I'm glad that's over
Sorry that I haven't been around much lately. I went to Providence over the weekend of the 18th-19th (to be blogged later today) and then I came back and had lots of work to do last week. Thanks to pressure from my boss and pressure from myself I worked relatively long hours all last week and through this weekend. Why so much work? Well, I had to give lab meeting this morning. I don't generally enjoy giving lab meetings and I was particularly worried about this one. Very few of the experiments that I have done since my last lab meeting have worked, so I wasn't sure what I was going to be able to show for myself. In the end, I took the talk from the Denmark conference in September and changed it around a little and then added in one slide about failed experiments and the newer, more recent working data. There were only about 4 slides (out of 24) that involved data that I hadn't shown before, although the repeated data was presented considerably better and was much more organized than I had ever presented in past lab meetings.
The whole thing went pretty well, I must say. There were no hard questions (one softball question and one suggestion) and afterwards a few people said nice things (even though I must say that my actual
delivery was pretty terrible. I talked about 4x my normal speed, which is fast to begin with.) Most of the people even commented on how close I was to being done with this part of the project, which is a nice thing to have re-confirmed. I was particularly happy to hear that many people were impressed by one set of experiments in particular (done within the last couple of weeks and properly analyzed Saturday). People liked the experiment and thought the conclusion was really interesting. Even more gratifying (at least for me) was that everyone believed the data (it wasn't as clean cut as some other types of data) and that the people who do similar types of experiments said that they have never seen their experiments come out so cleanly. I was sort of afraid that I'd have the slide up on the screen and have everyone say "those graphs aren't really different." It is particularly nice since this is a technique that I had just started doing and it worked and gave me really nice data on the first try. :)
So....lab is finally a little better than it was. Oh...the paper is officially accepted to
Science . And I have a new minion, an undergraduate (a freshman!) who started last week. That is entirely another story...
People laugh at me when I walk down the street
I mean, they must. They have to. I would.
Sometimes I get a little too caught up in my IPod as I am walking (particularly walking to or from the lab). I don't dance outright, but the music certainly impacts my stride and the cadence with which I walk. Sometimes I have to work hard to stay still while stopped at stoplights.
Last night while walking home from the lab (after having a relatively good day and leaving earlier than I had left any other day this week) I caught myself
really working it to the song playing at that time. I would tell you what song it was, but it is too embarrassing to even admit to having this song on my IPod, let alone to admit to strutting down the street to it. I noticed myself doing it a little bit this morning, but not nearly as badly as I was last night.
I have good posture when I work it. :)
(Sorry about the lack of updates. It has been a really busy week which is just now becoming calm. I'm off to Providence for the weekend which I am quite excited about, but we can talk about that later.)
Weekend adventures
As I mentioned before, Friday was not such a great day. I ended up deciding not to do much on Friday night because I was a little out of it, in a bad mood and tired.
Yesterday was much more fun. I did a lot of shopping, although
most everything I bought was something I needed. I went shopping with my roommate R. to help her pick out an outfit for her graduate school interviews. After we found her clothes, we went to buy shoes for me. :) I got these:
I love them. They are wonderful and they are perfect shoes to wear while walking to work/on my feet all day. :) That made me feel considerably better. I also got a new comforter. My old one was quite old and not as warm as it used to be and apparently it had a small hole in it which I managed to stick my foot in while sleeping one night this week. Turns out I kick a little bit in my sleep so I ripped the side of the old comforter open. Oops.
After we finished the fun shopping, my roommates and I went to the grocery store. We knew there was a storm on the way and we all needed some food. We all had a little but none of us tend to go to the big grocery store very often instead just picking up a few things at smaller stores on the way home. We came up with the great plan of sharing a cab ride ($3) home so that we could buy as much as we needed. We basically bought everything in the store. People were laughing at us and how much we had in our cart. We had to clean out the fridge and freezer once we got home so that we would have enough room to put away our groceries. After the grocery store, it was time to go out to dinner and later a bar for my roommate A.'s birthday.
Overnight it snowed and snowed and was rather cold (basically the perfect night to use a warm and cozy new comforter). I got up and made pancakes for breakfast and have lounged around a little so far today. I really need to do some laundry but am quite unexcited about going out the the laundromat. I'm also going to make some lasagna for dinner soon and just generally bundle up to stay away from the cold.
Sucky-sucktastic
For those of you that were wondering, today has really been crappy. And I might be in lab working all weekend (depending on both my conscience and whether some friends confirm that yes, our plans are on). Oh, and it's going to snow. Blah.
What's new and exciting with you?
Science dumbness
I am currently looking up the disposal instructions for a chemical that I have been working with in lab recently. From the information sheet:
Skin Contact:
Immediately flush skin with plenty of water for at least 15 minutes while removing contaminated clothing and shoes.
Wash clothing before reuse. Thoroughly clean shoes before reuse. Get medical attention if symptoms occur.
Umm....what? Do you mean that I am only supposed to wash my clothes if I get this bright red dye on it? Wow, to think that I have been doing things wrong all of these years...
My Westerns still aren't working.
Important!!!!!
Someone is having a VERY exciting coffee meeting this morning with a certain green peep and a certain all star. Stay tuned for details and be prepared to be jealous. *grin*
UPDATE:
I had coffee with Monsty and All Stah! I coffee with Monsty and All Stah! Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah! Okay, now that we've got that out of the way...
Monsty is very, very sweet. I had such a wonderful time talking with her...I wish it could have been much longer. I am so glad to have met her; she is so warm and friendly and fun to talk with. All Stah is absolutely adorable, particularly his gorgeous blue eyes and general cuteness and excellent shoes. I had such a great time!!! Woohoo!! Thank you so much for getting together with me Monsty. :)
*smoooches* :)
4 Things
Augie and
Momma both tagged me, but I'm only doing it once. :)
Four jobs I've had:
1. Stamp cutter at stamp factory
2. Science nerd/Graduate student
3. Teaching assistant
4. SAT Tutor
Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Ocean's Eleven
2. When Harry Met Sally
3. The Princess Bride
4. Good Will Hunting
Four places I've lived:
1. Camden, NY
2. Durham, NC
3. Brookline, MA
4. The world inside my head
Four shows I love:
1. Lost
2. Survivor
3. Project Runway
4. Alias
(also West Wing and The Daily Show)
Four highly-touted TV shows I detest:
1. American Idol
2. Gilmore Girls
3. Battlestar Galactaca
4. Oprah
Four books I'd recommend to anyone, anytime:
1. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (or anything by Kurt Vonnegut)
2. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
3. All of the Harry Potter books
4. Wicked by Gregory Maguire (or anything by Gregory Maguire)
Four places I have vacationed:
Vacation? What's a vacation?
1. Myrtle Beach, SC
2. Paris
3. Toronto
4. Copenhagen
(I sound like
such the world traveller, don't I? My next choice was Savannah, GA.
Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Mango curry
2. Spicy Tuna Maki
3. Lasagna
4. Pulled Pork
Four sites I visit daily:
1.
AmericaBlog2.
Daily Kos3.
Boston.com4.
CircleFour places I would rather be right now:
1. A nice warm beach where there are shirtless waiters serving me drinks while I wear SPF 700.
2. Winston-Salem, NC (or just generally visiting friends)
3. Touring around anywhere in Europe
4. Getting a massage
Tagging:
1. Evan
2. HD
3. PM
4. Nina
The problem with Tivo
Okay, I've just found my first problem with Tivo after having it for about a year.
The real issue: I no longer look at TV listings and rely on Tivo's ToDo list to tell me when things are on, including Duke basketball games. Today it listed the Duke basketball game at 3pm on NESN (the New England Sports Network). I thought that seemed a little odd, but I assumed NESN now gets some ACC games as part of BC joining the ACC.
I turned the game on right at 3 but I spent a lot of time picking up the apartment, returning emails and the like and wasn't following the game that closely. At one point I looked at the score (both teams were in the 40s) and thought "that is a high score for this early in the game." When I looked a little more closely, I saw that there were 18 minutes left in the SECOND HALF, and it was 3:35. I was baffled. I have never been more confused in my whole life. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how the game had gone by so quickly. I didn't even remember seeing halftime. Between the strange pace of the game and the fact that the score was much closer than I expected, I was just lost.
After watching for a few minutes, I realized I needed to look at the boxscore to see how the game had come to this point. I went to ESPN.com and was greeted with the headline "Redick's OT 3 helps #2 Duke beat Florida State". Huh???????????????
It turns out that I am watching the game on TAPE DELAY! It started at noon, not 3! I am very, very distressed and I can't decide whether I want to watch the rest of the game or not, seeing as how I already know what happens. Grrrrrrrrr.
