Making Out

This is from PostSecret this week.
I LOVED it.

the train from Kansas City

Having an entire week off from work gives you A LOT of free time. And aside from committing to a grad school in Virginia (something I hesitate to mention due to Fermi's post with a lot of grad animosity) and turing in my application for the Peace Corps, I've been delightfully lazy.

Mostly, I've watched a lot of tv. That brings me to my next topic of discussion. Does anyone actually watch A Baby Story on TLC? Maybe I'm just cold-hearted, but I don't see the appeal, and therefore don't see why What Not to Wear or Cash Cab isn't on instead. Although Cash Cab might be on Discovery. Oh well. The point is, I'm not interested in seeing childbirth. Especially not the childbirth of strangers.

Another fun thing I've done has been to cook this amazing french dish called choucroute. It is a dish from the Alsace region of France, which has played something of a geographical musical chairs with France and Germany, so there is a lot of German influence. The kind my mom and I made last night had sauerkraut, kielbasa (polish sausage), venision sausage (couldn't leave out the coon ass), ham hock, candian bacon, regular bacon, onions, butter, potatoes, apples, and white wine. To season it, I made a little sac of spices in cheesecloth with juniper berries, peppercorn, bay leaves, thyme, and caraway seeds. It was a delightful mini-dinner party. It made me miss being in France a lot.

The last thing I've been doing to excess is looking at icanhascheezburger.com. That stuff is hilarious.


see more crazy cat pics

2 days late with my written part.

Tonight I was at work until 11:30 pm. Around 11, one of my old undergrads who used to work in our lab "Mary" saw me at my desk and came by to say hello. Part of our conversation:

Me: What are you doing when you graduate?
Mary: I've decided to go to Med School.
Me: Oh! That is Fabulous!
Mary: Good, I am glad you think so, I've been getting mixed responses.
Me: That's just because those people don't know how much grad school sucks. I mean Med School has GOT to be better than grad school.
Mary: That's what I was thinking! Except you have to deal with cadavers. But I think I can get over that.

One way you can tell you are growing (mentally/emotionally/whatever) is that you start to have different opinions than you had before based on some current experience. My current experience is that I am working too much, and my boss is an asshole.

Let's Recap this week:
Good Friday: Work 4 hours, Panic about Oral Exam: 8 hours
Holy Saturday: Work 4 hours, Panic about Oral exam: 8 hours
Easter Sunday: Work 8 hours.
Monday: Work 9 hours.
Tuesday: Work 9 hours.
Wednesday: Work 11 hours. + 1 hour of counciling to help me deal with my boss-hatred
Thursday: (Today) Work 13.5 hours.

Today I finished the written part of my oral exam.
Suggested Length: 10-15 pages. + works cited
My Length: 15 pages + 2 sentences.
Works Cited: 73
It is kick ass and crappy at the same time.
More kick ass than crappy though.

Now I just have to study and fix my powerpoint slides.

It has got to be easier the second time if I fail this time.
I tell people that and they tell me that I won't fail.
heh. like most things now: I will believe it when I see it.
I have been hardend by the world.
I have zero faith.

If I fail I will be slightly embarressed. But I will know that it is just an initiation game.
Currently I have zero experience at initiations.
I was never in a sorority.
I didn't even joing Girls Service Club.
Partly because I am too independant
and partly because of the initiation.

I don't care anymore though.
Academia is just a game.
Its time for me to get some sleep.

hubbub

i just spent 45 minutes on the phone with a cdc representative trying to get data i need for research- it was rather frustrating because the person they put me on the phone with was not familiar at all with the data i'm using, and therefore had no idea what i was even talking about. i think he finally understood my question, and hopefully my looooooooong phone call will come through and i'll get my data!

my days are still crazy- in the next 3 weeks i have 3 original research papers due (one of which i will continue to work on through the summer most likely), 2 presentations, 2 data collection projects, 2 wedding showers, 2 wedding photography sessions, and quite a few tutoring sessions sprinkled in there somewhere. granted, the wedding stuff is actually really fun for me, so i won't complain. the main issue is finding the time to fit everything in! tutoring is nothing to complain about either since i do it by choice, and it's an easy way to make some extra money. i like the one-on-one aspect, and usually i can actually help someone understand some economics. and i'm a big nerd, so that's very fun for me :)

now i'm off to an exciting hour and a half of growth theory.....wish me luck!

Biggie Sized Playhouse

3BR/2Ba single family home. Quiet neighborhood. Located in cul-de-sac. Huge fenced yard. Huge master closet. Completely remodelled. Open floor plan. $xxx,xxx. Please contact _______ for more information.

And so the four month long house hunt finally ended... with the perfect house! On February 29th, my boyfriend and I moved into "our first house." We will have 2 roommates for the next couple of years until we get married, but this is it. Our house.

I feel like I'm playing grown-up in a biggie sized playhouse. We wake up together every morning, shower, and drink coffee. I cook dinner at night and do laundry weekly. I shopped for couches, and end tables, and curtains. I bought hammocks for the backyard. I spent my hard earned loan money on a vacuum cleaner. You know you are growing up when you start buying vacuum cleaners.

We have routines and responsibilities, and when I think about it, I start to feel like a real grown-up-- the kind of grown-up I couldn't wait to be when Barbie was fixing dinner for Ken. I'm not quite the adult I dreamed of when the Cabbage Patch kids needed bottles and diaper changes, but that future is not so far away either. Being unmarried and being in school keep me from feeling too much like an adult, but I'm certainly in that transitional phase. I'm finally becoming who I want to be-- as a wife, a mother, a friend, a daughter, a sister, and a physician.

Every day, I come home to this playhouse, and every day I feel more excited about growing up. I love the life that we have together and the prospect of our future. I love playing housewife in this perfect house. OUR perfect house.

However, I also love having fun roommates that are a blast to be around. I love being young and having everything in the world to look forward to. I love being at a point in my life that I'm finally close enough to actually see my career ahead. I love being a mom to my puppies. I love being in a relationship that I don't make excuses for. I love finally feeling some sense of maturity while still having so much youth.

I love this transitional point in my life. I love growing up.

And I LOVE LOVE LOVE my biggie sized playhouse.

Pink Bubbly Goodness

Currently I am enjoying the pink bubbly goodness that is diet cherry 7up. I think I have a cold or something. I have a runny nose and I feel so exhausted, too exhausted to think, which is odd.

I worked nonstop for 10 days. I thought nonstop about science. And now, my body says no. The good news is that I am excited about my thesis project for the first time ever. This also might be the first time I actually know what my thesis project is supposed to be about, which is also a good thing, but I am concerned because I don't know everything about my thesis project yet, and I am afraid that my committee will expect me to know everything on April 2nd.

What is April 2nd? It's my PhD candidacy exam. From 9 am until 11 am I will be in a conference room with the 5 professors on my committee: 2 Analytical Chemists, 2 Biochemists (one biophysical, one organic), and 1 Mechanical Engineer. I give a 15 min presentation and then they can ask me anything they want. My presentation is 50% about my thesis and research completed to date, and 50% about my original proposal: an idea that I come up with myself. (In my department, my thesis is whatever my boss tells me my thesis will be. The original proposal is my chance to show that I can think for myself.)

I have given 2 practices so far mostly on my original proposal and everyone (including my boss and group members) think it is a really good idea, so that is good. But I have 15 pages to write before Monday, and I have tons of mechanisms and biochem to learn. Did I mention that I really don't know anything about biochemistry?

Tomorrow is Good Friday. At the grocery store I look at the chocolate bunnies and think about getting one for us to share. They look so wonderful in the store, but I know that if I eat a chocolate bunny it will just make my face break out and I will feel mostly unsatisfied. There is something about non-nutritious food that I am just not into right now.

Fucking amino acids. I have no idea what their pKas are!

I have been thinking alot about materialism lately. Jips and I went to Ikea on a previous weekend and it was what I imagine going to hell would be like. That is materialism in the worst sense. I don't think all material things are bad though.

I will leave you with my LIST OF GOOD THINGS:

Chips and Salsa
Dogs
Music
Purple Velcro Shoes
Giraffe Purses
Pillows
Beds
Highlighters
Books
Tulips

today has been ok

Well, I have to make a confession, part of why I want to post is because I'm a little disturbed by the dead baby bird next to what I can only assume is doggy poop. Sorry Fermi, I don't share that particular obsession.

News on the deodorant front: I found one that I really liked. And to top it all of, it was something of an accident. Or maybe it was providence. Manifest Destiny. The pilgrims set me on a path to discover this pit balm . . . or maybe not.

Round about Mardi Gras time I was chillin' in Lafayette and went to Target to investigate buying new deodorant. I bought two kinds, a Dove and this "natural deodorant." I immediately cast aside the natural stuff in favor of the Dove since I figured it would work better. I used that for a while and it was no good. It didn't smell good, it didn't stop sweat, and my pits felt gross. There always seemed to be a never-ending residue under my arms that even made my pajamas smell weird (not like b.o., just unpleasant). So I went to the store and got a Mitchum, the scent was called rosepetal. Yeah, there's intentionally no space there. More than one person has pronounced it as "row-sep-it-uhl." And while a grammatically incorrect deodorant scent is amusing, it evidently doesn't do much for me.

So in a last ditch effort, I reclaimed the natural deodorant that had been so carelessly strewn aside. Wonder of all wonders: it works SO WELL. It has no anti-perspirant (no aluminum either) and it smells pretty good and I actually sweat less. It supposedly works with lichen, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of blight on trees, but it's no blight on the peacebone.



Here's a photo

This is the lavender scented one, I have aloe but I want to try lavender since it's like the national scent of France.

Anyway, I have to say I am quite pleased.


Ps: does everyone think I'm now a low-level advertising employee?