Badly organized post, you have been warned

Since I sort of have more time on the weekends now, I've decided to go around the city and visit all the famous landmarks that I haven't yet seen before I leave. I've started last Sunday and am currently aiming at one site per week, which should carry me hopefully past the submission & review stage of my manuscript.


Speaking of which, my PI has finally decided that it's not worth waiting for all the extra protein experiments (a lot of which are still not working out because: proteins -- the PI that I briefly went to for advise for protein work told me that interactions can be a PhD's worth of work in itself because it can take THAT LONG to get things to work--and then basically told me to just drop that part of my project and stick with genetics which -- thanks, that is not what I came to ask you for but thanks), since we now have a competitor and just publish all the verified data that we have. Ironically this is the draft version that I've been pushing to publish since January, that had since then be re-drafted to include data that I don't actually have (no kidding, PI had me make up imaginary figures for what I think the idea results should be), so now I get to go back and ...un-draft that part? I choose to interpret this as finally getting my way and thus, a victory. Mostly because the alternative is to see it as nearly eight month's worth of time where my paper could've been out already, and ...why increase the amount of frustration in my life when I don't have to?

Also PAPERWORK. Graduation requires so much paperwork. Also my permanent address is changed according to the online data but somehow stuff are still being sent to the apartment I lived in the first year I was down here???

Yeah so this week there's less time for extraneous writing since now I have to work on my manuscript (more quality time spent hunched over my laptop at the laundromat -- fun). Last week, though, I did manage to write a few pages of the script for case two of BT, which was nice. Have finished OE Butler's LILITH'S BROOD trilogy, which I will write post a review on later on Good Reads. Am about to start THE SALARYMAN'S WIFE, which is exciting because it's a detective novel with an Asian American as the lead. Not sidekick, not girlfriend, but main protagonist. Someone rec'ed it and the reviews for it are pretty good so I'm looking forward to Monday. Which is about the only thing to look forward to as the PI still hasn't returned my dissertation draft with request to look over grammar after my post-defense edits, so I shall have to send a reminder on Monday. Utterly failed to reach my collaborator last week for manuscript purposes, so I will have to make more phone calls on Monday as well. (Ugh phone calls.) After more consideration, I hope SAILOR MOON has more LGBTQIA representation than just Zoisite, since there is an unfortunate context of giving villains homosexual characteristics, mostly dating back to the part of history where being homosexual means you can be legally prosecuted. Latest STAR TREK ep featured a young man who was supposedly raised in isolation and unsocialized, who behaved exactly the way today's young men behaves which, as Annie and I agreed, does not say good things about how we socialize boys today. Am caught up on nearly all the chores. Will be catching up with Ashley tomorrow. Think will be able to take a weekend off in October so I'll be emailing Lucy and Victoria to see what their schedules are like. No idea about Thanksgiving yet, as that's still a bit further than what I can currently predict. The humidity continues with weather in the 80s and everything is sticky and gross and I cannot muster enough energy to cook proper meals, but at least I am drinking plenty of fluids.