P680

2012-02-01T14:03:00.001-08:00

Wednesdays. What is it about them?

2012-01-31T17:00:00.000-08:00

Polling all my friends between the ages of 20-30: if you had the option of knowing, within the next year, with about 95% certainty, whether or not you will get a certain rare neurodegenerative disease (age of onset 50-65), which occurs sporadically and for no known medical reason and for which there is no cure... ...would you want to know? Anonymous replies allowed. "I don't know" will be

2012-01-31T14:58:00.000-08:00

PI's quote regarding the not-really-a-bomb-incident from yesterday is a quote from Woody Allen (Allan?): "I don't plan to achieve immortality through my works, I plan to achieve immortality by not dying." Am utterly failing at writing right now. My brain feels boring. I feel crazy.

Labels

2012-01-31T14:26:00.000-08:00

Just had convo with labmate regarding an article about the US census finally updating the ethnic options and realized I've never really thought about all the issues there, since it's always been fairly straight forward for me. I mean for her son would that be like...Caucasian-Asian-Hispanic? But is Hispanic only in the sense of Spanish descent? What of the non-white Hispanics? Some Filipinos feel

“I Mean, Is Sexism Really Still A Problem In 2012?”

2012-01-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

Shortened from an article here: Many of the women expressed discouragement at how many comments they have received that, while seemingly complimentary, somehow still felt wrong. These comments may have focused on appearance rather than content, or called attention to the relative lack of women in science. They can cause a feeling of unease, particularly when [the woman] is in the position

Excitement today

2012-01-30T14:02:00.000-08:00

Please be on alert. On January 30, 2012, at approximately 12:50 PM the Police Department received information of a suspicious package at the L------ Building at the School of Medicine on campus. The building is being evacuated. Individuals should stay away from the area. There is no additional information available at this time. We were wondering what the fire-alarm is about.

Memorable quotes today

2012-01-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

Professor: It's hard to survive being eaten. Labmate: Time passes weirdly in grad school. Seminar speaker: And we can put electrodes into things... . Invented words in noticed today: "morningness"

2012-01-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

Taken from How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival: The iconoclastic Irish physicist John S. Bell had long nursed a private disquietude with quantum mechanics.The "ask no questions" attitude frustrated Bell, who remained unconvinced that Niels Bohr had really vanquished the last of Einstein's critiques long ago and that there was nothing left to worry

2012-01-30T10:38:00.000-08:00

The publication of a paper denying the link between HIV and AIDS in an Italian anatomy journal has prompted a member of its editorial board to resign in protest. ... The paper’s lead author, Peter Duesberg of the University of California, Berkeley, is well known for denying the link between HIV and AIDS, and six of the paper's nine authors, including Duesberg, are on the board of Rethinking

2012-01-30T10:28:00.000-08:00

Behind the curtain, scientists are surprisingly colourful. The world-changing ones are, by definition, anti-authoritarian, risk-taking rebels. The history of science is littered with instances of fighting, disregard of authority, dogged determination in the face of scorn and even that staple of teenage rebellion, wilful intoxication. Such behaviour seems to be inseparable from the creative

2012-01-30T10:22:00.000-08:00

The Adviser has this habit of strolling past all the bays in the lab when he first comes in each morning saying "Good morning!" without pausing his steps. Which usually meant that when I look up in response to the voice there's no one there. This, repeated now over a period of years, occasionally makes me feel like that I'm being greeted by an disembodied voice or, as the lab's alternative

This is illogical

2012-01-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

It takes 14 quarters now to do a load of laundry. That is a lot of quarters. The laundry place is a member of some kind of laundry association (saw the sticker) so that makes me wonder: Why can't they have a card like everyone else so we can put money on it / use it for credit so that I don't have to keep cash in my knapsack solely for the purpose of coin-conversion? I suppose carrying around

What is the focus of your project?

2012-01-29T08:41:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, when we were young, we could've been nearly anything. Life was uncharted territory and, if we did not bleed light, as Billy Collin suggested, at least we bled potential. Then we grew up. I can appreciate the need for focus, the need to specialize. I can appreciate the driving need to find a decent job and hopefully financial stability in a bid for happiness. I can understand

Utter failure to organize my thoughts

2012-01-28T14:06:00.000-08:00

There is a square of Tanzania chocolate that Lusine brought last weekend. The booklet on the packaging recommends pairing it with jasmine tea, so I have both. Wendy's birthday was this week. Tiffany and I along with her husband, child, and a few other friends went out to Benihana's for dinner. The food (and show) was quite good. Wendy is leaving mid-June. There is spring-cleaning paired with

2012-01-18T08:29:00.001-08:00

STOP SOPA join the strike today!

Well that's not going to work out

2012-01-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

Writing, I keep forgetting, is much more similar to drawing than I'd like, for my own peace of mind. Namely, I'd like to point to the stuff from the Artist Problems tumblr such as as the <5% overlap between what you want to work on and what you actually works on, which are tentatively labeled as "miracles". The other gem that I've referred to before is how hard it is to work up the energy to

In which there is talk of lab

2012-01-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

For various reasons I've been drawing a lot lately, but I think I've done more than my minimal, or even average quota for the week, so instead I'll take the half an hour to spare today and start to try, in my rambling way, to account for some of the things that have happened over the past few weeks. It's really been weeks, hasn't it? Well, I'll start from the most recent and go backwards. One

2012-01-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

I have internet again! So for the past week internet's been sporadic -- I'd have any time between 0 to 5 hours of internet on any given day for no reason that I can discern and after rounds of being told by ATT people to shut off and restart my router and computer (I despise how customer service does not distinguish between people of varying levels of technical knowledge) they finally sent a

"Maybe it only hunts things with osteoporosis."

2011-12-19T11:21:00.000-08:00

Have just dropped by library and consequently started reading McKinley's Dragonhaven on the way home. The story is in first person and the protagonist reminds me unerringly of Mike, had he been raised on a reserve with dragons (of all things) and had to deal with nature reserve / research institute funding shenanigans. It's like if Mike were in Albert's job, from the "Alby and the Manticore"

2011-12-11T17:54:00.001-08:00

The Thesis Advisor has a dog that weights as much as me and has intense separation anxiety. What.

DNAja vu??

2011-12-11T09:10:00.001-08:00

What the....

2011-12-10T21:23:00.001-08:00

Is it bad taste to re-use gift bags? Would you care if I re-used gift bags? What are people supposed to do with used gift bags?

2011-12-10T21:17:00.001-08:00

Advantages of shopping online: you get boxes. And if you save and swap the boxes there will be ones that are just right for the odd-shaped things you're trying to wrap. Driving up next weekend. Which means all the stuff better arrive in time for me while my wrapping paper and I are at the same location asdfasdf where is that package??

2011-12-10T19:45:00.001-08:00

Remind me never to buy cards with glitter again. They get EVERYWHERE. I think I may have accidentally ingested some.

2011-12-09T20:11:00.001-08:00

Have been catapulted to the middle of the holiday season induced insanity. Should be planning out next week's menu for grocery shopping but exhausted brain cannot come up with anything besides cookies and soup.

This week:

2011-12-07T09:39:00.001-08:00

I have discovered that the county databases for the jury system are separate, since that my parents, in bay area, have received a jury summons for me...while I have been receiving jury summons addressed to my San Diego address.

Well that explains it

2011-12-01T13:37:00.001-08:00

Science jargons: the reason why the longer I stay in academia, the worse I get at non-scientific communication of any kind. (Scroll down for the chart. Really, all you need to see is the chart to get the basic idea.)

Belated posting

2011-11-30T20:23:00.001-08:00

Here's the stuff I typed for the Arizona trip, written Friday night and Sunday morning. Due to life and, more specifically, a presentation (the last one of this kind I'll have to do in grad school!) due this morning (adviser dropped by afterwards and told me "kudos for doing well under pressure" and I have yet to figure out if that means that I actually did well or if he thought I looked nervous

2011-11-26T18:21:00.001-08:00

Am back! Trip was not perfect but it was very good. Will elaborate later. Probably after photos.

This reminds me of my experience with Linux. A lot.

2011-11-22T14:41:00.001-08:00

Amazing grace

2011-11-20T11:12:00.001-08:00

Because it's a wonderful world that we live in, with many wondrous things in it. Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Is expecting things to make sense too much?

2011-11-16T21:11:00.001-08:00

Dear Security Sages, I have received your mysterious email, as forwarded to me by my thesis adviser, which indicates that the entire school of med must have their building access cards replaced and which provided exactly zero explanation as to why. I have even heeded the odd little office hours that I need to obey, in order to obtain my new badge, and waited in (the DMV-hell-flashblack-inducing)

Thoughts from a deranged mind

2011-11-15T10:29:00.001-08:00

If English were a more regular language, we would not have jokes about liquified moose. Because see, the conjugation of plural forms in the English language has always been something of a source of confusion for me and, as someone on Tumblr pointed out: If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? So my

Aspiring minor geological miracle

2011-11-12T09:58:00.001-08:00

Dear Firefox, Are you aware of the fact that with your latest update (version 8), there are now a bunch of incompatibility issues with add-ons & plugins, especially with gmail, such that a) the rich text editor sometimes won't load and that b) the gchat applet never loads correctly unless I turn off my add-ons & plugins? It's greatly inconvenient, given that I need to run adblocker so I don't

2011-11-11T08:39:00.001-08:00

Veteran's Day = free on campus parking = ability to drive to campus = 90 extra minutes to spend on something else during the day = \o/

Because life in the academia can be stressful

2011-11-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

A poem for the days when you're too tired / jaded / terrified to bet your bottom dollar on that elusive "tomorrow"... Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry by Stephen Dunn Relax. This won't last long. Or if it does, or if the lines make you sleepy or bored, give in to sleep, turn on the T.V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand such things. Its feelings

Telepathic insanity? It's surely contagious.

2011-11-08T08:58:00.000-08:00

The professor came up with the idea last Friday that he wants to get a grant submitted by next Thursday. The grant will be based on a project that all but two of the people in our lab work on, with one labmate in particular being the key contributor of preliminary data. This means a total of 13 days to complete a grant. Counting the weekends. This is somewhat insane. Everyone in lab except the

Does not compute

2011-11-06T12:27:00.000-08:00

At the health food store, in the checkout aisle, there is a stack of magazine that boasts, in one of its headlines, something along the lines of "little know type of vitamin B: kills yeast, powers up immune system, releases fat." Ignoring the obvious issues with "releasing fat", why yeast? I just--. Have brought strawberries even though it's blatantly not strawberry season anymore (but it's

This

2011-10-24T18:06:00.001-07:00

Letter to young rodent behaviorists

It could be weirder

2011-10-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

Tested yesterday and passed. Cannot help but be deeply grateful for the run through of the mock exam at 8am in the morning, though the exam isn't until after 10am and it was a very long morning. Ashley came by today and had lunch at Broken Yolk, which was good though one has to wonder if the gravy was quite meant to cover everything on my plate. Am, for reasons that don't need to be explored at

Re: what it means to be a grad students

2011-10-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

Dear all, Mother has forwarded me some editorial someone wrote on creaders about graduate school and academia, asking me how accurate it is. More specifically, she added, she's curious about what it's like to be a graduate student. After the initial moment of blankness where my mind gibbered to itself in mild hysteria, the second response my psyche provided was, "It's complicated", which frankly

Ugh

2011-10-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

Dear all, The Powers That Be are tightening the securities are workplace and several of the programs (anything that syncs across computers, pretty much), don't meet their "security requirements" (though attempt to read the exact specifications leads me to a dead link and a file that no longer there). I know some people who are just going to ignore it. I and a few of my colleagues are going to

No pixies were harmed in the making of this post

2011-10-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

Dear all, The title of today's blog (while my sample is incubating) is based on this comment. Those who know me knows that I adore open source and file sharing and all that good stuff and, given my field, it comes as no surprise that I continue to follow PLoS in my spare time (or in this case, because the paper assigned to me about miRNA screening is so dull that I have failed to finish reading

Surely it's not supposed to be that difficult?

2011-10-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

Dear all, I did feel badly enough last Sunday evening to take some meds, and ended up skipping work Monday because by the time I woke up it's around 10:30 already (and then take into account the hour long bus ride and that I definitely was not up to staying late to make up for the hour that I missed, I emailed in sick and then, much to my surprise, dropped off to sleep again. I think I slept for

There are already spores everywhere

2011-10-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

Dear all, I am blogging this as I am eating my lunch today, indoors, because it was drizzling out when I last checked and there are bits of trees flying about and it all seemed a bit hazardous and unfriendly. So: indoors with the computer and internet (and the lab and the equipment and experiments and sales reps from which I have not been able to flee, alas.) I've been having some issues the

Does mind warping count?

2011-10-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

Dear all, After discussing with Wendy last week regarding the flu season, or the approaching thereof, during which I was convinced it couldn't be arriving this early, it looks like I'm coming down with something. The irony is not lost on me. I went to get my previous year's photo printed today, but there were issues with the in-store printer, so I ended up not being able to pick them up (all

And things were very historical

2011-10-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

Dear all, The Dead Sea Scrolls have, apparently, been imaged from the Israel Museum and are now available online. Those of you who remember my quarter with the History of the End of the World class are probably not too surprised. It's pretty cool. Three sparring sessions today, I will probably be feeling them tomorrow. I have just staggered to lab to discover that my labmate had not only taken

And then a lot of things caught on fire

2011-09-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Dear all, I cannot keep up with the amount of random one liner comments in twitter, it seems, and the random words followed by exclamation points are building up to be an impenetrable wall of inside-jokes at this point. It's not that my schedule is any busier, per se, but after I get home and finishes all the chores I tend to spend the time either reading or drawing things in the 30-60min that I

Science twit

2011-09-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

Dear all, Blogger is still doing the weird thing where the cursor, after I tapped "enter" key twice, will not have moved, but the typing will show up at the right spot. It's still disconcerting. In other news, the martial arts exam day is coming up. I am about three lessons away from it and everyone who's testing (there're around ten of us) is starting the rounds of "Are you ready?" Today I

Still on the vigilance for ants

2011-09-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

Dear all, I realized that I haven't mentioned the ants problem in a while. It hasn't been solved...conclusively. I have left the landlady a note about it, received no reply, didn't have the time to bother her in person, and so a few weeks passed where there were errant ants, then there were fewer ants, followed by days when I swore the ants were gone, followed by a day of finding ants in the

"You're beeping," says she

2011-09-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

Dear all, I was comparing Wordpress with Blogger this week and have, in conclusion, decided that though I like the fact that Wordpress is under the GPL and I am all for open-sourced things, the really cool things that caught my eye about Wordpress only applies to Wordpress.org and not Wordpress.com (for some reason I keep typing "Worldpress", which makes me think of some kind of newspaper), or

Dear all

2011-09-12T20:08:00.001-07:00

Happy Mid-Autumn! Today I have also discovered which plant the "rhubarb" is. Recipe suggestions, anyone?

Well now that will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day

2011-09-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

J. Coulton apparently wrote a song about Ikea and, thanks to last.fm, I just heard it. It is as catching as the DNA song but it's the most bizarre experience ever to have a chorus going "Ikkkeeeaaa Ikeeeaaa" in your brain. Right. Have either got bitten by something multiple times in my hand or am having an allergic reaction to something. Jury's still out on that one. I no longer have a backup

Local insanity is insane

2011-09-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Dear all, I am currently in lab, since the power outage from Thursday put me slightly behind schedule in terms of experiments, both in terms of actual experiment and in terms of equipment malfunction (sensitive equipment don't take well to sudden shut downs). The day had started off gloomy, moved toward sunny, and now the evening clouds have already crept in from the ocean. I am going to

It's like citrus on a porcelain, maybe?

2011-09-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

It looks like blogger's updated their interface again -- this time into something that resembles, for better or worse, Google Docs. It's very clean though, and given that one of my favorite decor themes is the modern-minimalist style (the others are garden cottage and this wood/glass/ceramic mix that I still haven't quite figured out how to describe yet) I have, as of now, decided that I like it.

Well that went fast

2011-08-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

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

Wait list fail

2011-08-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

Those who are familiar with me knows that I have a "wait list" for books and movies and tv shows that I, in my infinite amount of wisdom, have decided to read / watch while maintaining my 50+ hour work schedule. (In case anyone is wondering, yes the book list is over 100+ long now.) There are some things that I will shuffle around on the list based on my level of interest and timing and mood,

Three sentence rule

2011-08-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of thoughts inside of my head right now, both in terms of things I can put into words and those that I can't. For the things that can be distilled into words, I have this blog. I'm afraid this entry will be very choppy, since I will be trying to get down everything that I've noted and wanted to mention with all the things that are constantly happening before I forget. The store

Why is cleaning so therapeutic?

2011-08-07T15:44:00.001-07:00

It's been my observation that I tend to go through a cleaning phase in response to periods of stress, the start of the roughly two week-long period (length of time isn't as important as the amount of cleaning, so if you condense the time it roughly equates three day's worth of cleaning) overlaps usually with the end of the "consume too much tea" phase, which generally starts within 24 hours of

Now to our schedule programming

2011-08-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

My undergrad is leaving at the end of next week. At this point it's no longer surprising that the first thing I mention, upon catching up to my posts, is her -- I worried about my undergrad even while I was in Greece. She has had enough time to generate data for the 15min talk she's required to give for her program...buuuut her data isn't very clean and the negative controls (and sometimes

Dear me

2011-08-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

I am behind in terms of posts, so I'm going to do my best to finish the Greece trip (only one day left after all, since I tend to update everything the day after it happens except for the plane-ride part -- because plane-rides are all about keeping myself from going insane from boredom) (and the timing is also confusing because of the time difference so it's like...7/4/11-7/5/11-7/4/11?) before

Well we're almost there

2011-08-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

7/3/11Ventured off to Keramikos this morning with various pit stops at kiosks and shops for touristy kitsch. We went to Hadrian's Gate and Temple of Zeus first, then up Adrianou to Monastary Square, where we detoured into the flea market, which was fun and full of odd things like old coins and plates and medals from Word Wars. We stopped by a pastry shop where we got pastries -- some sort of

Hmm

2011-08-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

7/2/11We sat out for the Acropolis bright & early after breakfast, arriving just after the entrance opened, and got the joint-ticket that would allow us to access multiple archaeological sites. It turned out that the UC student ID is recognized and that the tickets were half price for us. We went up to the Acropolis (pausing along the way to photograph the Odeion Herodes Atticus),where we

More from the traveling journal

2011-08-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Though I should point out that all of this is scribbled out in my size 8 writing on the backside of pages in my sketchbook, because I wasn't sure if I was going to be writing this until I was (but at least it's not the Denial Until Past the Sixth Chapter, and Possibly Beyond scenario).Right-o.July 1, 11Breakfast at Athens Studios consists of toast, tomatoes, boiled eggs and either instant coffee

To Athens

2011-08-02T20:39:00.000-07:00

Survived the day! Victory is mine.And now without further ado:6/30/11We schlepped down to the receptionist @ 7:40 in the morning and requested for a taxi to the airport, eating a hurried breakfast while we waited. Turned out we needn't have hurried since our receptionist was the only one who could check us out and we had to wait for her to come down (luckily she spoke to the taxi driver so we

Continuation!

2011-08-01T20:35:00.000-07:00

Ah right, I WILL find the time to finish typing up the Greek trip. I have, after all, a reputation for being extremely talented at time-management. (Pffft.)6/28/11 - 6/29/11This morning there was the addition of nectarine for breakfast & I tried "mountain tea", which seems to consist of some blend of sage & mint. Unfortunately the receptionist had less information about how we can get to Archanes

Greece, day 2

2011-07-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

Okay after this I'll need to break for chores. Darn it, it's Sunday afternoon already, which means the weekend is more or less over.Jun. 28, 11Yesterday's breakfast: sour cherry juice (actually sweet), cherries, toast w/ honey, egg. The receptionist was v. helpful & gave us directions AND maps AND recommendations of places to go. And tickets! Because you need tickets prior to boarding the

Temporarily done with forms, so

2011-07-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

I am going to type up my notes from the Greece trip, starting from the 26th since I doubt anyone would find my trip from San Diego to San Jose particularly riveting. But the trip itself might be noteworthy not only for entertainment values but also to provide logistic for future trips either to Greece or some other country in EU. The readers will also have to suffer through my random rambling

Random filler post to prove my continued existence

2011-07-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Taken from the Bay Lab Blog:You know you're a biologist when...Inspired by the chemistry blog...(a few borrowed)[I am bolding all that applies and adding my comments in square brackets]You know you're a lab rat when:You open the toothpaste with one hand. [Only sometimes. I can close it with one hand too.]You wash your hands before and after using to the washroom. [Sometimes, only when I'm on

Voila

2011-07-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

Throughout the day people have been asking me if my vacation was nice, if Greece was nice. The answer is, of course, "yes". Yet the word "nice" doesn't seem to do any of it justice. How would you describe the emotions inspired by the sound of a hymn dating back to the Byzantines winding its way through the white-washed walls? The feel of marble gone glass-smooth with age and history? How would

Dear all

2011-06-24T08:47:00.001-07:00

Am taking a short break from the middle of putting everything to order (e.g. water & put plants somewhere darker, tossing out perishables from fridge) before flying out early this afternoon. Week has been intense -- started training undergrad on two different tasks and so set her up with hopefully enough to keep her occupied for the coming week, gave my committee presentation again after

Maybe it's logistics?

2011-06-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

Greece in less than a week! The thought itself in exciting (and now that the date is fast approaching, a little scary-- but there's a first time for everything) enough that I'm wondering how I will be able to sleep the night before. Which reminds me to mention that I have discovered doxylamine succinate, which is effective but requires me to time it better so I don't end up drowsy until 10am the

2011-06-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

We were told to set up our poster before 8am. Of course I'm the only one to show up before 8am. Even now there are only 2 of us total and I'm sitting around working on my training grant application. In life, I win at taking everything far too seriously.

2011-06-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

Newest quote from the PI: "Apparently I didn't drink enough as an undergrad to be studied."

2011-06-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Have just realized, late last night, that avocados are monoecious angiosperms. Which means Mike-the-avocado is an monoecious angiosperm. Which means suddenly my knowledge of the growth of avocado, such as their blooming period, became hysterically funny.

In which I contemplate the horrors of 18th century French aristocracy

2011-06-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

The next major item (not counting the poster presentation next Thursday) in my grad career is the application of the NIH training grant due at the start of August, so while doing laundry (preparation and conclusion of any trip, it appears, will always include massive loads of laundry) I've started going through the three different sample grant applications that I was given. Well, technically 4

In which a professor goes AWOL and I will soon have mice-free weekends

2011-06-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

How shall I start? Several things have happened within the past week that I would like to mention but have yet found the time to, and though all (or almost all) of them are related to graduate school, they are not a connected series of events. In the order that they appear in my mind then. I'll claim artistic license with punctuation and it should be easy enough to keep organized.//And now we

Can't say it was unexpected

2011-06-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

Those of you who had taken PE with me in high school are probably wondering how I can take any kind of physical education courses, much less my current choice, without some kind of accident happening regularly. Well, today I accidentally elbowed my sparring partner and soon-to-be test mentor, Cathe, in the face (she was thankfully okay and we spent a few minutes trying to work on my timing so it

Monday's revelations

2011-05-30T15:16:00.001-07:00

Have just realized that:1) You know you've done too many in situ hybridizations when you noticed that you can run through entire series of wash steps for day 1, including mixing of reagents, without consulting the protocol once.2) Grad school is the place where you stop wondering if you will ever grow out of your phase of weirdness and know with 100% certainty that you will only get worse from

Sequentially is good

2011-05-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

I have been a student (continuously) for so long that I'm pretty sure hearing someone say "exam" is enough to make my blood pressure rise.That being said, it looks like my committee meeting make take place during the first week that is on my two-month time frame, meaning it will be the week after next week (I did leave myself a week minimum to prepare), and that I'm allowed to postpone the exam,

Grad school is giving me mood swings

2011-05-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

As people might have guessed from my previous post, one of my experiments, one of the ones that I have spent MONTHS AND MONTHS tormenting myself over, worked. This prompted a fit of ecstasy because there's no euphoria like the feeling when you discover something that no one else in the world knows, and you know that this is not an exaggeration. I allowed myself thirty minutes of grinning like a

2011-05-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

It worked. IT WORKED! It worked. What?

I can think of no titles

2011-05-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

I am currently staring at this text field, blanking out. There were things I meant to write about, aside from what I've already mentioned, but I suppose I will have to wait for them to come back to me. Lab was...well I experienced another setback on Saturday, where half of the embryos I needed promptly died. (It happens in biology. Does not make it any more pleasant.) I meant to draw more this

O tempora o mores

2011-05-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Am on campus alone right now and just found this in inbox: ALL ACADEMICS, STAFF AND STUDENTS AT [----] SUBJECT: Attempted Kidnapping on 5/20 @ 8:00pm Please be on alert. [----] Police are investigating an attempted kidnapping that occurred on 5/20/2011 at 8:00pm just West of the [----] Library. The victim reported that an unknown male came up from behind, put a paper bag over her head and

Well, this week was a wash

2011-05-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

I am still (of course) troubleshooting experiments. Nothing has been solved yet and I must go to lab this weekend as well (though hmm...possible break at least one of the two days next weekend? A girl can dream). At some point mid-week a few classmates and I were talking and we realized that we're going to be technically fourth years in less than a month and we still have no publications. You

...I...babies...what?

2011-05-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

So I found out one of my upperclassman (one year my senior) is having a baby. And getting married. Though I assume they're getting married before the baby arrived. I would've thought it was a joke (she did plan out a "pretend to have gotten married" joke while I did a rotation in that lab)except she has ultrasound images (which mostly looked like smudges to me but she claimed she's having a girl

Career thoughts and also, cake

2011-05-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

Well, it's now the weekend and time for my twice-a-week verbal diarrhea. Though we'll see how this goes since I'm currently STILL in lab, and my timer informs me I have 19min and 23 seconds left (and then it's a bunch of short incubations and trip down to the vivarium to visit my mice). The title recapitulates my thoughts for the day fairly accurately. The former is a joint combination between

They'll get designated numbers, or possibly colors

2011-05-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

Scribbling on tablet is in order as that the weather is moving straight into the June-ish type of overcast weather. And also, lessons yesterday involved flipping people over the shoulder so I'm a bit sore still. Instead I have spent the morning grocery shopping and then scrubbing things with the music on. It is therapeutic. The vegetable & barley soup is, even counting the cream of mushroom thing

Flying requires crash mats

2011-05-07T13:47:00.000-07:00

Okay so now might be a good time to update.New laptop came in! It was very exciting and shiny as promised and I named it Kerral (one day I may run out of fictional characters to name computers after, but this will not be the year). Windows 7 is...well part of it is very nice and steam-lined, after my brief encounter with the wreckage that is Vista. Part of it is "omg so many unnecessary frills

It's Maaay

2011-05-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

Went into lab both days this weekends (heh, again, yes) and was sharply reminded today of the inconvenience of working in lab on the weekend when there's no one else there: when you run out of snap-top tubes there's no one around to ask if they have a personal stash somewhere I can borrow until the new shipment comes in. Oh dear. With luck I'll get something useful with the ones that I did do

A mischief of mice

2011-04-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

So I'm working on nine different experiments right now and the PI has come out to talk to me about the NRSA (f31) fellowship and hinted strongly that I should get myself registered now and apply for the one this summer. Also, he thinks I should have an undergrad. I was personally considering separating out the teaching part of my learning experience from the research part of the learning

2011-04-24T10:54:00.000-07:00

My yokan tastes of preservatives. It's not helping with the paranoia. Though I have figured out at least one reason why one of my experiments was not working: the antibody I used is one that is conjugated to an enzyme and the enzyme in that batch is dead. I got a new neighbor on the other side now, and the first night so far is pretty good. I need my new vaio to come in soon so I can install the

Frustrated ranting: you have been warned

2011-04-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

On Daemon. Lackadaisy's signed poster has arrived, thus improving my day. No result for experiment yet (ten-day protocol/procedure is INSANE). Anything I need that MIGHT fix Zen requires purchase of frankly expensive bits of diagnostic software (ah the Windows market-lock) -- can't find immediate open-source solution for software-hardware interface issues in XP, if those are indeed the issues,

2011-04-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

Forgot to turn off Zen before leaving for lab. Returned in the afternoon to use it and had it crash on me. Current report is that RAM overheated and only 20% is usable, with 64% of harddrive being still accessible. Have no access to any program besides Firefox & Windows explorer. Lost all files that were not backed up (including all my recent sketches and art projects but thankfully nothing

It's world lab animal libration week next week

2011-04-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

It's hard enough to do biomedical research involving live animals without having to worry about bomb threats from activists, thanks very much. Though I wonder if it is really as world-wide as they claim. My God -- can you imagine someone trying to "liberate" the lab animals from research in Egypt? More confusion! Or perhaps it is confusing enough over there that this is a small enough bleep that

2011-04-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

Cream of potato soup is like clam chowder with out the clam. Or the bacon. There is onion involved though, and too much salt. Have enough data for a manuscript but PI is going to have me try for a top tier journal which I DON'T have enough data for yet and won't until a particular experiment that I've been failing on and off since my first year works. He's also worried about being scooped. I

Declensions: 1; me: 0

2011-04-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

Channeled Mike yesterday and ditched lab for an hour and a half to go to the Kyoto Prize symposium yesterday, to the one that was hosted on campus, which was the award for basic science. This year's basic science prize went to a Laszlo Lovasc, in applied math, specifically as applied to networks (he gave internet and neural networks as examples; I was gleeful). There weren't that many equations

At least I got jello

2011-04-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

Monday: Wendy and I huddled together and wondered what will become of a research university when they cut all our research funds. Someone described my attention as a strobe light, and I finally got around to examining the shirt I test-tailored, which failed the exam since the sleeves that I had altered had not straight stitches on the inside complete with a few stitches where the thread twisted

Biosynthesis was a long time ago

2011-04-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

My thesis advisor from my undergrad years just emailed to say that she's putting together something that involves the stuff I did for my senior thesis and she had a bunch of questions for what I tried and didn't try and since she's at home she thought that it'd better to email me rather than to check the records I left for her. Dear all: this is from my work based on organism from another kingdom

Okay that's a lot of food

2011-04-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

Parents came and parents left. After some consideration I've realized that parental visit this time around actually bore a striking similarity to the llama song (my God the llama song, I got it stuck in my head twice within a week of being introduced to it) -- in the sense that the first time you listen to it, after the 50 seconds of photos and inane lyrics flash by, you're left sitting thinking