Well that went fast

The weekend is over already! I meant to try this German chocolate cake (with coconut) recipe I found but never got around to it (maybe next weekend? Then I can inflict my baking on my parents...). I did, however, finally get around to trying Annie's eggplant casserole recipe, which involved the slightly dubious (to me) combination of eggplant with bell pepper and corn chips. It turned out surprisingly well, though the celery was a little weird (maybe if I cooked it longer so it's less crunchy?). Overall success as far as food goes.

I think, however, that I have managed to kill my aloe, which makes me feel both stupid and slightly depressed because, com'on, it's aloe. However, I took it indoors during my Greece trip, since the sun in SD in the summer can be bad enough to turn an aloe brown within three days, and obviously if a heatwave came in while I was half-way around the globe I won't be able to save my poor plant. So far, so good. The problem came in when I got back actually. More specifically, I came back, watered the aloe, and then kept forgetting to take it back out. Ugh. It was in cheap potting soil and not the special blend for succulents so decreased light combined with watering = water stress = base rotting. That was the stupid part. I have been neglecting so many of my side hobbies of late that it's a wonder that I still have two plants alive. That was the depressing part.

ANYWAY: life continues. I've moved on to focus mostly on the protein component of my project, which should be interesting since I'm an indifferent biochemist at best and my entire lab specializes in genetics...and the collaborator / PI I work with basically told me that this is risky, all proteins are different, and there's no advise he can give me in techniques except to keep trying and hope that I get lucky, and to keep trying until I get frustrated enough to give up and doing something else. On one hand, I can see where he's coming from. On the other hand? Not helpful Oh well, I can hardly expect to succeed in anything if I rely on other people, right? So much like my transition from plant bio to neurosci, I expect I'll just have to go ahead and muddle through the learning curve the best I can.

Onwards to another week!