And now, it's officially winter.
By which I mean it's wet and chilly and water's started to seep into my socks. Cold weather is never quite so miserable as when your socks are wet.
20121215
20121212
Tried to trap moth in kitchen cabinet since failed to lure it out with light (what kind of moth doesn't follow light?), forgot that the cabinet was not sealed to the wall -- a fact that was brought home to me this morning when I accidentally poured tea dreg over the moth, who was in the sink (apparently really concentrated chai tea has potential applicability as insecticide?). Had to remove carcass with paper tower (EXTREMELY UNPLEASANT) since my kitchen sink doesn't have garbage disposal and the moth'd probably block the drain, and having it moldering away in the drain is a new and shining item I'm adding to the very long list of Things I Do Not Want to Have to Deal With. Though I suppose one conclusion we can reach is that tea does, however indirectly, make everything better. Someone ought to get a chuckle out of that.
I also had a very nice dream in which I'm piloting ships for interplanetary travels, and the moment when the ship breaks orbit is amazing. Also apparently my subconscious can dream up pretty good inertia dampeners.
I also had a very nice dream in which I'm piloting ships for interplanetary travels, and the moment when the ship breaks orbit is amazing. Also apparently my subconscious can dream up pretty good inertia dampeners.
20121211
20121210
20121209
Do people even still use ribbons
Just spent 2+ hours wrapping things and am ready to start flailing because I realized that one of the things I ordered HASN'T COME IN YET and there's glitter everywhere, because of the cards and methinks it's time to type up my annual recap letter for some of my more out-of-touch friends.
The holidays are upon me.
The holidays are upon me.
20121206
LIST TIME
1) Labmate made these oatmeal cookies with white chocolate and dried strawberries in it and it's really, really awesome. She forwarded me the recipe here. I mean normally I don't even like oatmeal cookies and I ate three of these under not-starving conditions, so. Uh. I highly recommend the recipe?
2) The husband of my former teacher who passed away earlier this year send around the newsletter. I guess I'm still on the mailing list, which is kind of awkward because I've never even met the husband, much less talked to him. Also it's less of a newsletter and more of a summary of her last moments, the funeral, and the aftermath. It came in just today like a particularly unexpected punch of emotional trauma and now I will have to spend the next day trying to drown my sorrows in tea.
3) As a result of the UCLA accident my school is taking preventative measures by having us fitted for lab coats. Which we are required to wear, in theory, at all times when we're in the lab and outside of clean areas ("clean area" is what it sounds like -- it's clean, it's usually our desks where we can eat something during particularly long all-day experiments). This does not make a lot of sense because lab coats will not save us from the sort of mistakes that happen at UCLA and anyway, most of the things I work with I need to be careful with because I need to protect the samples from me, not the other way around. I mean the chances that I'll be severely harmed by half a liter of ice is extremely slim. Then again, according to my PI, when he was a post-doc their department passed a mandate to lock up all storage containers for radioactive chemicals (so that only the lab people have access) because some post-doc somehow ended up ingesting some. I mean the solution doesn't even address the problem! So maybe calling it a "solution" is a bit of a stretch. Hm.
4) Ashley's successfully mustered her first trimester (and the in fact not limited to morning morning sickness) and continues to baffle me with her tendency to describe her baby using fruit. WHY.
5) Stupid proteins. My shoulder hurts.
6) I have tried netflix. About half of the things on my to-see list is not available, so I will probably not have an account and continue to borrow Lucy's for the odd show that's on there. Are cookies acceptable currency?
7) It's been nearly 6 months since construction and we still have odd people in fluorescent vests and hardhats wandering through. WHY.
8) There are more things but I can't remember them at the moment, so I'll probably do another list at some point.
2) The husband of my former teacher who passed away earlier this year send around the newsletter. I guess I'm still on the mailing list, which is kind of awkward because I've never even met the husband, much less talked to him. Also it's less of a newsletter and more of a summary of her last moments, the funeral, and the aftermath. It came in just today like a particularly unexpected punch of emotional trauma and now I will have to spend the next day trying to drown my sorrows in tea.
3) As a result of the UCLA accident my school is taking preventative measures by having us fitted for lab coats. Which we are required to wear, in theory, at all times when we're in the lab and outside of clean areas ("clean area" is what it sounds like -- it's clean, it's usually our desks where we can eat something during particularly long all-day experiments). This does not make a lot of sense because lab coats will not save us from the sort of mistakes that happen at UCLA and anyway, most of the things I work with I need to be careful with because I need to protect the samples from me, not the other way around. I mean the chances that I'll be severely harmed by half a liter of ice is extremely slim. Then again, according to my PI, when he was a post-doc their department passed a mandate to lock up all storage containers for radioactive chemicals (so that only the lab people have access) because some post-doc somehow ended up ingesting some. I mean the solution doesn't even address the problem! So maybe calling it a "solution" is a bit of a stretch. Hm.
4) Ashley's successfully mustered her first trimester (and the in fact not limited to morning morning sickness) and continues to baffle me with her tendency to describe her baby using fruit. WHY.
5) Stupid proteins. My shoulder hurts.
6) I have tried netflix. About half of the things on my to-see list is not available, so I will probably not have an account and continue to borrow Lucy's for the odd show that's on there. Are cookies acceptable currency?
7) It's been nearly 6 months since construction and we still have odd people in fluorescent vests and hardhats wandering through. WHY.
8) There are more things but I can't remember them at the moment, so I'll probably do another list at some point.
20121201
20121126
In which the theme color is yellow
Trip to Arizona is a lot smoother this time because I've done the bulk of the route before and retained a vague memory of where the rest spots and gas stations are (or more specifically, which point has cheaper gas than the rest of the route -- v. important these days with the 4$+ / gal pricing). This time I also had the benefit of taking the same route both ways, which means I get to drive through a part of I8 in the morning light, which is quite pretty. There were wisps of very dense fog on the ground, but only enough wisps to look fantastic and poetical under the sun and the blue, blue sky. There were also a couple areas with deciduous trees with bright gold leaves tucked into the nooks of the mountain, which I missed completely last year on the account of the sun being in my eye when I drove through that area in the evening.
20121124
20121105
20121104
So hey, I got here after all
Remember when, over two years ago, I made a post and outed myself as being asexual? Specifically, remember this quote?
Well in the past 2+ years I have passed both my qualifying and candidacy exam, grown older physically and mentally, dealt with minor verbal harassment on the bus, taught undergrads (who, in my opinion, utterly failed to appreciate the magic of genetics), tested up one rank in martial arts (due for another exam in December, oh dear God), presented at two different conferences, ventured into online dating, washed my hands of online dating, while keeping up my schedule of explaining to my parents that I don't wish to get married and have babies at least twice a year while THEY are still at the point where they are supportive of everything I do without letting go of the belief that asexuality is something I'll "grow out of". Well my mother anyway. Father dear who checks over my car every time we see each other and spent the day before we meet making all my favorite dishes still declines to acknowledge that I've said anything about my sexual orientation at all. It's a shaky sort of passive aggressive peace at my household.
As I was typing up the other post trying to explain to people, most of whom I've never even met in real life, that asexuality is a valid orientation and not a form of repression, I remembered all of this. All of which reminded that me at this point I've learned to be more assertive and be more comfortable in my own skin so I should let people know that there's no need to be super careful around me regarding this anymore. I don't think I'll ever be what people consider to be "normal", but I feel astonishingly well-adjusted and capable of dealing with whatever people choose to throw at me. So, discussion & teasing are fine, questions are fine (actually more than fine because that way I will know where I'm unclear and will have a chance to explain). I want to be a person who's comfortable with herself and now I realize that I am one step closer.
I think this calls for celebratory tea.
Oh and just so you know, despite of the fact that I am comfortable enough with this aspect of myself to write a post on the internet, I'm not at that point where I'm okay with people teasing me about it yet, however well meaning they may be.
Well in the past 2+ years I have passed both my qualifying and candidacy exam, grown older physically and mentally, dealt with minor verbal harassment on the bus, taught undergrads (who, in my opinion, utterly failed to appreciate the magic of genetics), tested up one rank in martial arts (due for another exam in December, oh dear God), presented at two different conferences, ventured into online dating, washed my hands of online dating, while keeping up my schedule of explaining to my parents that I don't wish to get married and have babies at least twice a year while THEY are still at the point where they are supportive of everything I do without letting go of the belief that asexuality is something I'll "grow out of". Well my mother anyway. Father dear who checks over my car every time we see each other and spent the day before we meet making all my favorite dishes still declines to acknowledge that I've said anything about my sexual orientation at all. It's a shaky sort of passive aggressive peace at my household.
As I was typing up the other post trying to explain to people, most of whom I've never even met in real life, that asexuality is a valid orientation and not a form of repression, I remembered all of this. All of which reminded that me at this point I've learned to be more assertive and be more comfortable in my own skin so I should let people know that there's no need to be super careful around me regarding this anymore. I don't think I'll ever be what people consider to be "normal", but I feel astonishingly well-adjusted and capable of dealing with whatever people choose to throw at me. So, discussion & teasing are fine, questions are fine (actually more than fine because that way I will know where I'm unclear and will have a chance to explain). I want to be a person who's comfortable with herself and now I realize that I am one step closer.
I think this calls for celebratory tea.
20121029
Food: more thoughts
1) I have no idea why I keep buying two eggplants when I only ever manage to eat one and I know that the texture gets all weird if I try to freeze it.
2) I can't tell the difference between maple sugar and cane sugar, so the wildly inventive decision to put maple syrup in my tea was anticlimatic.
3) Che-choui, the banana-coconut-tapioca pudding, is really not my taste. In fact it reminded me of how I thought I hated coconuts until I came to the US and discovered that I do, in fact, like fresh coconut, pina colada, and in fact coconut in baking (imagine my astonishment when I discovered coconut macaroons).
4) I still don't understand why people like tootsie rolls.
5) Don't remember if I mentioned gulab jamun yet but it's really good! It reminds me of baklava in the sense that I expect it to be too cloyingly sweet for my taste but I ended up liking it despite of the fact that it's much sweeter than stuff I usually eat. (The version I tried had rose water and I think that's the first time I've seen it in food.)
2) I can't tell the difference between maple sugar and cane sugar, so the wildly inventive decision to put maple syrup in my tea was anticlimatic.
3) Che-choui, the banana-coconut-tapioca pudding, is really not my taste. In fact it reminded me of how I thought I hated coconuts until I came to the US and discovered that I do, in fact, like fresh coconut, pina colada, and in fact coconut in baking (imagine my astonishment when I discovered coconut macaroons).
4) I still don't understand why people like tootsie rolls.
5) Don't remember if I mentioned gulab jamun yet but it's really good! It reminds me of baklava in the sense that I expect it to be too cloyingly sweet for my taste but I ended up liking it despite of the fact that it's much sweeter than stuff I usually eat. (The version I tried had rose water and I think that's the first time I've seen it in food.)
20121025
Last night I had a dream in which I was explaining my data to the PI at my desk and my lab bench spontaneously combusted. It was the sort of fire that could not be put out by water / normal extinguisher and my labmate figured out how to put it out by setting fire to the stuff that's on fire with a bunsen burner which, for some reason that only makes sense in my subconscious, ended up putting out the fire.
From this I conclude that I need to spend a weekend Not In Lab.
Also I had the recent revelation that cool is overrated. As in the popular notion of "coolness" is an unnecessary amount of work and a bit pretentious. I've decided that I'd rather be the flailing dork because frankly they seem to have a lot more fun in life and, I've realized, being unapologetically enthusiastic about something is actually kind of awesome. I'm not entirely sure what the next generation will take away from me, based on this conclusion, but I've also realized that I apparently belong to the group of people who try to teach a two year old how to say "mitochondria" so, if all else fails, I will lure the progeny to Science. [Insert mad cackling.]
That will be all.
From this I conclude that I need to spend a weekend Not In Lab.
Also I had the recent revelation that cool is overrated. As in the popular notion of "coolness" is an unnecessary amount of work and a bit pretentious. I've decided that I'd rather be the flailing dork because frankly they seem to have a lot more fun in life and, I've realized, being unapologetically enthusiastic about something is actually kind of awesome. I'm not entirely sure what the next generation will take away from me, based on this conclusion, but I've also realized that I apparently belong to the group of people who try to teach a two year old how to say "mitochondria" so, if all else fails, I will lure the progeny to Science. [Insert mad cackling.]
That will be all.
20121020
1) The phrase "Important information inside! Open immediately." No longer has any meaning for me because they inevitably contain advertisement.
2) I forgot to water my mini-rose before I left for the conference and came back to find it dead. Graduate school has been absolutely terrible for practical horticulture.
3) While we're on the subject of food, I'll load photos of stuff I ate in New Orleans probably to Facebook. In the meantime I should mention that while here I've also tried kiwi berries (you can eat them peel and all) which are quite good and spaghetti squash, because it was on sale and the handy sticker on the thing actually includes instructions for how to cook it. I have the strangest urge to lecture it and ask it didn't it know that it's a melon and not a type of pasta and it doesn't really taste like pasta...but not quite like a melon either. It's good though.
2) I forgot to water my mini-rose before I left for the conference and came back to find it dead. Graduate school has been absolutely terrible for practical horticulture.
3) While we're on the subject of food, I'll load photos of stuff I ate in New Orleans probably to Facebook. In the meantime I should mention that while here I've also tried kiwi berries (you can eat them peel and all) which are quite good and spaghetti squash, because it was on sale and the handy sticker on the thing actually includes instructions for how to cook it. I have the strangest urge to lecture it and ask it didn't it know that it's a melon and not a type of pasta and it doesn't really taste like pasta...but not quite like a melon either. It's good though.
Cathe persuaded me to try pumpkin smoothie ("It can't be scarier than Cajun food."). It's got pumpkin and soymilk in it, is sweeter than I would've liked, but is somehow not as weird as it sounds -- mostly it tastes like icy pumpkin pie filling. It does, however, makes me want to make some time to try to track down a good recipe for pumpkin bread.
Also: milk is icky, soy milk is very nice, almond milk it tolerable, but rice milk is ...kind of awful.
Also: milk is icky, soy milk is very nice, almond milk it tolerable, but rice milk is ...kind of awful.
20121018
Weirdest dream last week: Crime and Punishment and the Metamorphosis fusion, featuring Razumihin (is that the guy's name? Really tall guy who married the sister) being agitated and flailing around yelling at Rodya about how he's not a super-human, dammit, he's a cockroach, and Raskolnikov explaining that cockroaches are in fact superior beings and did you know they have really high tolerance for radiation? (Because my subconscious has been taken over by science, no matter what else may be going on in there at any given time). And there was someone who was either Gregor's (Gregor? The guy who turned into the bug) sister or Soniya, sobbing.
This entire dream may or may not have been inspired by the fact that I stepped on a giant cockroach in the hostel's kitchen.
My brain, guys.
This entire dream may or may not have been inspired by the fact that I stepped on a giant cockroach in the hostel's kitchen.
My brain, guys.
20121011
Flying out to New Orleans tomorrow (one layover in Texas)! I have my trusty knapsack with my wallet and my poster tube of awesome with my poster. Everything else is pretty much secondary. That being said packing for business is definitely different than packing for pleasure: after some thought I'm not taking my sketchbook with me or my fancy camera (though I stuck my old Canon one in my suitcase because is small) but decided to include Ivy (there are keynote symposia that I will compulsively take notes at), so there will be internet access, at some point.
20121010
Labmate introduced me to goat milk candy! She brought something called "Aldama", described as "obleas con cajeta de leche" ("something milk" I told her, reading it; she laughed). It's something like caramel.
Grad school is apparently my time to be introduced to goat-based food products, what with the goat cheese in Crete and goat candy now. Neither of which are actually as weird as goats themselves. (Seriously goats are...physics defying, among other things.)
I should go hiking somewhere where I might see goats for the completion of the experience.
Grad school is apparently my time to be introduced to goat-based food products, what with the goat cheese in Crete and goat candy now. Neither of which are actually as weird as goats themselves. (Seriously goats are...physics defying, among other things.)
I should go hiking somewhere where I might see goats for the completion of the experience.
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