Random Catching up

Okay, I'm finally going to do the meme thing, although I don't think I know anyone else with a blog, except for family members. D'oh!

First, the promised post from a couple of days ago. I did actually make a kale soup, and although the broth came out okay (very garlicky & spicy), the potatoes & kale were both pretty bland. I'm getting worse at this. This is a recipe I came up with a long time ago, and it's always been good, but my potatoes were a little old, & the kale selection at giant eagle was less than fantastic. Yeah, that's it, I'll blame the grocery store :)

So, meme wise, my sister (fieryboots.blogspot.com) tagged me for this, a long time ago. The only thing that makes me feel better about not having done this yet, is that the people she tagged haven't done it either! woohoo! pointless sense of competition gratified!

So here goes. If I remember right, I'm supposed to post the rules, which I will have to go back to later.

But here's the six things about me, that very few if any people know:

1) Although I'm in graduate school for a PhD in Neuroscience, I don't think I will ever do science again after I'm finished here. I'm actually fairly disgusted by it now - mostly because I realize that most of it is crap. Only after 20 other people have found & published the same results can you assume that something might actually be true, & even then, 2/3 of the time it will be refuted. (American scientists especially are prone to jump on the bandwagon of an idea, whether it has any merit or not, mostly due to the way they obtain funding, which rewards people for doing the same thing, and punishes creativity). And if I hear one more person describe a technique or topic in neuroscience as "sexy", I will seriously have a hard time not punching them in the face. It's like the corporate speak buzzwords - "face to face download" "outside the box", etc, etc that I hear people with real jobs complain about. In all seriousness, I think I want to become an accountant; if I can just get over the embarassment of having a useless Ivy league education, and having the actual valuable training come from a community college.

2) Related to my career aspirations: I'm pretty sure that I'm fairly far along on the obsessive compulsive scale. I find rolling change to be very calming. Something about making identical piles of change, counting rhythmically, & bestowing order on my change pile (plus the money that I get to deposit) is really soothing to me. I also constantly make lists of numbers. Usually this is my monthly budget, but it's more about making the list, since I know that my budget works. I also enjoy making financial projections for my retirement account/savings account/whatever. And reading the tax law. Oh, and when I was a kid, I would arrange the dollar bills in my wallet in order of serial number.

3) I'm a sucker for any mystery show. British ones on PBS are really good (although I'm not so crazy about Inspector Linley, I like Foyle's war better), but give me a Law & Order marathon any day.

4) I cannot watch the President on TV, or hear his voice, without getting a spike in blood pressure & feeling nauseous & angry within 30 seconds. The man disgusts me, with his smarmy show of just how stupid and incompetent he is. But what can you expect from the son of a woman who commented on the Hurricane Katrina evacuees, "Well, a lot of these people were economically disadvantaged to begin with, so this is probably an improvement for them."

Okay, so #4 is probably not all that unique to me (I hope). But I do know some people that can watch him.

5) I buy myself flowers every couple of weeks. And in the summer, I cut my own from the back yard & always have at least one bouquet in my living area. I love my house, but it is definitely a masculine (i.e. messy & not aesthetically pleasing, due to the explosion of many "projects" over all the living space) type of environment. I'm not very girly, but it makes me happy to see flowers on my desk or the kitchen table. And I can't wait around for anybody else to buy them for me. Besides, the lady that runs the flower shop is a hoot, she has signs posted around that clearly express that she will not give up smoking in her own store, & she has a gigantic mastiff that sits in the corner & looks at you, but never raises his head or anything. I now buy flowers for many people for their birthdays, and get my Christmas wreath from her too.

6) I am extremely proud of the fact that I haven't owned a car in a very long time. I like public transportation, and walking, and am happy that I don't have to deal with car payments or insurance or maintenance. I can rent a car if I need one, and D & I both use the subaru (although I mainly use it for hauling groceries). I guess this makes me kind of old-fashioned; especially in combination with the fact that I love the giant radiators in my house, & like growing most of our produce in the summer. And will probably try my hand at canning again this year (D's mom has agreed to help me with the pressure-canning, as she has done this alot, and I'm scared of the pressure cooker/canner).

Okay, that's my six. I'll come back & edit so I can post the rules, and tag others, if I can find anyone. Hope you're all doing well.

my causey-ness emerges

I'm sorry! (ad libitum)

It's been forever since I posted, and I haven't been keeping up with the phone calls either. I've been working alot at night & on weekends, trying to get one part of my thesis done in time for my annual progress overview meeting. Which I'm having a lot of trouble scheduling, since getting 5 scientists into a room together, in person, is next to impossible. Luckily, this gives me more time :)

I'll post more, & do the meme thing, later tonight, or tomorrow morning (which I'm taking off to make soup!)

Post-Dialysis Thursday

I'm so thankful my sister's little boy is okay. I only heard about it yesterday, and was stuck at work with a dead cell phone battery all day yesterday (literally, I didn't leave until after midnight). But I got to talk to my sister this evening as I was walking home, and was really relieved that the little guy was feeling better. All of my nephews are such sweet boys, but I think this one is the most cuddly.

In experiment news, I actually got a huge amount of data yesterday, but fell behind on loading samples into the HPLC. So, with 76 samples to process, it took awhile. Luckily, I could sleep in this morning, as the electrical inspector was coming at 11:30. I went in around 2, took care of some equipment and met quickly with my advisor before going to my new class, Molecular Pathobiology. I've been learning about the immune system, and how antibodies get produced, and how all that applies to tissue transplant rejections. I'm enjoying learning stuff outside of neuroscience, because I never actually took much biology. In college 1/2 of my science classes were in neuroscience/neurobiology, and 1/2 were in cognitive/linguistic science. Both very brain-centric. So this is a cool experience, and the grading isn't going to be hard at all (just one journal paper presentation & class participation). Plus, it'll be done at the end of March, so I should still be able to take a week off to remove the plaster from the 2nd floor of the house, and fill a dumpster with all the debris. And then I'll be able to start taking statistics classes over the web.

I have to get back to working on my fellowship application, and my kitty (the black and white one) just came upstairs to be petted, so I'll sign off. But I'll try to post again with experiment results & weekend happenings.

I've grown up!

Well, not really, I still do lots of stupid things, and leave work early & watch too much tv. But, I did finally open an IRA (Roth, so I don't have to worry about weird tax laws that make my income taxable, but not eligible for any retirement savings allowances). I signed up with Sharebuilder.com, where you can buy portions of stocks, and made my investments automatic, so it will actually be a pain to cancel them & hopefully I'll just suck it up & keep making deposits. I've actually been meaning to do this since I was 23, but being a graduate student doesn't really jibe with saving money.

In house news, our place is very cold. Unless you go outside & come back in, at which point it's almost steamy. We actually got the know & tube wiring cut out of the bathroom, with the only bad consequence being that my working kitchen no longer has any power. Except for the fridge, which is on a different circuit (thankfully & surprisingly!). So we've trekked the microwave downstairs, and capped off the wiring in the bathroom, since the electrical inspector should be coming by soon to look at the panel & subpanel work that got done last month. In case anyone has forgotten, D hired some yahoo last year to redo our panel & subpanels, installing breaker boxes & upgrading our service to 200 amps. Unfortunately, the guy wasn't actually registered with the city of Pgh, and apparently didn't know the codes, or didn't care, since he never filed a permit & obviously was never going to get it inspected. So, one year later, I finally got around to calling a real electrician to fix all of his mistakes. The most ironic part was that the real electrician charged less than half what the scheister did. I don't think I'm going to let D hire people anymore - one more example of how the stereotype of women not dealing well with tradespeople/fixing stuff doesn't really apply to us.

So the project line up for this year is: 1) upstairs bathroom. I know, I know, I've said that this was going to get done for almost two years now, but house renovations apparently always take 6 times as long as you think they're going to. But, D & I have a valentine's day date planned at the tile store (in the overstock section, of course), and hopefully we'll be going to buy an obscene amount of green-board soon. The sub-floor has already been cut & fit in (though not permanently affixed), and I suppose we'll go root out a baseboard heater thingy soon. 2) Downstairs kitchen. We actually have to get a dumpster permit & rental first for this, since a huge amount of plaster & flooring needs to be removed before we can start re-assembling it. But at least it will be a lot easier to run wiring once the walls have been removed. And drywall will be a lot lighter than the current plaster/lathe that is covering everything. Plus, we'll be able to inspect the piering underneath this part of the house once the floor is up. I'm praying that there won't be some problem with that that will cost 30 bazillion dollars to fix. 3) (or maybe it's 2) - garden planning and starting seeds. I've actually already started planning the front flower garden, & we picked up a couple of hanging light housings for very cheap at the home despot. Of course, the growing lights were incredibly expensive, but we're looking forward to getting our tomato, pepper, lettuce, herbs, etc all started a little bit earlier this year. Of course, the garden tends to distract us from other household projects, but it's so relaxing to work outside that I think it's worth it. Plus I'm going to have to make more cherry/pear tomato preserves next year. Make that a lot more, that stuff is awesome with Brie :)

Love you all, hope you had a good holiday season & are keeping warm! It's horrifically cold here today, but should be 60 on Monday. I know I should be upset about the global warming induced strange winter temperatures, but I'm just glad for the heating cost reprieve.

Chapter Unknown - wherein seasonal affective disorder kicks my a**

Just when I thought things were looking up, the uniform greyness of Pittsburgh days descends upon us once again, and I get steamrollered by my old friend-nemesis, SAD. First, on Monday, I wake up at 3:44 a.m., and am obviously not going to be able to get back to sleep. Now, as the busses in Pgh only start running around 5:20 a.m., I can't go to work, and I don't want to wake D up, so I busy myself with e-mail and such & watch some TV until a more respectable hour. Then, on Tuesday, I'm running late, and don't do anything for the christmas party at work. Which leads me to believe I shouldn't go. Plus, I feel like avoiding people, which isn't particularly difficult since one of my co-workers reliably locks me in the lab when she leaves the room. Interestingly, she fails to lock the door when she leaves the lab empty - but I suppose I have complained enough about her in previous blogs. And in person a whole lot.

So, instead of gorging myself on cookies and beer, I went running instead. Well, it's actually more like jogging very mildly, with a whole lot of walking interspersed. But I did it outside, which hasn't happened in a very long time (scale of years). And this makes it a whole lot harder than running on a treadmill. My legs hurt in completely different places. So that was good, although I met some other grad students for cheap beer after work, and undid any good that was achieved with the running. Plus I ended up being in a crap mood, and went home to yell at D about the same stuff I always yell at him for.

So Wednesday I woke up feeling awful. Not hungover, but still uneasy because of the fight I picked. Not that I don't have valid points, but D never fights back overtly, so it always seems like I'm the one being unreasonable. Which is in itself a fighting tactic, just a hugely passive-aggressive one. I also couldn't seem to drag myself out of bed, or once that was accomplished, off the couch. So I missed my UV appt (8:45), and watched bad recorded tv for a few hours, all while trying to decide if I would take the day off of work or not. I finally get myself to the busstop, and take the bus to Oakland, where I eat lunch, and decide that I'd prefer to not have to be around any of the people I work with, and go home. Most productive day ever - I love that I get to a point of indecision that literally results in me turning around on the street several times, trying to get up the will to do something. anything.

I'm hoping this is just a random thing, happening this week & then receding, but I have a feeling it's just the beginning. Oh, and I got nominated for the same fellowship that I apply for every year, but fail to receive it every year. I wish they would just nominate someone else, so I can stop wasting my time on this retarded thing.

cheese straws!!!

Well, I'm finally getting around to finish up the holiday boxes for everyone. I still have one batch of toffee to make (covered in white chocolate, one of my friends is allergic to the real stuff), and several batches of cheese straws. I think I'll also roast a chicken today, which D is looking forward to. I've been waking up early these days, but realize that there isn't really anything for me to do, so I just go back to bed. Of course I could always clean, but I get tired of doing all the things that I "have" to do. Plus D looks so cute wrapped up in blankets with one cat (only one of them will come into our bedroom, but she loves him like crazy).

I went for my first mammogram yesterday, which was kind of scary. Everything turned out well, but having to go early, and not knowing what to expect exactly was nerve-wracking. Fifteen minutes before I left, I was seriously thinking of skipping it. When I got there, they make you put on a robe & go into the back of the breast center. It's almost like a spa back there, with a bunch of women in robes, waiting to go into various rooms. I chatted with an older woman, who said that she still gets nervous every time she goes, and "would have given anything to not have to go" when she got up that morning. But I was out in an hour, and everything was normal. They want me to come back for another one in 6 months, just to document what my tissue looks like, but the doctor told me if I was a little older, he would have just had me come back at 40. He just didn't want me to wait 10 years. On the up side, it was not as painful as I had expected from hearing about other women's experiences. It's just really weird to be squished that much, and to try not to move while they expose the film. I kept thinking, "what if I fall over?", since you are firmly attached to this big machine.

Today's music is Bill Wither's, and there is an extremely fuzzy kitty sitting next to me. :)

I'm Dream.....mas

One of the things that the MythTV recorder actually recorded was White Christmas. I decided to actually watch it while finishing up the present wrapping last night, since I don't generally have christmas music, and we have no tree (something that will be remedied next year). However, I'll have to agree with Mom's assessment of this year's TV airing of the movie - they cut out like 1/2 the scenes!!! Most of the dancing is gone, and you can barely follow the story - even when you already know it! Shame on whatever station is behind the "My Pittsburgh TV" logo.

On the upside, the cats thoroughly enjoyed climbing into empty boxes, sitting in empty boxes, then running away once I had put batteries in the camera and aimed it at them. Also, I gave them wrapping paper balls that they had lots of fun with. This was after D suggested that we wrap some of their existing toys to give to them for christmas - since cats aren't all that smart, they won't know the difference. I then had to demonstrate that there is no substitute for wrapping paper balls (except maybe tin foil balls).

Otherwise, not much is happening. We might get snow on Sunday, as opposed to the rain & freezing rain that has been on the menu this week. School is wrapping up for the semester, and I'm having a hard time getting anything done again. I just don't really care that much. In fact, I think I'm going to leave early today, in order to cook some more & perhaps clean up a bit at home. I hope I'll be able to talk to my family this weekend too :)