I'm on it

Christmas vacation?
Try bunches of grad school apps, brand new full-time gainful employment, and only four available vehicles for a family of five employed drivers.
At least I'm done with fall semester finals.

But I really can't complain. I made it home safely with only a bit of a delay and have been relaxing at home with family and friends... and boyfriend... for the past couple of days. Good food! Time to watch movies and even - gasp - regular TV! The job will cut back on my free time, but it really wouldn't do to be home for a whole month just to slack and spend. I'm filling a position in activities at a nursing home, which means 40 hours a week of making posters and hanging out with old folks. Okay, there's transporting people to events and probably some office-type work involved, but overall it sounds like fun. Maybe even something I can look forward to returning to for spring break and summer. That would be very nice.

(Speaking of boyfriend... if you still read this, happy birthday yesterday! It's impossible to say too many times. 22! Wow!)

Less than 24 hours

...until I'm home again. And SO MUCH TO DO in that short amount of time.

But now I need sleep, or I will fail my final tomorrow. Psychopharm is NUTS.

Rather than doing something productive

I like dinosaurs

Quote of the Week

From an article assigned to my Comparative Psych class, Laughing, Tickling, and the Evolution of Speech and Self (2004) by Robert Provine:

"Solo tickle is even emptier than solo sex -- you can masturbate to climax but you cannot tickle yourself."

aaaaaaaaand...

• passing my comps

(see previous)

Things that make me happy this week

• Puppies
• Babies
• Feet
• Music
• Nuns

(I wish I could add "passing my comps" to this list. Hopefully soon!)

so I didn't do any work yesterday...

and not much today, although I have a bit of an excuse with a rehersal for the chamber singers concert, the concert itself, and the ballroom dance club's Snow Ball. Gosh, my feet hurt. I only stood for forty minutes and then danced for a couple of hours... I guess my stamina is wearing down.

The rundown of last night...

• Friends of Hospice christmas party, where I lead a rousing series of Christmas carols
• Marc (boyfriend of Jen, my roomie) arrives and we go out to dinner
• Settle in to watch a movie (Thomas Crown Affair)
• Instead head down the hall with Jess for "Catholic Guilt" theme party... saw a man in a chausible wearing thigh-highs and a garter belt. Had my first peppermint patty (peppermint schnapps with chocolate sauce... mmm...)
• Head to the Grill and had Birthday Cake, a secret concoction of bartender Jamie that actually tastes like cake. Very strange.
• Flirt uproariously with anyone and everyone (and everything) and end up staying through last call.
• Stand out in the cold for 40 minutes listening to Black Adam pontificate drunkenly on what it is to be Black in America. Would have been very intellectually stimulating if he had been sober, but I still find him interesting.
• Hit the hay at 3:30 am.

Now that's a good night. I need to make sure I only do this about once a month, though. (I'm on a great track since it's almost 2 now after the ballroom party... eh, oh well)

Goodnight!

I DON'T WANT TO DO ANY WORK TONIGHT!

That is pretty much all.

Except that work is bad for me. Case in point:

Silly putty in my belly button!

This is from the last night of working on my comps. Obviously, work does bad, bad things to my mind. Thus, I am escaping. Wish me luck!

whew

I've got two concerts at the end of the week, and grad school apps due VERY soon, and a lab write-up, and data scoring, and apparently I'm helping with the German department faculty search, and maybe I'll hear about my comps, and next week is voice juries and another musical performance and finals are coming up...

Ah, I've missed being busy!

oh so very... back at school

I suppose a flight delayed by an hour and a half is still better than no flight at all, especially since I managed to find a ride to school from the airport even though we arrived after midnight.

Meh. Back to the grind. I wonder when I'll find out if I passed my comps?

Oh so very happy

Reasons:

• Great tour memories
• Safe and swift travel
• Family dinners
• Watching tv/talking/cuddling with Mike
• Shopping with my mom and Grandma and Aunt Kristin and the babies (I shouldn't call Justin a baby anymore though... every time I see him he's so much bigger!)
• Turkey and pumpkin pie
• Shopping again with Mom and Kara and Grandma and Aunt Mary and Michelle
• More cuddling
• Movies
• Everything!

home safe

...and waiting...

On the road

I'm in New Wilmington, PA... yesterday was Indiana, PA and Friday was Pittsburgh. So much in such a short amount of time! We've done four performances already, with one left to go. Tomorrow it's back to Ohio (umm, go Bucks?) and then finally St. Louis for the rest of the week. Yay!

I've gotten a bit more sleep in the last couple of days, and the residual comps stress is beginning to wear off. Yay for break.

Gotta go hang out with the 'stones. Later.

From Tim

mmm...peanuts...

Which reminds me, maybe I should eat something today.

Drumroll please...

I'm FINISHED!

Not even 6am!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Current status:

Still chugging along. I'm about 90% done, with maybe an hour or two of writing left to go. I might actually get a couple of hours of sleep tonight!

Thank goodness I won't have the first shift on Cornerstones tour tomorrow... it's only a three hour drive to Pittsburgh, but that's three hours of potential somnolence that I can't afford to pass up.

Megan bought me color-changing silly putty and wrote a sweet card to encourage me tonight AND read my rough draft, and Jen let me have half of her pizza and listened to me vent, and Marc edited a draft for me and got out of bed to call me back and give me a peice of advice he had forgotten. I caught Gilbert outside my door at 3am, on a trek to put handmade posters on all of the Stones' doors. How lucky am I to know these folks?

Hmm... if I finish before 6, maybe I should throw my laundry into a washer. A bit of packing wouldn't hurt, either. That would make today the most productive 24-hour period in my entire life!

(T minus five days and counting...)

Current status:

Approximately at the halfway point!

I still probably won't get enough sleep tomorrow night, but it looks like I'll be able to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. That is a fabulous realization.

AND...

In less than one week I will be very very very very VERY happy.

Current status:

None too bad, so long as I can pass my German test today and Psychopharm test tomorrow.

I wasn't that tied to the idea of sleeping Thursday night, anyway.

Current status:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

(much wailing and gnashing of teeth.)

Zig zag

I'm waffling between two states these days.

Position One, Self-administered pep talk:
I can do it! There is so much fascinating literature out there on Alzheimer's pathology, and so many questions left to answer, so writing one little project proposal is a piece of cake. Just pick something that needs to be elucidated (like the cholinergic hypothesis and amyloid-beta production, or the self-organizational model) and think about one tiny sub-question that a simple experiment will answer. This is totally within my means and experience and might even be fun, if I let it.

Position Two, "I'm going to die":
No way. NO WAY. I only have a week. I know nothing about methods in molecular biology. How the heck am I supposed to make sense of this conflicting gobbeldygook and know what treatments to use? Buffers? Goat anti-mouse IgG? Horseradish peroxidase? SDS-PAGE? Protein kinase C? Amyloid precursor protein? MAP kinase? MAP kinase kinase? I've heard these terms before, and at some point in my life they may have made some kind of sense, but right now I'm totally overwhelmed and can barely make heads or tails of any of it. Oh, and if I can't write this one stupid paper, I will never be a scientist and maybe I'm not cut out for it anyway and why oh why did I go for the Neuro major? Blah. Blah blah blah.

Believe it or not, right now position one is holding its own... but I'm worried. We'll know by the end of the week. I'm not giving up... yet. Back to work.

Compstastic

According to all known physical laws, I am no longer able to procrastinate... and yet, I took the time to watch this today.

Huh?

Stress

Tonic release of glucocorticoids and other stress hormones have been shown to have detrimental effects on sleep, immune function, and various organs and body symptoms.

Good thing I saved all of my stress up for the last week and a half before thanksgiving break. I consider this an investment towards my future health and well-being. So long as writing my comps doesn't kill me on the way.

Accomplished today:

• Scored an hour of data... 6h 15min to go!
• Umm, went to class?
• Started preliminary reading. By "started," I mean "napped through."
• Organized my journal article sources into topical and methodological piles, with color-coded binder clips.
• Began intensive freaking-out process, phase one. Current status: denial.

Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh...

I have a chamber singers solo/small group part/whatever it is?

NOOOOOOOOO WAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

(way!)

Wild Nights

5:30 pm - Senior class dinner begins - boxed wine flows like the Nile

7:30 pm - Senior class post-dinner kegger - Natty Light libations... too bad nobody asked me whether I wanted a beer shower...

9:00 pm - The Company's "Big-Ass Musicals That Everybody Loves" Revue - awesome

10:00 pm - Adjourn to Bryan's room for wild dance party... with fudge!

11:10 pm - B-day shindig for several friends - The land of Grasshoppers (Grasshopper=1 part Creme de Menthe+1 part Creme de Cacao+1 part milk+1 part my most newest favoritest thing in the world) and wild booty-dancing antics

1:30 am - Definitely past my bedtime. Goodnight!

I love chicks that play trombone

I saw a concert last night that totally made my week... Sherrie Maricle and the DIVA Jazz Orchestra. (You know it's good when I buy a CD.) I should have been studying various irregular German verb forms, but this was completely worth it, especially since this year I didn't get my usual summertime fix.

Hmm... how much longer until Thanksgiving?

(too long...)

Irony

I attend the most civic-minded college in the nation, if time spent waiting in line at the poll is an indication.

I didn't get my absentee ballot, because my home board of elections didn't get my request before the Oct. 27th deadline, because I didn't mail it until the 25th.

Well, at least I wasn't in line for nine hours?

Happy Halloween 2004!

Pirate time! Arr

Loyalty? Patriotism? Gah.

A small, superstitious part of me believes that, had I watched even a bit of any of the games this week, the Cardinals may have had a shot at the series. It's a silly thought, but I feel guilty. This from the girl who brought her Chemistry homework to the ballpark in high school... I know, I know, how unamerican of me.

Speaking of unamerican, my absentee ballot had better arrive very soon, or everyone I know will yell at me. I'm not looking forward to that prospect.

One down...

I took the GRE today... acceptable verbal and quantitative scores (for mom's benefit: combined only 50 points lower than my SAT, which I'm fine with. Oh, go look it up! I'm not telling!) but I get to wait for a mailing for the essay scores. I'm SO TIRED. They snuck a second math section in on me, which they do occasionally to try out questions for future versions of the test. They don't tell you which section is "real" and counts towards your final score, though, so it's just bonus stress. Exactly what I need today.

In other news, allstus (e-mails sent to the whole student body) make me laugh. Limecat is NOT pleased.

All I need to do now is write my comps and figure out my life. Whew, is that ever a load off!

Red in the face

Sometimes I think I'm paranoid about other people looking at me, laughing at me, talking about me... I've convinced myself that everybody is a little bit paranoid about that kind of stuff, though. At least from time to time, right?

One should feel especially silly if this paranoia rears its ugly little head when one is supposed to be the center of attention, such as when one is on a stage in front of 500 people.

But when the whole front row is pointing and mugging and giggling and talking to each other when they are expected to be rather passively listening... well...

Sometimes, a little paranoia is warrented. Like when you don't realize a big black fly is for some unfathomable reason attracted to your breasts and keeps landing on your white shirt, hopping from one side to the other for an entire song, and everybody all the way to the back of the hall can see it, and your own mother and aunt are hysterically amused to the point of tears.

I just wish someone would have told me.

{pro crass tin nation}

Just because I have no free time doesn't mean I don't have too much time on my hands.

current status

Things that went wrong today:

• Finding more problems with the most recent draft of my summer science poster
• Realizing I screwed up some dates and almost killed my honors project, and making more work for myself on the way
• Being unable to access my graphs (that I worked on until 1am yesterday) for my comparative presentation... this is after sitting in the rain for 2.5 hours on monday watching deer relieve themselves in some farmer's yard, only to have the property owner chew me out because she didn't call me back.
• This

Things that went right today:

• Confirmation of my fulbright application's arrival at IIE
• Revised and submitted my FINAL FINAL summer science poster for the presentation on Friday
• Realized that I was mistaken about project dates in time to salvage things
• While venting about my deadlines to a prof I respect, I mentioned that I have only three weeks left to write my comps. Her response: "Oh, you're fine, then!"

Oh. I'm fine, then. It's amazing how one small piece of reassurance can improve my entire outlook. Today was a good day.

synopsis

So, I bombed the interview.

I got an e-mail that night informing me that the committee was unwilling to support my proposal, so I cried for a while, called my boyfriend, and then decided I wasn't going to accept that. I rewrote my proposal and e-mailed it to the committee heads the following morning, and after two excruciating days of waiting was informed that I was still in the game. Beginning last Thursday I wrote three new drafts of my proposal in as many days (plus a new CV) and have until tomorrow to get everything situated for submission.

I've also gotten about 30 new articles to read so I can write my comps (comprehensive exam... required to graduate) proposal by thanksgiving, and two presentations due in a week, one of which (due wednesday) requires four hours of observation of some animal. The people I've attempted to contact for two weeks about the deer on their farm have never called me back. Plus regular homework.

So I've been too busy to post. Tough Noogies.

GAH

Interviews are obnoxious. It's not that I dislike talking about myself (QED, this blog) or that I dislike talking to others... but somehow if the stakes are high I get this complex about bragging until I feel uncomfortable bringing up my own accomplishments... or else I just shut down and stumble, tongue-tied, over my own answers. I HATE feeling unprepared, too... and somehow, even though I've spent hours in the past month putting my application together, I went totally blank on two separate occasions. How frustrating!

At least this is just the internal interview. IF I get past this phase I've got a while to figure out how to resolve my issues and present myself more suitably... and I should have better feedback to guide me. Either that or they've already decided that I can't hack it and don't deserve to make it to the next step, in which case I can just stop worrying about it. What's done is done.

progress is good

The internal committee has decided to support my Fulbright application! Yay! Now comes the hard stuff... I've got a panel interview Monday morning and LOTS of revision to do before this thing finally goes out. Mit glück, ich kann nachstes Jahr bei Deutschland studieren!

Now, if only I can finish my Psychopharm paper, comps proposal, AND honors proposal by tomorrow... and find time to read and study for my Comparative test on Friday... and finish my German homework for this week... and get the rest of my data scored and analyzed and read about 25 articles so that I can interpret the results and make a poster by next Wednesday... and eat... and sleep...

Good thing I can't often tell the difference between being deliriously busy and being deliriously happy!

Vandalism is fun

My roommate, Jen, and I have an ongoing project. My advisor is a great guy, but we've decided he needs more excitement in his life. Luckily, he goes up to New York every other weekend to visit his girlfriend, giving us (and any others we happen to drag along) a great opportunity to wield some mayhem. On the first visit we stuck about 10 spinning lawn ornaments in the yard and left a nice poem on the door, signed "the gardening powerpoint divas," in reference to an intensely exciting powerpoint presentation we did for one of his classes. (When you lose half a letter grade because the sound effects and slide transitions are "unproffessional" you know you've made it.) The pictures are from the second visit, when we added flashing frog lights and tinfoil on every other railing spoke. Our "mascot" is my roommate's boyfriend, Marc, visiting from grad school. What a great sport! As Jen has pointed out, he would totally dress in drag for us if we asked him to. Now we need to figure out how we're going to outdo ourselves do next week...


our fabulous poetry... and our fabulous mascot 


A blurry pic of our mascot, showing off his sparkling sparkliness 

I put the "dead" in "deadline"

I turned in my Fulbright application this afternoon. Whew. I'm SO happy to have it out of my sight for a few days after spending so many hours working on it in the past week. I'll know fairly soon if the whole thing is a wash or if I have to start prepping for interviews.

Now to attack the huge homework pileup... Comps! GAH! Summer science writeup! ARGH! GRE's! GRR! Everything else! YRNX!

Ah, senior year.

Happy happy

Everyone loves magical trevor!

Sweet sweet vindication

The second annual Catholics vs Episcopals Kickball Tourney was yesterday. Newman club totally kicked some heretic butt! 21-18 in one extra inning. Our championship dynasty continues...

The cheers are still the best part. 2-4-6-8 time to Transubstantiate!

The day I come up with a good rhyme for infallible, I can die happy.

A better use of my time

I've registered to take the GRE next month.

Yikes.

A good use of my time

So this evening I saw a presentation on "Penis Obsession and the Modern Construction of Masculinity."

That's such a great opening line, I can't even follow it.

Unfortunately, the most useful portion of the presentation was the joke the speaker opened with. It's an old one, but I still like it. Yes, I'll share it with you.

So there's this guy with a 25-inch penis. Obviously, it's causing him a few problems. One day, he finally has enough and goes to the doctor to see what can be done by way of reductive surgery, etc. The doctor tells him, "There's nothing I can do for you without causing all sorts of permanent damage... however, I know of a holistic healer who may be able to help you." So Mr. 25-inches goes to the healer and asks for help. The healer tells him, "This is beyond the scope of my abilities, but I know someone who can help. Out in the woods, in the middle of a big lake, on top of a big rock, is a magic frog. Go to the frog, and ask the following question: 'Is my penis too large?' He'll tell you no, and you'll shrink five inches." Mr. 25 thinks this is totally wacko, but he realizes he has no other options, so out he goes into the woods to find the magic frog. He finally finds the lake with the big rock, complete with frog, who happens to be asleep. Mr. 25 waits a bit, but realizes the frog is out cold, so he loudly shouts, "Hey, frog! Is my penis too big?" The frog opens one eye and croaks "No." Immediately, Mr. 25 is down to Mr. 20. He thinks to himself, Hey, this is awesome! If I do it again I'll finally be able to buy normal pants and compete in sporting events! So he shouts again, "Frog! Is my penis too big?" The frog grumpily replies "No." Immediately, five more inches dissapear. The guy thinks this is awesome, and he realizes that once more will put him almost in a normal range, so he hollers, "Yo, Frog! Is my penis too big?" Frog pretends not to hear him. He calls again, and the frog rolls over and puts a flipper over his ear. He yells some more, and finally the frog sits up and shouts, "I already told you. No! NO! NO!"

Sweet procrastination

I know that at some point, probably in the very near future, I'll regret the fact that I spent essentially all day yesterday napping, messing with my computer, and occasionally being vaguely social. The day grad school apps (or my Fulbright) are due... after I figure out where I'm applying, of course. The day I take the GRE... which I haven't even signed up for yet. The day my comps or honors or summer science write-ups are finally pried from my cold, shriveled, sleep-deprived fingers.

But those days aren't today. Today, I feel well rested. Today, I have an immediate to-do list that is relatively short. Today, I'm not thinking long-term.

It may be my last opportunity to exist in this state, and I'm darn well going to ENJOY it.

I may even dress up like a pirate. Yarr!

I'm so tired

I'm freshly returned from a weekend of horseback riding, canoe paddling, semi-inadvertant hiking, and counseling children and teens about DEATH. I have heard stories from kids many years younger than I who have had harder lives than I can imagine. It was emotionally and physically exhausting, but I'm also infinitely glad I had the opportunity to participate. I'm too tired to write anything else right now.

at least I'm happy

Objective evidence that I'm a total wierdo:

Every time I've visited the bathroom today, I've been inordinately excited about the fact that I'm wearing new underwear.

They have ruffles. Blue ones.

Dork alert: this is your final warning

I love my major.

For one thing, it allows me to feel superior to all those psych students out there who have to study Freud and Jung and whose coolest research tool is an overrated opinion poll... sorry, I meant self-reported survey. Don't even get me started about Sociology. "Social science," my left nostril.

But where else can you ask your advisor to mix up a batch of amphetamine for you, because you're running out and it's going to be a busy weekend?

I LOVE my major.

I'm a finder!

Yay for psychopharmacology books!

I've got to admit it's getting better

My glasses broke yesterday... just snapped right in the middle of the bridge. Also right in the middle of church, about five minutes before I was supposed to do a reading and the rest of the song announcements. (But after I misread the numbers for the processional song and caused much congregational consternation.) I don't remember any recent negative-karma-inducing acts, unless I'm torturning innocents in my sleep. Maybe I'm making up for seven years of good luck... or taking care of the next seven?

I keep reminding myself that if these are the worst of my problems I'm really doing quite alright. Unfortunately, this tactic also encourages me to imagine dire worst case scenarios of falling several thousand feet without a parachute... or the act of abruptly (and messily) ceasing to fall, as one is wont to do. I can't really figure out how these ruminations are supposed to help me, but I find solace in the idea that they should.

Once school settles down to the usual groove and grind I'll be fine, and now that all of my music groups are starting up again I know the fabulously reassuring feeling of routine isn't far behind. OCD tendencies sure help me to get my work done, but they're also obnoxiously detrimental during periods of change and transition. I'm pretty sure I could happily sacrifice a small portion of my "work ethic" in order to avoid becoming a complete and total wreck whenever my life is slightly out of whack.

Enough for now.

I'm a loser

misplacing a psychopharmacology textbook after the first day of class: $65

realizing my mp3 player is not where I thought I packed it and not anywhere else: $250

both in the same day: priceless

Say a prayer to St. Anthony for me, okay? (For the non-Catholic out there, he's patron saint of missing stuff. It works. No, really.)

so much for my isley brothers tape

Three pairs of eight... not too bad. Hopefully more tomorrow. Yay rats!

Let's get it on...

Today is a big day. First of all, I decided the crutches were more trouble than they were worth and left them at home. Excitingly, it worked! I'll probably be in the brace for a few more days, but at least now I no longer run an increased risk of tripping other people... crutches are sort of viral like that.

I also spent my first morning back in the lab, which was great. Hopefully by tomorrow at least a couple of the pairs will have done what rats do and I'll have more pups on the way! If not, there's always the Barry White tape...

My German professor is a total hoot. Apparently she ordered the wrong edition of our workbook and main textbook, so all of us are a page off and have slightly different exercises than she does. Even when they're the same, she makes fun of all the examples (" Oh, blöd! Scheiße!") and skips around through the topics like an ADD gerbil. This is my impression after two class meetings. I like her.

I should get back to rearranging my room. I got all of the furniture to fit at last, but I've been working on getting my stuff out of piles and onto shelves, in drawers, on walls, etc. It's a tall order with all the stuff I've got! Necessary, though, to stave off having to do laundry for at least a few more days. I've also been very good about throwing stuff out... even though I really wanted to keep the monster stack of every single journal article I've referenced in a psych or neuro paper for the past three years. I still have the references since I kept the final papers, though, so I figured I'd save some trees and recycle all of it. Everyone who reads this should be very proud of me. I still can't quite come to terms with weeding out the clothes, though I threw away two pairs of horribly broken shoes. If it still fits me, I'm keeping it. It's mine. I guess I should work on that, too...

welcome back

So today is the first day of classes of my senior year of college. That's fun. I've got lots of meetings and errands scheduled for today to get myself off on the right foot for the school year. Also enjoyable, as I'm the type of person who appreciates a good get-your-life-in-order-type day. One slight problem,though. I twisted my ankle last night.

As I've never really done this before, I figured I'd be able to walk it off. That was fine last night since I didn't have very far to go. This morning... well, let's just say that when you almost pass out in the bathroom in the morning (not again!) from the pain, you start to reconsider third-floor classes and all the steps entailed. So now I'm waiting for 8:30am to roll around, so I can get Security to haul me over to the Health Center for a) crutches and/or some kind of wrap and b) some major painkillers. Errands, shmerrands, give me drugs!

As always, I have too much on my schedule today to make time for taking care of myself... but I'm going to do it, rather than be miserable and late for everything for a week and STILL not get my stuff done because 5 minute walks now take, oh, 35 minutes. As for getting off on the right foot... well, my left is fine, but the right is definitely not right. Does that give me two left feet?

(*evil grin of the seriously over-punned*)

My life is everywhere

Whew. It's been a busy week. At least I got a free t-shirt out of this whole "orientation worker" thing. The new class seems pretty happy to be here, and many of them seem to have their stuff together. Many of them are more together than I am at this point, and they got here yesterday. Granted, I didn't have any relatives conscripted to my moving crew this year. Just me, exhausted from airport delays and facing a slightly overwhelming schedule. At least I've collected belongings from three and a half of my storage sites. Two and a half more to go! Well, three if you count the nonperishable food items. Apparently my belongings slowly exploded this summer and attempted to take over campus.

I also have too many computers. Yes, two is too many. I can't give up Janet the laptop because she's got all my music and papers and labwork... plus in a week or two she'll be wireless, which will be darn snazzy. But the beheamoth Newscope mac (which will have to be the primary computer this week) is taking up all my desk space with its huge towering blueness. The flatscreen monitor would help, but I can't hook it up until we find an adapter for the plug, darn it. (It was a relief to know that this is an option, because when I first hauled it all over and tried to set it up I had a moment's panic that I had just cost the school $600 for an unusable, incompatible monitor.) At least I get to give this one back at the end of the year.

Well, I have a few hours free today, so I should either attempt to nap or loft my bed so that some of this stuff strewn about my room can be hidden. If I don't post for another week, assume I got trapped under the bed.

No moping!

The summer is over. It doesn't matter that I've got another week at home. It definitely makes no difference that classes don't start until about a week after that. A major midwestern university has kidnapped my boyfriend, and I won't see him until Thanksgiving break.

There are about a zillion things I could do right now to keep myself occupied. I could call all the people I know in town and organize a massive social event. I could get back to reading the huge stack of journal articles I've barely looked at since leaving the lab. I could finish putting all my oodles of happy data in a giant spreadsheet. I could re-mulch the landscaping. I could wash the car. I could read a book. I could bake cookies. I could update my blog every hour on the hour... but I don't really feel like doing much, which is absolutely deadly. Still, I will prevail!

Hmm... that makes things a bit easier. Apparently plans have already been made for dinner out with my whole family tonight, and my Aunt needs a babysitter for the afternoon. At this rate I won't have time to pine. Fabulousness!

Here again, at last!

Apparently I'm impervious to jet-lag, since I've been home for two days and my sleep schedule has been completely normal. I didn't have much trouble adjusting to Austrian time either, come to think of it. Where did I cultivate this skill? Either my circadian clock is completely attuned to light cycles or I've pulled so many all-nighters that sleep is an act of conscious will. It would be interesting to experimentally manipulate these variables and find out which is more correct.

I suppose I can supply a brief rundown of the trip, although the only person who I know reads this with any regularity was there too... The main highlights were the day trip to Vienna where we rode a famous ferris wheel, saw the Dom (cathedral) and ate the best eis (ice cream) in the city, the day in Salzburg wandering among the shops and visiting the fortress at the top of the cliff, swimming in a glacier lake outside Salzburg the following morning, riding up and later climbing on the Schneeberg, and of course all of the family visits and events. Opa's birthday parties were hilarious. For an 80 year old, he sure knows how to throw a get-together... and how to ham it up when he's the center of attention. What a flirt! He's worse than I am. :) Oma was really sweet too, in her finicky, just-so sort of way. I guess when you're accustomed to living your way for such a long time, it's at least a bit reasonable to feel affronted by change.

All in all it was a very good trip. I'm sad to see it end, not only because it was a fun adventure, but also because it signals the end of my summer and the fast-encroaching beginning of another school year (and in Kansas before Ohio, which means another familiar change - loss, actually - is even closer.) Sigh. Melancholy suits me not. I suppose I should appreciate the time remaining and do something with it. To that end, I'll go make some plans.

Home for a day

The thing I like best about coming back to St. Louis is that I know where the streets and highways go. There are always a few minor changes, a tree down here and a new construction project there, but the familiarity is a deep-rooted and enjoyable sensation. The thing I like least about being home is that nothing is within walking distance except church, so I'm constrained from making my own schedule by vehicular availability. Well, that and the fact that I feel guilty for choosing to spend time out with friends since I'm never home anymore... not that guilty, but a bit. I'm not here long enough for that to become much of an issue this time... at least, not until after I get back from Austria.

By this time tomorrow night I'll probably be cuddled up on the sofa at Mike's house watching Adult Swim and trying to decide how late I can possibly stay up without making myself miserable for the following (very long) day. He's home now and I've spoken to him twice already, but I won't see him in person until dinnertime tomorrow. I can tell we're both giddy about the prospect of spending time together by the number of times we break up and get back together in a single phone conversation. Every time he makes an off-kilter comment, bad pun, or dorky reference I tell him it's over. I think the longest I've ever gone before taking him back has been 2 minutes. It's basically an excuse to get cutesy and reiterate how much we love each other... yes, I know, it's totally disgustingly adorable. This is why the long-distance thing is good for us. If any of our college friends were forced to constantly watch this in person, they'd kill us with sticks. Our high school friends came close a few times.

I've managed to consolidate my stuff into a single highly volatile suitcase, which will be a bit easier to manage tomorrow. I definitely hope security doesn't have to open it up, because it looks like the slightest jostling could make it explosively spew my underwear and toiletries into the air at high velocities. I have no idea how I'm going to bring back any souvenirs without shoving into the fourth dimension for added space. Either way, I don't want to be known as the panty bomber... as cool a title as that would be for some kind of cartoon superhero. I don't even want to fathom the superpowers such a character would possess, or how they would have come about.

With that lovely thought, I really should try to go to bed. I may try to post tomorrow, but if not I'll update as soon as I'm back in the country!

is it that obvious?

You can really tell how excited I am by counting the number of parenthetical statements, ellipses, and exclamation points.

The true signs of a diseased mind.

Okay, now really back to work.

All a-shiver with antici...

Stuff left to do:

• talk to a prospective student interested in neuroscience (yay!)
• lead my final campus tour (double yay!)
• finish the very last little bit of my packing (triple yay!)
• haul my stuff to storage (you get the drift.)

and then it's off to Columbus for the night... and then back to St. Louis tomorrow... and then on to Austria on Monday! Oh. My. Gosh. I'm sure heart palpitations aren't good for me, but I can't help it. I usually get excited before going back home and seeing Mike, but I think this time I've hit a new high. I feel like I've just finished a dozen espresso shots and snorted an energy drink. I feel like how my rats look when they're high on d-amphetamine. I feel like... I should get back to work, or my boss is going to start wondering about the wide-eyed hysterical giggling emanating from my desk space. Must... stay... distracted...

(say it... PATION!)

pack! ack!

Oh, so much to do...  and only tonight and tomorrow in which to do it!  I've got decisions to make about what's going in storage and what I need to bring, errands to run, and finally stuff to pack and actually put in storage.  In six days I'll sleep in as many different places!  I think I'm going to miss campus.  Probably not work, but the atmosphere here.  And the lab.  Putting my project on hold is slightly difficult.  It's not that I don't need the vacation, or that I'm not humongously excited about meeting folks I've only heard about for the past six years, but I also realize that it would make my fall semester much less hectic if I could start the next phase now.  It's a trade-off, I suppose.  I also know I'd make the same plans again in a heartbeat, so I really can't complain.

Today and tomorrow are only partial days in Admissions, and I'll be spending mid-morning in the lab and only giving one tour a day, which is appreciated.  Ten to fifteen tours a week really wipes me out.  I can only talk about the new athletic facility on campus so many times before I start to get a little cynical about it.  C'mon, people, this stuff is all over the website.  Sure, come to campus and see the facilities and grounds firsthand, but if your kid really wants to come here you can at least do us the favor of knowing the name of the school and a few of the vital statistics.  No, there are no grad students here, so they can't teach classes.  Do you really expect me to know, or care, what percent of students have Macs versus PCs?  The network supports both, your kid can have either (or both,)  so unless you think it makes your kid cooler somehow to have the most popular computer on campus it really has no bearing on college life.  Geez.  The college search is overwhelming, true enough... but don't visit a school your kid has absolutely no interest in just because it's there.  And if you have any attitude problems yourself  - you think liberal arts are for indecisive wafflers, you know for a fact that your kid is too smart for anything but Ivy League, you think science only happens at large research institutions - leave it at home or don't bother.  And give your kid support, but don't let this become your college search.  You had your turn, and unless you're actually going back to school, it's over. 

But enough venting.  I only have  an hour to get the filing done before I head to the lab, so I should actually do some work. 

No longer a county fair virgin

So last night I went out to the county fair, and saw my very first demolition derby.  These guys (and gals!) are totally hardcore.  Some of them even had bigger fan bases than professional American soccer.  The best part of all was when my car, 87X, won it all... and my logic was truly impenetrable this time.  Any car that was as beat up going into the derby as dear old 87X obviously cannot die.  Next time, I'm placing bets.  Goodbye, college debt! 

I also had the fabulous experience of fair food, which is like real food only with the cholesterol quadrupled by any means necessary.  The "elephant ear" was tasty, but the huge-plate-o-fried-potato-shavings-n-cheese definitely came back to haunt me around 4am.  Normal food is always better going down than coming back up, but it speaks powerfully to the indestructability of fair food that there is actually no discernable difference.

I'm tired today and slightly shell-shocked from the noise, smoke, and deep-fried congestive heart failure on a plate, but I'm going back tonight.  My boss' kids are showing lambs, which can't be nearly as intense!  I'm pretty sure they eat them afterwards, but I don't think they do it right away. 

Back to work...

Eat my groceries

A week from today I head back home, and thence off the continent for a short while.  While this is an exciting prospect, I didn't realize how quickly it was coming up... at least, not the last time I went to Kroger.  I guess I can put the canned/dry goods and pasta in storage and hope there aren't any mice this time.  But I still have a whole loaf of bread, a half-gallon of milk, half a dozen eggs, some veggies, and lots of other perishables that will simply be donated to Doc's fridge when I move out... and it will be another two weeks before he gets back from vacation.  I hope he likes broccoli.  Slimy broccoli.  Serves him right for not cleaning out the fridge before we moved in.  That piece of lasagna was only a couple nerve fibers short of sentience.

I really should think about packing and getting my extra stuff into storage.

Sorry my life is slightly boring at the moment.  I blame cable television.  It's a drug that saps life and reduces conversation skills to "So last night on Conan's monologue..." and other such nonsense.  That's it, tonight I'm going for a walk and looking for real life, intellect-expanding adventure.  Stay tuned.
  

 

+1 to amusement factor

A post!  On the clock, no less.  As Strongsad (with horns and a tail) would say, "I'm evil."

Note to self:  don't reread "classic" books from your youth without the foreknowledge that things will never be the same.  I loved Walter Farley's "Black Stallion" and "Island Stallion" series back in grade school.  I recalled the thrilling and highly realistic descriptions of horse races and the close relationships between man and animal.  I did NOT recall the occasional alien abduction.  I'm kind of weirded out.  This may be part of the reason why I was a mildly schizophrenic child.

Nine days until many many highly anticipated kisses.  (Yikes, is this the first time this blog has gotten mushy?)  Not to mention exciting international travels and adventures in frightening cuisine.  But I'm not very worried.

Okay, back to pretending to work.

Rat brains are fun

I'm in the lab today, hence internet access on a Saturday.  Today is behavioral testing, so my rats are waiting for their turn to be videotaped.  The little attention whores...  One of these days you'll see my name on a volume of "Rats Gone Wild" at Blockbuster, and you can wonder when I started to go wrong...  Well, okay, probably not.  But by the end of this experiment I'll have TWELVE HOURS of video to watch and score and analyze, and if I'm not completely nuts already I can see the brink.  Ahh, Science.  

The countdown to seeing Mike is down to 15 days, so even if I lost a foot I'd have enough digits to count all the days.  I can't belive summer has gone so fast!  Perhaps, I can, but I don't want to.  I'm less than a month and a half away from my last year of college, at least at this fine institution.  Come May I'm going to be a blubbering, nostalgic fool, and I already know it.  Hopefully a blubbering, nostalgic fool with a degree, but is that any kind of consolation?  Of course, I'll also have my plans for next year settled down, which is nothing if not exciting.  Another year of long-distance relationship will be a trial, but hopefully less so with the opportunity to go abroad (and the knowledge that, finally, this phase will end when I return.)  If I end up going straight to grad school somewhere instead, at least I'll have the adjustment to a new lab to keep me occupied while Mike does his teaching program.  I'm sure I'll have more to day about this in the months to come as plans become concrete.

I'm heading back home for lunch, but if I have anything to say I may post again this afternoon.

 

 

Thank goodness for circadian rhythms

I woke up in time for work today.  Without having set an alarm.  Having attended a party last night that involved hallway badminton... and a baby pool full of margaritas.  I am truly awesome.

But just so you know...

I'm not a lush.

Life is sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows...

I had my first creme brulee today. Ahem.

(***transports of joy***)

Okay, now that I have that out of my system... I don't think anyone knows my blog exists. If I'm wrong, let me know. Maybe once I have internet in my room and can advertise agressively on my IM profile all that will change. Or perhaps I should just mention it causually at social gatherings... right, that'll go over well.

I think that the cat that I am currently cat-sitting (who lives in the house I am currently house-sitting) is becoming frustrated with me. Obviously, the bed I am sleeping in was HIS first, and I have no right to move him his position of comfort (sprawled full-length across the middle.) Especially for something as insignificant as my sleep cycle. Especially with that demeaning way I flip the top of the covers over him to get him to shove off. I can see the annoyance building in his catty green eyes, and it worries me. If I stop posting abruptly before my scheduled vacation, you (my nonexistant audience) should assume I've been either eaten or mauled.

T minus 19 days and counting...

I'm all moved in now, and glad that's done. I'll be here until July 31, at which point it's back to STL. And then... August 2 I'm flying to Austria for a whole week plus!! Yahoo! I've enjoyed my summer on campus, but this is seriously the carrot-on-a-stick that has made everything fly by. In how many ways is this totally awesome?? I'm meeting Mike's maternal grandparents for the first time ever! I'll get to practice my German! I'll get to see the alps and go sightseeing!
Okay, I'm at work, so this can't be a long post. Suffice it to say I'm totally pumped.

Hello world!

Well, this is the wrong day to start a blog! I'm in the process of moving all my crud from my apartment to a house. As in, open boxes, piles of stuff everywhere, fits of frustration every 30 minutes. As in, it's 11:15 am and I have to be out of here by midnight tonight or get charged for another week... so naturally, let's procrastinate, eh? I just wanted to post a comment to my cousin's brand-spanking-new blog, and I get roped into the whole thing myself.
Well, I suppose I should make my introductions. I'm Alaina. I'll soon be a senior at an itsy bitsy liberal arts college in the Midwest, where I'm studying Neuroscience and whatever the heck else interests me at the moment. I sing and sometimes dance or act, but just as stress relief. My boyfriend of, oh, 6 years or thereabouts, goes to school some 15 hours away, which I'm sure I'll complain about at various intervals. He's a music major, wants to be a bum (i.e. composer) when he grows up. I'm the ambitious one, with plans for many years of grad school and a research/teaching career.
If there's anything I've missed, I'll have to add it later, because if I don't keep up with this packing I'll be in trouble tonight! Don't expect much unless I'm procrastinating at work, because the house I'm moving into has only dial-up access to the internet. Perhaps later...