Busy. Synthesizing, doing homework, working on applications for fellowships, etc, etc. One more week of being dead, then I'll rejoin the world and be funny again.
J's parents took the new front picture (sorry I cut you out of it, Joe: I didn't want your beauty to distract folks) :)
Death is improving to stressed-outedness (but non-death) conditions today. I gave a talk in our group meeting. It went all right, it was totally obvious that I didn't know some of the things being asked, but they're all things that I know I WILL be learning by the end of the semester. The problem right now is that here I am, chemistry-girl, going to materials-science girl, with a chemical engineering advisor, doing the biology project. This already WAS complicated to begin with, until my advisor came up to me and said "Hi! Time to do physics!"
So I'm catching as much simultaneous physics and biology as I can. Because I'm currently going for breadth not depth, I haven't had much of a chance to learn the exact chemical bonding of a cell to the particular protein I'm intrested in, and I haven't figured out exactly which electron is getting promoted into which molecular orbital when absorbing which exact wavelength of light.
It's all interesting, there's just so MUCH of it. Oof.
Stressy death for next week: finishing my synthesis, and working on my NSF application. Send good aura vibrations my way.
Still dead (but only mostly dead), but wanted to share something. Was reading about the catching of the probable snipers, and noticed something. I don't know how long before they catch their mistake, but scroll down to the map that shows the whole US, that highlights the spots where they have information on the guy and his son.
I never knew that Montgomery, Alabama, was in Mississippi.
Hrm.
These news people just get smarter and smarter.
(update: They've fixed it now.)
I'm going to be somewhat dead for the next few days. Send me love.
I think the exam went all right. I had some semi-educated guesses, but there were fewer guesses than the last exam, when I got a B. Hopefully that means an improvement is in store.
I've been reading a book to prepare me for my upcoming trip to the Synchrotron, where I get to do a lot of spectroscopy. This means a lot of Physical Chemistry, apparently. The whole first couple of chapters in this NEXAFS book is all eigenfunctions, Hartree-Fock, and oscillators.
And if that last sentence sounded confusing, then honey, it is.
If it didn't, can you help me?
I fear that I will become The Spectroscopist In The Group. This makes me very nervous, because I'm more confident and competent at synthesis. I'd much rather stay in the lab playing with stinky things than trying to do math I never learned, and I didn't learn much math, so almost ALL of the math I'll have to do for this thing is math I never learned. Rrf! I miss the postdoc that was here this past year, who would kindly explain things to me, and then do all the math herself.
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I have some complaints about white male middle class people thinking that they're entitled to have all sorts of rage--no one in particular, just that my mental blender has lumped Catcher in the Rye with Fight Club, with interesting results. I'm going to hold off on that for now, though. Just wait until I get the Sociomalology page going--soon, soon. Early November, once I finish my NSF application, I think. I'll have a lot of time to write, since I'll be stuck at the Synchrotron for 14 hours a day. Ack! Then you'll get to listen to me academize my head off.
Just shoot me if I ever seriously say: "A quilt is a speculum through which a woman looks into herself." Last week I was reading a quilt book I got out of the University Library. Apparently, the U. doesn't stock any books about quilt patterns, patchwork blocks, or helpful instructions. Instead, the only book I managed to find was of academic feminists comparing the role of quilting in a novel or play to quilting in some modern context (the AIDS quilt, for example). One of them actually did write the above phrase. I almost fell off the bed laughing, imagining the inevitable follow-up question: What does the quilt I'm working on say about my girl-parts? Hexagonal? Flowery? Poorly constructed? A decent first attempt?
Uneven?
Academics take themselves too seriously.
Exam this evening: studyin'.
I wasted WAY too much time making pretty new title pictures yesterday. The one above was taken within a 30-second walk from the apartment. The scanner put a wierd line down one side, but you get the idea.
See? I TOLD you it was nice here.
Well, was nice.
We had snow today. Well, just some wet flurries that turned into mistiness, but being greeted at 7:30 in the morning by a cheerful husband sing-songing "Guess what? It's SNOWING!" was not a way to get me up and att'em.
Two Seinfeld-ish (or Andy Rooney-ish, since I'm grumpy) reactions to the world around me:
A: When the weathermen here describe a light, easily ignorable snow that will come soon, they predict "snow showers". Why snow showers? Why not flurries? I spent most of last winter thinking it was going to be slushy outside: snow showers sounds like a light wintery mix will be falling. This would make me happy, because it meant that the high temperature would be near or above freezing (something to celebrate in the winter in Wisconsin). But they meant flurries, which fell because, in fact, it was too cold outside for a more thorough snow. This is more than just a regional variation. It's just wrong to get people's hopes up.
B: They finally turned our heat on yesterday. I guess there's a law that says the landlord doesn't have to turn on the heat until after October 15th. This makes no sense to me. It's WINTER ALREADY, it's been in the 20's at night for about 3/4 of the last two or three weeks. Just because it's an earlier seasonal change than usual, it doesn't mean I should have gotten my toes frozen for the last two weeks off and on, wearing 4 layers of pajamas. Rrf.
For those of you who are my friends and might be buying me things for the holidays, note that this DOESN'T mean to buy me more winter clothes! I have plenty, really, after living in cold places for the last 5 years, and getting sweaters from everyone, every year. They're all wonderful, and still in good shape. What I need is a wallet.
And a cheap digital camera. Please?
I suddenly realized that I have a WHOLE bunch of stuff to get done in the next week and a half.
In other words, I'm currently working on new pictures like the one you see above that I've scanned into the computer. Oy. Here's a picture to keep you amused for a little while. It's from one of the last days I worked in the dining hall. Lover-ly.
WAUAGGGHHHH!
Some research stupidity going on right now. It's like 95% my fault, which makes it all the more frustrating. Rrrf. Descriptions of Chicago and going off on gender stuff will have to wait. Like being at a terrible, terrible all you can eat buffet, staffed entirely by Baube-types, my plate, it be pilin' up with stuff, but little of it is good.
And what help are my uni-directional Internet-located fag hag relationships?
None whatsoever. They're off gallivanting without sharing. C'mon, I need to live vicariously through SOME variety of snarky gay man! Rrrf, again.
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A little later now. I just went to the coolest seminar. Just go here and look at what they're doing. Awesome. Awesome.
I had oatmeal for breakfast this morning, and was reading the side of the tube as it was cooking in the microwave. It describes the healthful joys inherent in a nice warm bowl. It goes so far as to put a little red heart next to the relevant nutritional information, to remind you that a high-fiber, low-fat diet reduces your risk of heart disease.
Now, all that is well and good, but honestly, I associate high fiber more with the more immediate (ahem) effects of colon health than with long-term risks of heart disease.
What kind of picture would they use for THAT?
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J and I are going to Chicago for the weekend, whoopie! I'll let you all know how it goes soon.
I never understood why people thought the Northeast is so amazing in the fall. It's pretty, sure, and I love walking around with everything looking like this, but isn't is like that everywhere? I mean, there are trees almost everywhere, right? And all trees change color, and most places have enough of a hill for you to climb up and look at the foliage, right?
Nope.
Two out of the three things above are true here. There ARE trees, and there are a few nice gentle hills that you can walk up in order to see the whole city, which, by itself, is a very pretty picture. The Capitol building, the water, the houses all make a nice postcard.
It's the foliage that sucks.
I swear, every tree in town turns yellow for 3 days then drops all its leaves at once. No reds, no oranges, no variety. Just green, yellow, or dead. The only exception is two trees outside the engineering building I work in, which are inexplicably purple on top. But that's about it in the colorful department. I wonder what it is about this place that makes the trees react in such a way.
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A new feature on the page will be coming your way sometime soon, something called "Sociomalologee", which is what I called my efforts in my sociology classes (especially when you're alone in a room full of Senior Soc majors, ack!). It'll basically contain my own personal scientist/engineer point of view on some particular sociology thing I notice that bugs. This happens a lot. I don't really feel comfortable putting it on the front page, because chances are it's going to be really long winded, and have nothing to do with my daily life (which is what I'm keeping y'all updated on). Also, the goals of writing it are going to be different: more thought provoking than entertaining, and more for my benefit than yours, honestly. It's just that I don't get much of a chance to stretch my liberal-arts wings very much anymore, and need some kind of outlet.
But if you're interested in seeing the way my academic mind works, or if you think about gender and/or working class issues, then click away.
I mean, click away when I have it up. Give me a week or two.
TChemGrrl is a riot shield! It flashes at intervals!
Strangely appropriate. Try typing your own name into it.
Source: Tim Blair
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There's an ad for a local paving company on the back of a lot of buses right now, encouraging folks to reseal their driveway before the winter. I read the tagline as one went by this morning. It reads:
You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Loose Seal
UGH.
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Oh, I recently mentioned my umbrella, and how well I was doing at not losing it?
I left it on the bus on Friday.
I'm just full of little snippets today, huh?
There are older, behatted, brown-coated men on every street corner of campus today, handing out palm-sized Bibles with green plastic covers.
It seems that they come out two or three times a year. I've seen them before. They're all very polite about the whole thing, which I can respect, no matter what it is they think of me when I walk past them with my hands in my pockets and say "No, thank you." And because I believe that they're doing this work from a place of love and not hatred, it makes me sad to see piles of little green plastic covers in all the trash cans around campus.
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DJ Logic is this musician that J is really into. He noticed last Thursday that he was playing here as part of another group on Sunday at this place that's right across the street from the Engineering quad, so I ran right over and got tickets.
We had a good time. The music itself was all right, the sound mix was kind of off: the main singer and DJ Logic were getting drowned out a lot, and it was the first gig of their tour, they kept reminding us, so things weren't particularly polished. But J got to be 10 feet from someone that makes him jump all over the place, and to touch the tour bus. I think that was sufficient for him.
I enjoyed the opening act even more, though, for their creativity, at the very least: an 8 piece all brass and drums jazz band with a rapper. They're just local guys, but they were good, and were having a lot of fun. I'm going to track them down and see where their next gig is.
It's been a grumpily rainy day so far, and I'd left my umbrella at the office yesterday.
Actually, I've done pretty well with this umbrella so far. I have a tendency to lose them after the second rainy day. I've had this one since March or so, and it's still in my possession.
I still got pretty dang wet walking to the office, though. I tried that dog-shake thing, but no dice. I ended up drying my hair on a shirt I keep in the lab for when it gets chilly (which is most of the time). Worked well enough.
Jeremy found some Star Island stuff yesterday. Star is a tiny place off the coast of New Hampshire/Maine (the state line runs across the pier) that has religous retreats, although they're all Unitarian, so the word "religous" is pretty flexible. It's especially flexible for the folks that work on island--a rougher bunch of dirty, inter-hooking up with, working-drunk kids you'll never meet. I spent the summer there waiting tables and picking half-dead waitrae and kitchies off the floor.
No wonder J and I got together there, we were clinging to each other for dear life!
Anyway, he found through the grapevine that Fred, aka "Coolest Really Old Guy Ever", died last month. Only knowing him for a summer doesn't change the sadness of losing someone who, after 80 summers of being there, probably knew every ghost story, every secret passageway, and every returning face.
Every Saturday afternoon, as a new conference came up the steps, he greeted each and every person entering the doors.
When a conferee would order a small bowl of the hot cereal of the day for breakfast, we'd go in and tell the kitchies, "I need a Fred".
It's hard to imagine the place without him.
This is just great, terrible scary cards celebrating various holidays. It's clear they got the idea from Lileks, but, hey, still funny.
(link from Anil, via Ernie).
Oops: side note: sorry if you couldn't see my page today (or, um, yesterday). I was messing around with some really large picture files and accidentally killed my own bandwidth for a couple of hours.
I got a haircut today. I'm growing my hair out a bit, but I hadn't touched it since the wedding, and was starting to look too much like David Cassidy to do anyone any good. Ahhh! The feathers!
A little bit of snipping, and I go from a male 70's vaguely creepy pop sensation to more recent vaguely creepy French girl. Almost TOO cute.
I was mistaken for an undergrad.
I'd rather get called sir.
Although, if I get called sir looking like this (again), I may as well just chop off my boobs and grow a man-thing, and make it official.
Oh, and speaking of getting called sir (well, at least within the confines of the American gender role system, blah blah, I'm not a sociologist), you will note that I'm wearing my Provincetown t-shirt today. I'm dissappointed with the lack of odd looks I get while wearing it in the midwest. In New England, wearing a P-town souvenir shirt is a way of shouting, at the very straightest, "I AM COMFORTABLE AROUND HOMOSEXUALS!"
No one gets it here.
I have fewer ways of messing with Midwestern people's heads. I guess that means they have fewer ways of messing with mine.
(Also, I'd like to mention that I didn't get my hair cut, find a digital camera, take a picture of myself, download it, upload it to here, and set it up just for you to see my lustrous hair. I'm not really that shallow. My advisor wanted a few of us to take pictures of ourselves for some proposal he's writing up, so we did. I just thought it was a serendipitous addition.)