that just arrived this Tuesday.
9: Randomly: Smog check at some point. In between all the rest of the insanity.
I think I deserve pearl tea.
1. Kitchen faucet leak: water will spray out SIDEWAYS along the spout when turned on. Discovered on Friday. Called Landlady Saturday, temporarily dealt with duct tape (still leaked, but at least no longer spraying) leading to...
2. Mystery cleaning: giving permission for repairman to enter, returning home Tuesday to find the kitchen sink mysteriously cleaned and that the sink that always clogged a little no longer clogged. The faucet was still leaking.
3. Presentation Friday morning: GROUP presentation tomorrow morning. We didn't get the material assigned to us until Monday morning. I just found out yesterday evening that at least one person in my group of three (supposed to be four, but that person never showed and no one knows who that person is) has yet to read the paper. (I'm waiting to hear back from them right now.)
4. TAing duties: Problem sets due today. To sum it up in a word: grading. (Which I do not have my pens for right now but will shortly after this hour is over.)
5. SfN flailing: abstract deadline today at 2pm. Sent final draft to PI on the 4th of May (because I knew this week may be insane and I didn't want to deal with it this week). Found out YESTERDAY at 5:30pm that he can only sponsor one person and so he has decided for me to join SfN and submit my own abstract, probably because the student membership is cheaper than the postdoc version. Joining requires sponsorship of two PIs, CV, and forms. Managed to find sponsors & get all forms together and submitted by 9pm yesterday. Submitted my own abstract by 10am today, which happens to be my TAing day (8am-12pm occupied with TAing related stuff) (yes there is no one at my office hour, which is why I have the time to do this, which I wanted to do last night but had NO TIME FOR). There was a lot of frustrated flailing involved.
6. Mice: Still. Has. Not. Been. Shipped. WTF people. Because of age constraints between cohorts if they don't get shipped within the next week I'll have to forfeit my first round of data. Considering each round takes about 6 months to generate this makes me feel a bit like crying. But at least...
7. Faucet got fixed yesterday: No leaking, no spraying, yayness.
8. Need to present poster at Genetics Retreat: Which is on my TAing day. Which requires me to set up my poster at 8:30am. Which required emailing back to explain that I am gone from 8-12 that day. (Still waiting to hear back.) Which also requires me to finish my poster in two weeks. Which involves sorting through my gigabytes of data into figures on top of dealing with the lamprey tissue samples that just arrived this Tuesday.
9: Randomly: Smog check at some point. In between all the rest of the insanity.
I think I deserve pearl tea.
20100506
For a pretty penny
This the Thursday after the midterm, so I had two students come to my section and (so far) none to my office hour. Instead I've some time to marvel about the things people do for money and what they're willing to risk for it.
People should be more than familiar with my rant about inappropriate use of antibiotics by now. This morning I just got another fun talk from a practitioner (formerly ER & OR)who gave us a case study in which a girl decided to go off and take antibiotics for her cold. She did get better after a few days, mostly due to the fact that mild cold/flu only lasts a few days. What's important was that later when she got appendicitis and had to get her appendix removed, she had a fairly normal mild infection that, when treated with the fairly standard antibiotics that they give you for this sort of infection, got worse. By taking antibiotics when she didn't have to, she had effectively selected for the resistant bacteria growing on her so that, when she does develop a wound, it'd be those bacteria that's infecting her. She nearly died from the subsequent treatment to get rid of those resistant bacteria, but thankfully she didn't.
This I know. What I didn't know was how much antibiotics they're routinely loading into animal feeds. For the large companies that tend to house animals in far too crowded conditions, this is the only way they can prevent half of the animals from dying from infections born of unsanitary over-crowded conditions. Right now some analogues of the antibiotics that doctors reserve as a last line of defense for bacteria that are resistant to all your regular antibiotics is going into cattle feed on a regular basis. People who work in these company's meat packing factories have been found with higher percentage of antibiotic resistant bacteria on them than normal people. You draw the conclusions.
Meat is not a significant portion of my diet, but for this reason alone I think it's worth it to shell out a few extra bucks for the company that produce meat not loaded on antibiotics. Net income is somewhat less important than death, I'd think. If you're dead, your money's not going to be of much use to you, is it?
(Oh and I found the link for the treatise on the problem with sticking antibacterial agents/antibiotics on every thing, from Center for Disease Control. Seriously, normal soap is good enough. Normal soap (well a cleaner, more expensive kind) is what we use in lab to lyse (burst open) bacteria cells. Well technically it's possible that some day there may be a bacterium that'll be resistant to normal soap, but compared to antibiotic resistance that's like...looking for someone who's resistant to an atomic bomb vs looking for someone who's resistant to bubonic plague: 1/3 rate of survival for the later, currently known rate of survival for the former is zero. ...unless you count the Indiana Jones miracle, which I don't. Lead-lined fridge so would not be helpful to you in an atomic explosion, no matter what the movie says.)
On a not so seriously note, the TruGreen ad banner makes me think of the book GREENER THAN YOU THINK.
People should be more than familiar with my rant about inappropriate use of antibiotics by now. This morning I just got another fun talk from a practitioner (formerly ER & OR)who gave us a case study in which a girl decided to go off and take antibiotics for her cold. She did get better after a few days, mostly due to the fact that mild cold/flu only lasts a few days. What's important was that later when she got appendicitis and had to get her appendix removed, she had a fairly normal mild infection that, when treated with the fairly standard antibiotics that they give you for this sort of infection, got worse. By taking antibiotics when she didn't have to, she had effectively selected for the resistant bacteria growing on her so that, when she does develop a wound, it'd be those bacteria that's infecting her. She nearly died from the subsequent treatment to get rid of those resistant bacteria, but thankfully she didn't.
This I know. What I didn't know was how much antibiotics they're routinely loading into animal feeds. For the large companies that tend to house animals in far too crowded conditions, this is the only way they can prevent half of the animals from dying from infections born of unsanitary over-crowded conditions. Right now some analogues of the antibiotics that doctors reserve as a last line of defense for bacteria that are resistant to all your regular antibiotics is going into cattle feed on a regular basis. People who work in these company's meat packing factories have been found with higher percentage of antibiotic resistant bacteria on them than normal people. You draw the conclusions.
Meat is not a significant portion of my diet, but for this reason alone I think it's worth it to shell out a few extra bucks for the company that produce meat not loaded on antibiotics. Net income is somewhat less important than death, I'd think. If you're dead, your money's not going to be of much use to you, is it?
(Oh and I found the link for the treatise on the problem with sticking antibacterial agents/antibiotics on every thing, from Center for Disease Control. Seriously, normal soap is good enough. Normal soap (well a cleaner, more expensive kind) is what we use in lab to lyse (burst open) bacteria cells. Well technically it's possible that some day there may be a bacterium that'll be resistant to normal soap, but compared to antibiotic resistance that's like...looking for someone who's resistant to an atomic bomb vs looking for someone who's resistant to bubonic plague: 1/3 rate of survival for the later, currently known rate of survival for the former is zero. ...unless you count the Indiana Jones miracle, which I don't. Lead-lined fridge so would not be helpful to you in an atomic explosion, no matter what the movie says.)
On a not so seriously note, the TruGreen ad banner makes me think of the book GREENER THAN YOU THINK.
20100503
Um.
Dear Diary,
Today my PI compared a microsome to a "small New England farming town". And then it spiraled out from there to cell-specific protein functions and bells in belfries and support beams. I couldn't help it. I laughed.
Seriously, though. Small New England farming town? How does he come up with these things?
Sincerely,
-S
Today my PI compared a microsome to a "small New England farming town". And then it spiraled out from there to cell-specific protein functions and bells in belfries and support beams. I couldn't help it. I laughed.
Seriously, though. Small New England farming town? How does he come up with these things?
Sincerely,
-S
20100501
Not as exciting as Orlando, I guess
I'm catching up on online-journal entries right now and decide to do another one of those meme things, also taken from Lucy's LJ.
Pick 20 movies/anime/video games/literary works/etc. and put their summaries from Better Than It Sounds and WITHOUT CHEATING have your friends guess:
1. A confused young man starts to understand his life for the first time after he has an operation, only to have it slip away from him after his favorite animal dies.
2. A reclusive, unloving hermit is forced to go on a quest to rescue the rest of her kind after a jive-talking butterfly hints that they've been taken prisoner by a lightly carbonated energy drink. Over the course of her adventures, she learns how to love, but eventually gets better.
3. A satire of Victorian society in which a lawyer travels to other dimensions, and is arrested for trying to start a new religion. Oh, and the women of the protagonist's homeworld can accidentally stab people by sneezing.
(Victoria should know this. She recommended the book to me.)
4. Young man fights in the Second World War, goes home, gets married, is abducted by aliens, goes home, dies. Not necessarily in that order.
(Pretty sure Kate knows this. My highschool classmates' seen me carry this around, near the end of my junior year, I believe.)
5. Mentally-challenged man rescues ham from poor white trash out to avenge family honor.
(Okay, freshman year high school literature. You guys know this one.)
6. Humanity is saved by the common cold.
7. In a totalitarian world, a man has philisophical discussions with himself, has sex whenever he is alone with his girlfriend for longer than ten minutes, then gets tortured.
8. Extraordinarily Empowered Girls kill zombies with bells.
(I'm pretty sure this book was also pointed out by Victoria at some point.)
9. German college student's asshole professor sends him and his class off to World War 1; he and the rest of his class all die.
(High school literature, soph. year. Malvina really likes the other book the author wrote.)
10. The son has his girlfriend and identity stolen by the long lost brother he never knew he had. Except the brother is actually him.
(I think you've read this, Lucy, based on my recommendation. The author is something of a favorite.)
(Lucy, you're on the right track.)
11. Elderly brother and sister adopt an orphan who loses her temper, lets her imagination run away with her, holds a grudge, and generally gets into trouble. Everyone is charmed.
(Kate, you own this book.)
12. In The Future, there's no crime, poverty, war, disease or old age, and everyone gets to have lots and lots of sex. But the Noble Savage says it's bad. Two other people, who are among the smartest people on earth, go on a quest to stop being happy.
13. A squadron of insane soldiers try to not die in the war. Paradoxical bureaucracy gets in the way of that.
(Senior year in high school. Everyone who had the same lit class as me should know this.)
14. Guy kills old lady and her sister to prove his ideas. Turns out he was wrong.
15. A teenage girl is drafted into her grandfather's job, which conflicts with her efforts to save a handsome young man from his new guitar.
16. Boy named after a mouse helps locals improve their drug-filled sandpit, despite unfriendly wildlife. The government disapproves.
(Think: classic sci-fi.)
(...and sand?)
17. A centuries-old war hero, accompanied by a cocoon and their daughter the Internet, travels to to the home of a young girl, where he marries her after discovering that trees are actually pigs.
(Victoria should know this. One of the other book in the series was recommended to me by her.)
18. Television turns people into idiots. One guy rants at length about this.
(Okay not the best summary possible. Um...freshman year high school literature. Author is a favorite. Think...fire?)
19. A baby is switched at birth, which causes great problems later on. Meanwhile, a cynic with a fondness for antique cars, a rare book dealer, a Granola Girl, a man who breaks things, one of the last witch-hunters in Britain and the witch-hunter's landlady attempt to prevent four rather sinister bikers from causing The End Of The World As We Know It.
20. Young man suffers from mental illness, hallucinates, desecrates a grave, then murders his family.
(Hint: It's a play. You guys know this. Yes, all of you. At some point. Should've heard of this.)
(Wow I haven't laughed like that in a while. What were these people thinking when they summarized the books?)
Pick 20 movies/anime/video games/literary works/etc. and put their summaries from Better Than It Sounds and WITHOUT CHEATING have your friends guess:
3. A satire of Victorian society in which a lawyer travels to other dimensions, and is arrested for trying to start a new religion. Oh, and the women of the protagonist's homeworld can accidentally stab people by sneezing.
(Victoria should know this. She recommended the book to me.)
4. Young man fights in the Second World War, goes home, gets married, is abducted by aliens, goes home, dies. Not necessarily in that order.
(Pretty sure Kate knows this. My highschool classmates' seen me carry this around, near the end of my junior year, I believe.)
5. Mentally-challenged man rescues ham from poor white trash out to avenge family honor.
(Okay, freshman year high school literature. You guys know this one.)
8. Extraordinarily Empowered Girls kill zombies with bells.
(I'm pretty sure this book was also pointed out by Victoria at some point.)
(High school literature, soph. year. Malvina really likes the other book the author wrote.)
10. The son has his girlfriend and identity stolen by the long lost brother he never knew he had. Except the brother is actually him.
(I think you've read this, Lucy, based on my recommendation. The author is something of a favorite.)
(Lucy, you're on the right track.)
11. Elderly brother and sister adopt an orphan who loses her temper, lets her imagination run away with her, holds a grudge, and generally gets into trouble. Everyone is charmed.
(Kate, you own this book.)
(Senior year in high school. Everyone who had the same lit class as me should know this.)
16. Boy named after a mouse helps locals improve their drug-filled sandpit, despite unfriendly wildlife. The government disapproves.
(Think: classic sci-fi.)
(...and sand?)
17. A centuries-old war hero, accompanied by a cocoon and their daughter the Internet, travels to to the home of a young girl, where he marries her after discovering that trees are actually pigs.
(Victoria should know this. One of the other book in the series was recommended to me by her.)
18. Television turns people into idiots. One guy rants at length about this.
(Okay not the best summary possible. Um...freshman year high school literature. Author is a favorite. Think...fire?)
(Hint: It's a play. You guys know this. Yes, all of you. At some point. Should've heard of this.)
(Wow I haven't laughed like that in a while. What were these people thinking when they summarized the books?)
No gorillas
Slept for about ten hours last night and had a dream about discussion section (TAing eats your brain, I swear), one about my mom and I having The Conversation (ended well, which made me a little sad because this is literally of the "dream on" category), and one about earthquake (possibly due to the very large truck driving past). I have been bouncing between moods so fast this past week that by Friday I was starting to feel vaguely bipolar. When my PI asked me how I was doing late Friday afternoon (I warned him to not expect anything from me in terms of data production this week) I stared at him blankly for a moment before replying "...I'm not sure."
I mean, if you take the average I suppose this is an okay week?
At the very least, I got everything that needed to be done this week done on time and done to the best of my abilities. Whether that is good enough or not remains to be seen (I found out Thursday evening that my current genetics course instructor does give out Cs and if you get one you fail the course. As in you have to retake it) (then take into account that I've been getting 3/5 on my paper reviews since I've been using the standards that I've been taught my freshman year & in my other classes and that is apparently too tough and detail-oriented for this class -- which I have no way of amending now because the teacher didn't start passing back our one-per-week reviews until last week). Grading the midterm turned out took only five hours, instead of six. Either way I was feeling a tad brain-dead near the end. On the plus side, the students who are coming to my sections are now doing fairly well on their problem sets which totally made my day when I tallied up their score. The point is: I made it through this week, therefore I won this battle, at least.
The program director's gone and decided that everyone on the training grant (four students per year) needs to present a poster at our June 3rd retreat. I have just finished the SfN abstract on Monday (am now waiting to hear back from two people about co-authorship) and was properly horrified to find out that I have four weeks (counting the next two weeks with a presentation/project due each week) to sort through 2Gb of data into some semblance of publication worthy figures. It's doable, which is one of the reasons why I didn't say "no" right off the bat, so I suppose I'll be working on that as soon as my presentations are done. (Guys, what software do you use to put together a poster? Wendy said she used Powerpoint. I use Open Office, which allows you to work on .ppt files, but which means if I give them the .ppt file and they open it in Powerpoint I'll lose part of the format.)(Maybe I'll borrow the lab comp/lounge comp?)
Finally, one of the post-docs (the one who saved me from the weird guy at the bus stop the other week) has gone AWOL these two weeks and now I finally have all the information AND can tell people about it. (Also, what's with all this thing where people tell me things I'm not supposed to know and then ask me to keep the fact that they've told me and the fact that I know a secret AND the situations where people ask me things that don't need to be kept secret and then asking me to keep the fact that they asked a secret? It's getting kind of hard to keep track of what I'm supposed to know, what I'm supposed to tell, who I'm not supposed to know knows and who was supposed to know but doesn't want to be known that they know straight.) (Gah. I can keep a secret, but this is getting to be a bit much.) What has happened with the post-doc is that his wife is pregnant (we were very surprised since she always gave off the air that she didn't want kids), and that the morning sickness got so bad with her that she got admitted to the hospital for severe dehydration. (She couldn't stop throwing up, and so he ended up spending a lot of time at the hospital.) She's just gotten better later this week and was allowed home, having lost around 24 pounds in mass due to morning sickness. (For the record? I met her before at lab outings and she's about my size. 24 pounds is a LOT in terms of percentage of body mass.) We all signed a get-well card for her and are twitchily hoping that everything will be okay.
And now: tea.
I mean, if you take the average I suppose this is an okay week?
At the very least, I got everything that needed to be done this week done on time and done to the best of my abilities. Whether that is good enough or not remains to be seen (I found out Thursday evening that my current genetics course instructor does give out Cs and if you get one you fail the course. As in you have to retake it) (then take into account that I've been getting 3/5 on my paper reviews since I've been using the standards that I've been taught my freshman year & in my other classes and that is apparently too tough and detail-oriented for this class -- which I have no way of amending now because the teacher didn't start passing back our one-per-week reviews until last week). Grading the midterm turned out took only five hours, instead of six. Either way I was feeling a tad brain-dead near the end. On the plus side, the students who are coming to my sections are now doing fairly well on their problem sets which totally made my day when I tallied up their score. The point is: I made it through this week, therefore I won this battle, at least.
The program director's gone and decided that everyone on the training grant (four students per year) needs to present a poster at our June 3rd retreat. I have just finished the SfN abstract on Monday (am now waiting to hear back from two people about co-authorship) and was properly horrified to find out that I have four weeks (counting the next two weeks with a presentation/project due each week) to sort through 2Gb of data into some semblance of publication worthy figures. It's doable, which is one of the reasons why I didn't say "no" right off the bat, so I suppose I'll be working on that as soon as my presentations are done. (Guys, what software do you use to put together a poster? Wendy said she used Powerpoint. I use Open Office, which allows you to work on .ppt files, but which means if I give them the .ppt file and they open it in Powerpoint I'll lose part of the format.)(Maybe I'll borrow the lab comp/lounge comp?)
Finally, one of the post-docs (the one who saved me from the weird guy at the bus stop the other week) has gone AWOL these two weeks and now I finally have all the information AND can tell people about it. (Also, what's with all this thing where people tell me things I'm not supposed to know and then ask me to keep the fact that they've told me and the fact that I know a secret AND the situations where people ask me things that don't need to be kept secret and then asking me to keep the fact that they asked a secret? It's getting kind of hard to keep track of what I'm supposed to know, what I'm supposed to tell, who I'm not supposed to know knows and who was supposed to know but doesn't want to be known that they know straight.) (Gah. I can keep a secret, but this is getting to be a bit much.) What has happened with the post-doc is that his wife is pregnant (we were very surprised since she always gave off the air that she didn't want kids), and that the morning sickness got so bad with her that she got admitted to the hospital for severe dehydration. (She couldn't stop throwing up, and so he ended up spending a lot of time at the hospital.) She's just gotten better later this week and was allowed home, having lost around 24 pounds in mass due to morning sickness. (For the record? I met her before at lab outings and she's about my size. 24 pounds is a LOT in terms of percentage of body mass.) We all signed a get-well card for her and are twitchily hoping that everything will be okay.
And now: tea.
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