Socks

As Archduchess, whose socks ought to be dry, extremely dry (fresh out of the dryer, in fact), it is my responsibility to own weird socks. It is my duty to cherish them. It is my mission to wear them until they are reduced to little more than holes with a bit of wool in between.

It is also my duty to do laundry, and there happened to be rather a lot of socks one day.

First there was this:

The top pair belongs to me, the next one to Sis, and the bottom one to Mom. It runs in the family (pun fully intended)

And then they kept on coming:

Stripes, cows, witches, flowers, hearts... We also have peacocks, spiders, birds, and chili recipes, among others.

A sudden realization: my first pair of plain socks came into my possession only four years ago.

Socks are like good wine, they make a regular day more enjoyable and a special day just splendid. (Aside from the aging thing... Socks don't age that well.)

***

Um... This was supposed to be a scheduled post for Tuesday, but apparently Blogger seems to have gotten around that by simply declaring today's date to be the 29th. I stand in awe of the powers of Google.

Takeoff!

If this post is accurate to the minute, I should be taking off right now.

Aside, of course, from the fact that there is an expected delay of at least 26 minutes, and probably more due to recent events.

So, basically, I may or may not be airborne, but there is a high probability that I am just sitting in the plane waiting to take off, and a medium probability that I am still in the terminal getting very familiar with the armchairs because I couldn't sleep last night and stayed up until 4 blogging.

In other news, I have a window seat! That's always exciting.

See you on the other side of the Pond!

Surprise Christmas present

A certain company famous for their search engine (among other things) bought free wifi for everyone at the airport in Big Huge City! More last-minute emailing for me! (Especially since Mother made me get here four hours early to counter the increased security.)

Yuletide

It's finally here (and almost gone): Christmas day!

We got started rather late and lagged the entire day (typical in our Crazy Family, us children have given up on waking early long ago as our parents are lethargic until around ten or eleven anyway), but overall it was surprisingly cheerful and merry (I suppose the excellent bottle of 2005 Sauterne Mother managed to obtain helped somewhat).

A White Christmas was apparently had by most of Texas (aside from, of course, the City Back Home--it rained) with record snowstorms and blizzards in West Texas and even as close as Big Huge City and Ridiculously Large City Of Cowboys.

I hope you have all had a wonderful day and enjoyed yourselves as much as I did! Merry Christmas! (No need to stop celebrating, I especially like this time of year because it is acceptable to keep eating and being merry all until New Year's.)

Christmas Morning hot chocolate (or anytime you feel like it, really):

7oz bittersweet chocolate

2 cups whole milk

1 cup water

2 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Optional: a dash of vanilla or cinnamon or 6 tbsp strong coffee or 3 tbsp rum (or all of them if you feel adventurous)

Finely chop the chocolate. In a saucepan, combine the milk, water, cocoa powder and vanilla/coffee/cinnamon and bring to a boil. As soon as the mixture boils, add the chopped chocolate and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally.

This recipe makes a very rich and slightly bitter hot chocolate. Consume with moderation as it tends to cause excessive Christmas cheer. Enjoy!

***

To do:

-Pack suitcase

-Buy presents for relatives

-Move everything to bigger suitcase as there is no more room left for presents

-Watch sappy British romantic comedies with Sister and her best friend (I am incapable of resisting to the appeal of Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, and others all in the same movie.)

-Write and set up automated posts for the next two weeks

-Breathe and enjoy life.

GB, the Glad Game is the best thing you've taught me, and I cannot be more grateful. Thank you.

Thank you all so much for your kind and funny thoughts.

***

Upcoming post: Something about socks! Finally!

Time zones

It's a bit unsettling to think that I haven't even gotten out of my pajamas yet and certain people living in New Zealand are already about to wake up to tomorrow while those in Europe are probably setting up dinner tonight.

We in America are hours behind everyone, which is fortunate because, Heavens to Betsy (what a delightful if puzzling exclamation), I haven't even finished making presents and even less wrapping them.

Better get cracking, then.

We're just friends

because it's officially over.

Well, fuck.

Thinking

Dad hasn't looked at Mom once since I got home.

Anticipation

Because I was doing research at the University this summer instead of going to France with my family, my relatives teamed up to get me a plane ticket to go see them this winter.

It means that:

1. Grandmother The Cook will spoil me rotten and make me more food than I can eat. And I will eat all of it, because Mother will not be there to tell me that it's really not a good idea to eat three servings of apple beignets.

2. Tiny Grandmother will take me shopping in bookshops and teach me how to knit (again) and take me skiing (maybe) and make tarts with this autumn's preserves of rhubarb and coings.

3. Radio Grandfather will take me to his English Club's first meeting of the semester so he can brag about how well I speak English and take me to the celebration for his 60 years of amateur radio and show me how he can sort of use his computer now and ask for a lot of advice which he will promptly forget.

4. Grandfather Busy Bee will show me the latest extension he's built to the house and the new aviary I've been asking for since I was seven and play endless games of belote and shiftily try to cheat and pretend to look offended when we of course call him out.

5. Cousin Baby Bird won't be the baby bird I fed mushed peas to because she turned nine yesterday, but she will still take my hand and drag me to her secret fort and snuggle with me on the couch or play mommy.

6. Cousin Grand Loup will boast of his newest football victories and pick on his sister a little until mother makes him stop.

7. Aunt Raspberry will talk to me about science and research and my love life.

8. Godfather and I will have awkward conversations because our relationship has always been awkard.

9. Aunt and Uncle Ebay will make witty cracks and be slightly pushy and over-generous.

10. Gay Uncle will call me "ma puce" and "ma grande" and challenge me to checkers and petits chevaux and tell funny stories and about whichever Parisian wildlife he has recently adopted as a pet and then remember suddenly that I'm a lot older than he remembered and talk about how I could almost fit in his pocket when I was a baby.

10. Godmother will be the bustling, busy, wonderful woman she always is and take me shopping for purses and shoes and make cracks she thinks aren't that funny but really are side-splitting and maybe will get angry and yell a lot because she gets tired.

11. Bearded Uncle will be loud and ask me about my life and career and not really take me seriously and be a bit scary although he doesn't mean to be.

12. Eldest Cousin will be overbearing and a bit annoying and parading her new boyfriend.

13. Boy Cousin will be in Cold Country With Bears and Moose and Mounties.

14. Favorite Cousin and German Cousin might ignore me a bit because I don't wear makeup or watch TV shows or listen to top 40 music or party a lot.

15. Distant and Not-So-Distant Relatives Who Show Up To Family Gatherings will tell dirty jokes and drink a lot at the New Year's reveillon.

16. I will get to eat my first galette des Rois in six years, a real one, with frangipane and a fève and Grandmother The Cook will accidentally give me the slice with it because she knows it makes me happy.

17. There will be snow and fireplaces and a hot iron in my bed to warm up the sheets before bedtime.

18. Winter potatoes will be suitable for making pommes dauphine.

19. The hilltop tower in which Radio Grandfather and Tiny Grandmother live will be very windy and shake a bit windy.

20. Most of all, there will be family and lots, lots of love.

I'm leaving on the 27th, and I can't wait.

Congratulations, it's a house!

$75 application fee x 7, $1850 x 2, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.

The usual gang of suspects (meaning Bookish Friend, Friend With Many Pairs of Sunglasses, Childish Booksmart Friend, Crazy redhead Mathematically-Inclined Friend, Friend Who Likes Science-Fiction, Internet-Savvy Friend, and I) have officially applied for a lease on a duplex to live in next year.

I feel so grown-up.

I feel terrified.

The end

See you again in a month, school!

I will enjoy sleeping in.

Webcomic Rampage!

Didn't have time to go to the webcomic convention yesterday due to visiting apartments for next year, so I went today.

The panel was excellent, if a bit disturbing. I don't think all of the artists were quite sober.

Among those present: Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content (which I read semi-religiously since last fall), Danielle Corsetto of Girls With Slingshots (which I always save for last because it's quite possibly my absolute favorite), Joel Watson of HijinksEnsue (which I keep on having to reread due to not getting the reference the first time, but it turns out he intends it to be that way), Randy Milholland of Something*Positive (which several of my friends follow avidly), Scott Kurtz of Player vs. Player (which Bookish Friend absolutely loves), K.C. Green of Gunshow (which, uh, I didn't know of until now), Josh Lesnick of Girly (same), and Bill Williams of Side Chicks and Angel (ditto. But they all looked like really nice people!).

Interestingly enough, I got seven sketches from five artists, but only one of them was for me. Here it is! (Faye from Questionable Content)

La tête dans les nuages

The sky is so low today that you can walk amongst the clouds.

Happy Hanukkah to you

My friends and I had a Hanukkah/Christmas/Winter holiday party to ourselves last night.

White elephant gifts exchanged:

-A box full of condoms and lube

-A giant Twilight poster and a campus bookstore giftcard specifying it was to be used on an academic book not related to the recipient's area of study

-A fuzzy purple stuffed animal making sproinging noises

-A cat bank with a fur coat

-A bottle of mint shampoo and a pair of used textbooks the previous owner couldn't get rid of

-A pack of Model Magic and a coupon for a Russian song (from Tiny Russian Friend)

-A magnetic wind-up car that rolls up the side of the fridge

-An inflatable unicorn, a plastic jellyfish, and a color-changing rubber duck.

Rounds of dreidel played with Tiny Colored Chocolate Candies: 8

Rounds of dreidel played by replacing chocolate with the taking off of clothes: 27

Highest number of pants worn by one person: 5

Roommates who walked in by accident and were very confused: 1

Hanukkah candles burned: 2

Christmas songs sung: 13

Fish buried: 1 (poor Theo, he has been lounging around in Crazy Redhead and Sunglasses' freezer for over a month now.)

Notable non-white elephant gifts:

-Ray Comfort voodoo doll

-Homemade Piranhamoose

-Handmade nautilus

-Neuron stuffed animal(?)

Sign held by a homeless person: "When you're as crazy as I am, you know who your true friends are."

One down, a million to go

First final over and done with, now to start studying for the next two.

Everybody on campus has a certain frazzled look about themselves. The dining and residence halls have begun offering free food and coffee at night due to the extraordinary number of people studying everywhere.

Every three hours during the day, a fresh (or not-so-fresh, as it were) crop of students emerges and head either home or to a final. Some are lucky and are already done for the semester, the less lucky ones still have two or three exams to go and won't go home until next week.

Biochemistry is back on the shelf, Evolution isn't that scary, and Vertebrate Physiology is gnashing its teeth and snickering in the shadows.

Study break tonight, but I'll be hitting the books tomorrow (after going to a "Webcomic Rampage" in the City where several of my favorite artists will be present.)

Magic

Friday Lunch Lecture ended, the students of Highly Selective Science Organization poured out noisily from the Chemistry building.

I was climbing up the stairwell into the street when I grabbed Tiny Russian Friend by the arm, pointed my finger to an invisible point in the air, and yelled, "SNOW!"

Several students stared at me as if I were a complete maniac.

"No, no, I swear, it's snowing!"

Suddenly, the two snowflakes turned into ten, then a hundred, then a thousand. A thousand cold, white dots falling from the sky, blown in the wind.

People stopped, people stared, people held out their arms as would a lost desert wanderer blessed by sudden rain.

We ran to the Tower Plaza, where everyone seemed struck by a strange disease and were sticking out their tongues in the hopes of catching a stray flake. In the grass, someone lying down and waving his arms and legs about, taking the opportunity to make a snow angel despite the lack of snow on the ground.

Then, it stopped.

Disappointed, everyone went on their way. A few curses were heard.

We continued down West Mall to find the traditional end-of-school foam sword battle on the crosswalk between campus and the Drag. For the next ten minutes, we surged amongst fellow warriors to the middle of the intersection every time the "Walk" sign came on and fiercely battled the other side.

And then we went back to our respective dorms and did homework.

Whatever.

I like blogging too much to stop.

Busted

(Speculations for the moment, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.)

Beautiful Music Friend recently started a blog, which I follow, and probably gave the URL to one of our group. Who followed me back here. And is right now furiously reading the archives.

Well, what can I say?

Should I stop? Should I keep going? Should I do like BB and move somewhere else?

I don't know.

This blog began as an anonymous place to rant and rave, where I could write without being judged, a place to empty my thoughts and say what was on my mind without being afraid of hurting feelings.

Since then, it's become, or at least I like to think so, a place where I write and I know someone reads, several someones, to whom I have become attached. I look forward to reading comments in the morning and throughout the day, I enjoy reading different blogs about different lives and seeing them cross and mix sometimes, I enjoy putting in my two cents sometimes.

But it's still a very private place, a place I don't mind sharing with no-longer-strangers, because there is safety in anonymity, but that I don't necessarily want friends to read.

It's not that I want to hide things from them, it's that I see them everyday and have a different (although very important to me) relationship with them than with the words I write and the people who read those words.


We shall see what happens.

html success!

I made the page bigger so Calvin and Hobbes could be displayed in (most) of their glory. Less blank space in the margins, more room for pictures.

"Getting an inch of snow is like winning ten cents at the lottery"... except if you live in Texas. Then it's like you're a billionaire!

We may not have a White Christmas this year, but there is talk of snow on Friday.

The event is such that Geeky Science Organization's outdoor plant sale was relocated to the Greenhouse and that Hippie Professor jokingly suggested canceling class in favor of a snow day.

Snow! It only snowed once last year, for a whole four hours!

I really hope it sticks some. I'm looking forward to the mini snowmen and tiny snowfights in the Quad.

Should there be any snow, of course.

After all, this is Texas. The weather may hover around the 5° for now, but it was 20° just three days ago. Who knows what will happen?

One Thousand and One Chemistry nights

And thus did Scheherazade write her last report.

Goodbye, Ochem. You won't be missed.

19 January 2009 - 1 December 2009

"Results were inconclusive."

Once upon an evening dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...

So much for free time, I've spent all of it (and more) in lab. I haven't eaten lunch since this weekend, haven't had time to do homework, haven't had time to see my friends. I need to get this project finished this week so I can write a ten-page paper by Saturday noon. By 19:00 tonight, I will know if this run worked, or if my conclusion to the year's work will be something along the lines of "results were inconclusive." I will probably come back anyway next semester as a volunteer to help my partner finish and, knock on wood, get the stupid paper published.

As of now, 17:52, I have two Ochem lab reports to write, two Ochem prelabs to write, ten pages of reagent dilutions and top-secret buffer concoctions to hunt down and write up, eighteen gels to annotate, and goodness knows how many more pages of introduction, results, and discussion to write.


In other news, the weather today is absolutely disgusting and there is no chance whatsoever of having snow on Christmas.

Vain

I think I've finally figured out what to do with my hair.

Famous!

The New York times visited my City, toured some of my favorite restaurants, tried some of my favorite hangouts.

Looking at their archives, they apparently show up every two years or so, stay at the same hotel, try a couple new restaurants, go to different events.

They did mention a French restaurant I am sure to be trying in the future, although it is likely my dining partner will be Russian rather than American, as my American friends are unfortunately a bit squeamish and, well, somewhat lacking in refinement.

Relationships

Went over to Bookish Friend's house this afternoon, helped her and Sunglasses and Childish Booksmart Friend make dinner for Bookish's mother. We made cream and mustard chicken with roasted asparagus and chocolate truffles, and we made plans for next year when we're all going to live together.

After dinner, we played a silly video games while lying on the bed and poking each other in the knees.

But the part I really liked best was the snuggling. For the now three years we've been friends, we've grown increasingly comfortable around each other. Sure, it may throw in a bit of complication when you consider that Bookish and Sunglasses are dating (and Crazy Math and Sci-Fi when we're at the University), but no one minds tickle fights and cuddle piles and hugs and pretend flirting. It's a simple relationship, it's a complicated relationship, but most importantly, it's fulfilling.

It's like dating, sort of, except maybe less stressful.

***

I wish Beautiful Music Friend was here more often. She belongs in the pile.

Moutain climbing and other nonsense

Brother and I spent a considerable amount of time looking at things on the internet today. We looked though my delicious bookmarks and stumbled, among other things (including a series of rather hilarious John Cleese computer ads) upon a video I'd nearly forgotten: William Shatner waxing philosophic about Kirk climbing a mountain in some movie or other. In music. Remixed by some clever geek.

Now, most of what Shatner says in the interview sounds pretty ridiculous, but the remix is pure I don't even know what: "Why do I climb the moutain? Because I'm in love."

Dear Star Trek universe, you are ridiculous, and that is why I love you.

Somewhat related, but much lower on the ridiculousness scale, we watched Star Trek: First Contact (the last one of the movies Bro got me for my birthday that I still had to watch). One word: wow.

Jean-Luc Picard is undoubtedly my favorite character of the whole series: he has feelings, he has flaws, he is intelligent, he is wrong sometimes. He is one of the most multidimensional character I have seen, either in Star Trek or in many other movies that boast of more intellectual credentials.

***

I talk about Star Trek rather a lot, but I find it fascinating to watch the series evolve over so many years, from the very first special effects of a model ship in front of a painted planet to the newest, gorgeous computer animation of the starship Enterprise rising from the rings of Saturn, from cardboard computers to glass touchscreens, from terrible acting and over-dramatic camera zooms to, well, decent acting and lens flares.

"There is no money in the future, no countries, no poverty, no hunger. When we discovered we were not alone, we began working to better ourselves."

The Thanksgiving Day Chronicles

10:05 - "The flags are out. Is there a game today?" -Dad (As part of a fundraiser, and even though we don't care much for sports, my parents paid the high school band $100 to put the University Back Home's colors on our front yard every football home game day. Thanksgiving Day is traditionally the big rivalry game between my University and the University Back Home. This year, the game took place in City Back Home) (And, as of 22:42, the University, as usual, won. Huzzah!)

11:11 - According to Dad, today seems like the perfect day to fix the sticky-outy piece of pipe on the stove that's been there for five and a half years. Except that now, instead of being ugly, it's broken. 11:11, how are the potatoes getting cooked?

13:31 - Disaster averted, but Little Brother needs to go back to kindergarten for basic cutting skills. Parchment paper = fail.

16:28 - Turkey's done and spewing molten grease all over the table. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

18:57 - Top half of the turkey: glorious, bottom half: uh, al dente?

***

To my American friends: Happy Thanksgiving! Hope your turkey/tofurkey/turducken was as delicious as ours!
To my non-American friends: Happy Thanksgiving too! I hope your day was fantastic without being Turkey Day!

Breather

Darwin madness is finally over (well, the part where I have to work is over) and I can have time to myself again.

I don't need to attend long planning meetings, make posters (Charles is quite a handsome poster boy, if I do say so myself), print flyers, paint shirts, label bananas, email professors, debate creationists, and hand out eighty pounds of bananas to passers-by.

Nevertheless, it was quite a lot of fun. The day after the early book handout (still managed to snag two copies and argue for two hours with a not very bright fellow), we handed out about a thousand flyers and bananas next to a crowd listening to some fire-and-brimstone sermoner who was giving us dirty looks and, by the look of it, praying very hard for our unfortunate scientific souls. With great success, we held on the next day a two hour series of presentations by several professors and a student who had analyzed the original edition and the "revised" one to some interesting conclusions, followed by the documentary "Flock of Dodos" and more discussions quite late into the night.

I wish On the Origin of Species turned 150 every day.

¡Viva la evolución!

Things I don't understand

Overheard at the Unabridged Sustenance cheese counter this afternoon:

"I'd like to bake this here brie into a sheet of pastry, 'cause I guess it's what people do. What kind of toppings can I put on it?"

Whoever invented the "holiday Brie" with jam, nuts, and pastry, had a very, very twisted sense of humor.

The times are a-changin'

When I arrived home tonight, there was a new table in the dining room. The old one had been moved to my room.

That table has always existed in the middle of the dining room, with the round coffee-pot burn from one careless morning. It has existed since I was little enough to find it gargantuous, to build forts under it, to make up stories about knights around it, to stand up straight and still be able to walk under it.

With the old round table go the old tablecloths, the one Mother and Father got as a wedding present, the one on which a crystal plate broke during a Sunday lunch with relatives, the one Grandmother brought back from Bretagne.

The new table is thick and solid and rectangular and quite big.

Then again, all five of us used to be able to fit around the table that now holds one desktop computer.

How low can you go?

The high: Done with Biochemistry project! Making posters for Darwin! Cooking dinner in the Quad Kitchen!

The low: The Boy.

What's the etymology of the phrase "to levy taxes"?

Childish Booksmart Friend and I have had a long talk, in the way that long talks between friends tend to go. You start with one idea, then drift off to another, to finally digress your way til morning.

I learned that Jewish days go from three star rise at sundown to three star rise at sundown the day after to make sure that you are observing the proper amount of time, that there are two sets of "ten commandments," that all Jewish firstborns need to be bought from a member of the Levi tribe (someone whose last name is Cohen), that a lefthander can performed learned tasks with a right hand but performs self-taught tasks with a left hand, that most people naturally slant their paper when they write, that hydrogen bonds sometimes are more like 3.4 Ångstroms when the hydrogens don't show up in the program (see, I was actually working!), and much much more.

And then it was quite late, so I went home and talked to Beautiful Music friend for some time, and am off to bed for real this time.

PS: GB, someone told me today that there were no or very few snakes in New Zealand (which could be possible), as well as a very large type of insect, name unknown, as long as a hand. Is that true?

Software adventures

I have yet another class project involving complicated software. Unfortunately, this one takes rather a while to complete and the program isn't all that great--not to mention it's impossible to find things.

Fortunately, I've been assigned gyrase, which is one of my favorite proteins, so I suppose getting to know it intimately can't be all that bad.

On a high

Tonight, I attended a student production of Reefer Madness with Fiery Comedian Friend, who has finally come back to the City after a four month long travel stint around Europe.

I'd never actually seen the play, although Crazy Redhead Mathematically-Inclined Friend is fond of singing the Romeo and Juliet song.

As probably intended (it is, after all, a musical about marijuana), the production was very weird, but very enjoyable.

And then I organized some more events for what is now the Anti-Anti-Evolution movement.

UnComfortable.

Next Thursday, on university campuses across the nation (including The University), some idiot will be handing out free copies of a reprint of the first edition of Darwin's Origin of Species with a fifty page introduction attempting to prove it wrong.

A group of students and professors are organizing a protest.

We will be handing out bananas.

One sentence

She was disappointed when she learned the ultra-fast folding technique wasn't actually practical.

***

In my daily internet meanderings, I discovered the One Sentence blog which, as its title indicates, asks you to report a true story in a single sentence. Sort of like haikus, but without the syllable count. Many of them are very poetic, but Hemingway still remains the master:

For sale: Baby shoes, Never worn.

Passive-Agressive

Some time in September, I put up a note in the bathroom about people leaving their hair in the shower. For about a week, the showers stayed clean.

However, the general state of the bathroom has been declining over the past few weeks. This morning, not only did I find the customary giant gobs of hair in the shower but also that the trash can was overflowing and food had been spilled on the floor, leaving a disgusting mess and a nauseating smell.

Tonight, I left a note in each of the stalls. I really hope it does something. You'd think college students would have learned to live in common by now!

Next time, I'm setting up lasers and booby traps.

Sunday afternoon

It's raining.

The smell of warm, damp earth rises from the roadside and fills the car. Through the windows, the mottled brown and green fields spread out into dips and troughs and the occasional bump, punctuated by ramshackle wooden sheds with rusting sheet-metal roofs. Some trees are brown and have started shedding their leaves, others offer a pale yellow-orange, and the majority remain a dusty green. Nothing to rival the splendid colors of the Northeast.

Every once in a while, a familiar metal bird can be seen standing guard in a field, though fewer and fewer are engaged in their rhythmic dance to pump the black gold from the ground. In the air, one of their feathered cousins loops and twirls, long yellow tail flittering in the wind.

The road ahead and back glistens and vanishes in a faint haze of raindrops in the distance.

We could be going anywhere, and it wouldn't matter. Sometimes, Texas seems like a perpetual scenery.

Growing up

Little Sis went to her first dance tonight.

With her first boyfriend.

Got her first kiss.

I feel old.

Crystal ball

I tend to be eerily accurate with my predictions.

There was The First, of course. You could say it was love at first sight, although it wasn't. It was a certainty, a fact: I didn't know his name, I had never had a boyfriend, I never expected to have one, yet I knew that by the end of the year we would be together. I didn't go out of my way to make it happen, but it did. As I knew it would. And, again as I knew it would, it ended.

The Second happened unexpectedly. He remained an uncertainty for some time, during and even after. I hoped, for what reason I do not know, but eventually that passed and I was certain once more.

The Third wasn't so much a certainty as a destiny: he was bound to happen.

He became The Boy.

And, by my current prediction, may very soon be just The Third.

The change may have been gradual, but, as always, a moment of clarity brings the prediction, and life is uncertain no more.

In one way, it was a certainty from the very beginning. By all the laws of logic, it shouldn't last. By all the laws of logic, it shouldn't have happen at all. The problem is, one stroke of good luck jaded me and made me think anything could happen, no matter how impossible or improbable, how far the distance or how disgruntled the parents.

The thing is, life doesn't happen that way. Life isn't a fairy tale, life doesn't always turn out well.

Until this Thursday night, I'd held the doctrine that everything always turned out okay. Procrastination was fine, I knew I'd get the project completed before the due date and do well on it. Getting sick was fine, I knew I'd eventually get better after one or two weeks. Having some accident or other was fine, I knew there was a grown-up who would come and make me safe and take the hurt away. Government papers and banks and forms and taxes were fine, I knew there would always be a knowledgeable grown-up who would take care of it for me. A long-distance relationship was fine, I knew it would keep going forever in the fairytale way.

But in real life, that's not how it happens.

In real life, sometimes you get bad grades, sometimes you don't get better, sometimes you have to get complicated and expensive surgery, sometimes you get in trouble, sometimes you have no money. Sometimes you fight.

In real life, you have to think about the future. Now is fine, but what about then? What about grad school? What about jobs? What about families? I have too much ahead of me to think about spending the rest of my life with one person and having to plan everything around that. I have too much ahead of me to wait forever until, by some miracle, we end up in the same place again. I have too much ahead of me to not explore the world and the people in it.

The bickering gets to me. Playful, pretend-playful, or neither, it's bickering and I can't stand it. I can't stand to be the perpetual cheerleader, to always try to find solutions to problem, to always say "That's OK, do what's in your best interest, I can wait another six months to see you." I can't stand to always have to defend my opinions on such and such, whether about a Halloween costume or cultural differences. I can't stand the long silences sometimes when he needs time to think.

I know him well enough to know he's thinking roughly the same thing.

I'd like to say I got my crying over and done with several weeks ago, but I know that when it does end, I most likely won't be able to help it.

I'm sorry, Boy. While you're doing your thinking, I'm doing mine, too, and this is the conclusion I've come to.

It was great while it lasted, and I don't regret it, any of it, but it feels like it's time we parted ways.

Sure, it may take some time to reach the actual end, but I don't see any way out.

Time to think and explore my new grown-up world.

Saving daylight, writing by candlelight instead

When time comes to move my clocks back an hour, I always wait until Monday morning. I keep my regular schedule all weekend and offer myself the luxury of waking up an hour later to begin the week.

In Texas, the days don't change that much from summer to winter. It doesn't get dark in the afternoon, and mornings are clear by the time most people walk out. However, Texas has splendid sunsets. Earlier sunsets mean that there are still people in the streets to enjoy them. Sunsets in the University are particularly delightful: the white stone reflect the orange light everywhere, enveloping the world in warm colors.

One of my favorite moments of the day when we still lived in Paris was coming home from school on the 17:55 train. There were long stretches of open track where you could see almost the entire Bassin. The skyscrapers of La Défense stood grouped together in the haze to the right, Paris and its streets stretched out in the distance. Best of all, on the hour, right as the train passed the best viewpoint in the valley, the Lady Eiffel would light up and sparkle like diamonds.

It's been six years since I sat on that train and watched the City of Lights shimmer in the night. As winter approaches, I wonder if there is, somewhere on that ever-punctual train, a girl who waits for the hour to turn.

Happy surprises

I spontaneously woke up at 7:00 and went back to sleep as Quirky Roommate, who usually sleeps later than me, jumped out of bed, printed an essay, and ran out the door.

As he was discussing polyploidy, the Evolution professor took a headcount of Star Trek fans and explained that in "The Trouble With Tribbles," the grain quadrotriticale was an actual genetically engineered tetraploid grain (or, at least, the triticale part of it). Proof that Star Trek can have actual science sometimes!

In the laundry room, one of the washing machine had already been paid for and loaded with detergent, but no one was there and the lights were off. Later, as I was moving my loads to the dryer, a girl who had been taking out her clothes told me there were 40 minutes left on both of her dryers and I could have them. I saved $3 on laundry!

The bathroom has been invaded with Drosophila melanogaster ever since someone threw away rotting food in the trash. When they land on the mirror, you can come close enough to them to notice the details like red eyes and brown bodies (some had black bodies.) I've heard of them for years, genetics oblige, but I do believe that this is the closest I've ever come to a fruitfly. It was somewhat like meeting a famous person.

La Bohème is playing next week at the City Opera, and the University Honors Center is offering very cheap tickets for students. I snagged the last one. Whether I can actually make it to the show is another question, hopefully the Ochem lab that day is not too long.

Tonight, while I should have been working on my lab reports, I stumbled across an introductory scuba diving class in the course schedule for next semester. I deliberated taking it next year, when I realized it fit into my planned schedule for next semester. The novelty of taking a class just because hasn't quite worn off, and the utter strangeness of having such classes be offered at all is quite pleasing.

***

On the other hand, it's nearly midnight, I haven't made any significant headway whatsoever on my lab reports, I can't find my infrared spectroscopy data, and I don't care at all.

The gate

There is a small metal gate between two old and convoluted stone buildings that doesn't go anywhere. It's the type of gate that could be the door to a jail cell or a dungeon or a secret passageway. No one really knows what it's for. It opens into a wall that has no reason to be here other than to be between two buildings that don't have entrances on the ground but rather a set of double doors up one and a half flights of stairs and down three quarters of another one, all prettily set between white stone columns and carved railings.

Point is, there is a door in the middle of nowhere that opens into the wall, and there is something inside this wall, like a hallway, but no one knows what it is or where it goes to.

***

A film crew was there today, filming something. All I saw of it was the setting up of lighting, though. It took them a while, and I had to go to class eventually.

If I were a zombie, I would be so much better at this.

Tiny Russian Friend and I have been studying since Wednesday for tomorrow morning's Vertebrate Physiology exam. Today, eight hours straight of going through books and notes and diagrams has me going completely bonkers and quite incoherent, not to mention it made me miss the kickoff of NaBloPoMo, but at least I will do much better than on the last exam.

The brain is on my mind.

After so much studying, we both spontaneously drew and labeled the brain on our sandwich bags when we went to grab dinner. The terrifying part is that there wasn't enough paper to draw as detailed a diagram as we ought to have been able to draw.

Ah well. Que sera sera, and I'll just go rest my various thalamic nuclei for the night.

Haikus for a rainy day

Cloudy grey morning
Chilly wind nips at my nose
Yep, it's October

Rain, capricious wind
Colorful fabric mushrooms
Turning inside out

The rain keeps falling
Through capillary action
Up my trouser legs

Cold, muddy, soggy,
Nothing like a good sweater
And some nice warm socks

(No such luck for me
I don't have any clean socks
It's laundry tonight)

(Quite unfortunate,
Shameful predicament
For the Archduchess)

A stack of paper
Clamors for my attention
All of them homework

Perfect fall weather
If only I had some milk
To make hot cocoa

Meditation

Mexico seen from the catwalk of the second telescope of Observatory In The Mountains, September 26th, 2009

Looking at this image clears my mind. I can feel the wind blowing my thoughts and worries away as I stand on the summit of the tallest mountain around, enveloped by the endless sky and the land all around, closer to the stars than ever.

No one else exists in that moment.

An explanation? No. A cop-out? Maybe.

I have come to regard my writing as an indicator of how I feel.


I haven't written in weeks.


The second and third parts of the trip lie in my draft folder, unfinished and unsatisfying. I've promised emails and letters and postcards, but those are either nonexistent or blank pages or one-sided pictures.

Sure, I've written things. Things I had to turn in for a grade, things bureaucracy demanded. But not things I wanted to write, things no one made me write.

I'm sitting here, sick again, with a pounding headache and nothing but the longing to go to sleep, like I've done all weekend and yearned to all week. I have worked without a moment's respite for weeks on end, and it is starting again tomorrow.

I miss my family, I miss France, I miss the past, the future, I miss all sorts of things I can't have. I miss The Boy, whom I won't see until March and haven't seen since August fourth, I miss my little cousin, whom I pushed around in her pram and is now entering sixth grade, with whom I have spent a total of two months in the past six years. I miss people I won't ever see, people who've forgotten me.

I feel like I can't do anything right, like I'm not dependable anymore or even never really was, like I whine too much and annoy people constantly.

I tried to think of something happy, to play the Glad Game, but for once there was nothing.

I guess life just is ordinary sometimes. Sometimes, there isn't anything exciting.

I have trouble accepting that.

Some part of my brain, the logical and analytical part, tells me that the sheer number of times I've used "I" in this post is enough to give last year's Psychology professor a field day, that I really ought to do something about it. That part gives me advice, like I give advice to people all the time, but I won't follow it because, overall, I am a hypocrite and never follow my own advice.

Part I: On the road

The road goes straight as far as the eye can see. Here in the Texas plains, the eye can see very far.

The miles of asphalt pass by, unwavering, as the sun travels to the horizon. The land is flat, with the occasional hill the unfazed engineers cut right through, leaving walls of brown and grey strata that would delight any passing geologist.

It has been at least an hour since we last passed a town, or a hamlet, or even a single house. Other vehicles are few and far between. Brush, small trees, yuccas and Joshua trees follow each other in a patchwork over an endless sea of dry grass and cacti. Only the barbed wire delineating some ranch property and the occasional wooden poles relaying wires attest to the passage of humans.

We've been traveling for three hours, and we are not even halfway there.

Suddenly, Man In Charge points out a radio antenna a few miles in the distance. "Civilization!" someone yells. Not quite, but it is the first--and last--semblance of a town between here and the end of our drive.

An hour later, replete with somewhat questionable Mexican food, we board the bus again. Night has fallen. The perfect half moon hangs in the sky, the reddish black remnants of the sunset outlines the hills in the distance.

***

The hotel is a quaint little spot, founded in 1884 and seemingly untouched ever since. Comfortable armchairs, lampshades, drapes, and lace curtains: you could expect Humphrey Bogart to be standing there, a whiskey in one hand and a swooning woman in the other, a world of steamer trunks and telegrams, intrigue and beauty.

I can see why the Observatory was built here: I don't remember ever seeing so many stars in my life. Absolutely no light emanates from the town aside from a scant few streetlamps. We stand on the balcony, both elated and awed, breathing in the cold night air after nearly nine hours confined in a bus. This is what the sky looked like to those astronomers of long ago, before lights and cities ruined the sky. In the City, you are lucky if you can find a dozen stars on any given night.

We are lucky, the hotel offers wireless internet. But, slowly, as error windows appear on everyone's screens, various people, familiar and unfamiliar, congregate in our room. We are the room at the end of the hallway, right where the stairs end. Our door is open and the room is big. For nearly an hour, computer geeks, mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists tap away at their keyboards and spout series of letters and numbers, attempting to catch the elusive signal. Alas, to no avail. A church bell tolls across the street to mark two in the morning.

We go to bed.

To the stars and beyond

Highly Selective Science Program is off to Observatory In The Mountains for the weekend. The drive is eight hours, the town remote and sparsely populated, and the view stunning.

I once spent a week camping in those mountains with my seventh-grade Space Science class, observing Jupiter and Saturn, exploring caverns, and attending a very boring lecture about Sun spots.

I am quite excited about this trip. I will bring back pictures!

Bookkeeping

First of all, I stumbled upon this video earlier today. I do believe the young lady's views reflect my own quite accurately.



Secondly, I received an email one of the students from Highly Selective Science Program encouraging all of us to finance a micro-loan project. I have been interested in microfinancing for some time, but I don't really like the idea of donating to a large faceless organization. With this organization (Kiva), you lend a certain amount of money ($25 or more) to a specific project (such as buying extra chickens or machines for a shop or something the like) to a specific person. The person uses the money raised to finance his or her project and pays it back, bit by bit. You get your money back and can then use it to finance another project if you chose to, and so on and so forth.



To me, it seems like a very fair use of a little spare cash that you eventually get back, to help someone lift themselves out of poverty.

A night in the Old World

It started with a cold rainy day, a rare happening in September on this side of Texas.


A stunning sunset, which I attempt and fail to capture in all its glory while holding on to my umbrella with one shoulder.


A bus ride in the pitch-dark night, raindrops smearing the light of the sparse streetlights on the windows.

A young man gets on. He has long, wavy blond hair, sideburns, a mustache, and a goatee. His hands are white and very fine. With his red velvet jacket and philosophy book, his name could be Jean-Baptiste, he could be a university student in an 18th century Paris. Alas, my stop arrives and pulls me out of my reverie while I walk back into present day.

With three pounds of apples, a bottle of juice and a bottle of milk, I totter back to the stop. I set my bag down and waltz with an old childhood friend, Bach's Cello Suites. It is late at night for shopping, the buses are sparse. At 20:36, exactly on schedule as predicted by the City transportation authorities, an empty bus surges out of the gloom and picks me up.

Still trailing a faint aroma of spearmint, caraway, and naphthalene, the results of the evening's laboratory work, I choose a spot and look at the transformed world beyond the foggy window. Back on campus, there are many students waiting at the stop. A late class, or possibly a lab.

The walk back to my dorm is deserted, save for the bats, illuminated by the light from the belltower. A drum solo floats out of the round stone building that looks like an Italian casa, courtyard and all.

In my room, I make a perfect cup of hot chocolate: thick, creamy, slightly bitter but still sweet.

I have no lab to write up, no problem sets to work through, no test to study for.

I feel happy.

Right on schedule

September 22nd, first day of Autumn.

The rain is falling, the mud is sticking to my shoes, it's 21°C and everyone is wearing a sweater and rainboots.

At least we'll have had a proper enjoyable day of Autumn before it gets back up to summertime at the end of the week. I'd better hurry up and make some hot cocoa while I have the right weather to enjoy it.

How's your weather?

Reading

Today I read a non-school book uninterrupted for the first time in a very long while.

Unfortunately, I had to head back to doing homework before I could finish it.

I miss having the time to read.

Happy unbirthday

This evening, my friends took me to Unabridged Sustenance for a late birthday celebration.

We wandered awhile among the various food stalls. We looked in wonderment at the enormous cheese section (it being an international store, it was good cheese) while the shopkeeper, charmed by our obvious delight at so many different kinds of cheese, handed us morsel after morsel of delicious milk products. We rummaged through the cheese bargain bin, All Cheeses Under $3. We looked in yearning at the patisserie section, all sorts of pies and tarts, fondants and Unbirthday Cakes, mousses and éclairs, macaroons and candied apples. We looked in longing at the sushi, sandwiches, vegetable dishes, grilled meat, fresh fish, and so much more.

We each chose something different, and each tried each other's meal. For dessert, Bookish Friend bought me a chocolate mousse, and all of them including the diners at a nearby table (the man had a wonderful bass voice, might I add) sang Happy Birthday.

Crazy Redhead Mathematically-Inclined Friend gave me her old copy of Shadow Baby and a book about women and science.

I like days like this.

It never ends...

Last night, Internet-Savvy Friend took me to the student center Casino Night, where she proceeded to fight her way to the top of the poker tournament and I proceeded to win the scavenger hunt using largely the contents of my purse and the quick wits of my partner.

Then several of us moved downstairs to the theater where we saw "Up" and emptied an entire box of tissues.

After the movie, we walked all the way to the Secret Courtyard where we buried Michael Phelps last year and held a touching memorial service for Ernest.

This morning, I discovered that the Telegraph had picked The Boy's sister's advert as one of the twenty most bizarre Craigslist adverts of all time... She received at least two marriage proposals from complete strangers after posting it.

At lunch, Fairly Odd Acquaintance half-persuaded me to join the Highly Selective Science Program flag-football team, in desperate need of female players and, in fact, in desperate need of anyone able-bodied enough to not lose 29-0 like they did last week. Apparently, it doesn't matter that I don't know what flag football is, how it's played, or that I don't have any coordination whatsoever.

This afternoon, I went to lab and split chicken cells for two hours (my eyes are still slightly unfocused after screening 96x4, 384 wells with a microscope). They are growing! It's working! (Uh oh... I just jinxed it, didn't I?)

Tonight, as Bookish Friend, Friend With Many Pairs Of Sunglasses, and Childish Booksmart Friend are home for the weekend and Friend Who Likes Science Fiction and Crazy Redhead Mathematically-Inclined Friend are on a date, Internet-Savvy Friend and I went out to dinner and had a movie marathon, Sleeping Beauty followed by The Sword In The Stone followed by Anastasia. I hadn't seen Sleeping Beauty in several years, and it glaringly lacks both a plot and character development, but my friend really wanted to see it. Sword In The Stone is in my opinion one of the best Disney movies, what with the fact that it favors brains over brawn, there is no love interest whatsoever (aside from a squirrel), and the characters have personalities. Anastasia was just fantastic, as it always is, great animation, good music, interesting characters, and a non-shallow love story (possibly my favorite of all time, come on, they were meant for each other.)

While I was walking back to my room, I noticed flyers on the bathroom doors announcing that my T-Rex design was in the running to figure on the Quad's annual T-shirt.



Overall, busy day, busy week... But I wonder what I will do all weekend? My friends are gone or lovebirding or off to a doctor's appointment, my roommate is home for the weekend, and I have no homework.

What to do, what to do?

Counting

Things In My Room That Are Red:

-one very long red hair
-two radish earrings
-one Green Eggs And Ham sweater
-one Science hoodie
-five carnations
-four alstroemerias
-one striped teacup
-a picture of a Cephalopholis miniata
-the label on a bottle of Japanese cherry blossom eau de toilette
-the lid of a jar of peanut butter
-one bottle of grenadine syrup
-one keychain flashlight
-one wallet
-one pack of tarot playing cards
-the "vaporize" end of a toy phaser
-a printout of the Great A'tuin the World Turtle, the Elephants, and the Discworld
-a stamped "W" on a medication prescription

Late night

Having memorized all twenty common amino acids, their abbreviations and structures, having extensively studied and calculated microevolutionary mechanisms, having designed a picture of a T-Rex holding a pair of knitting needles, I will now go to bed.

Ernest

I remember the first time I met him: He was the most beautiful fish in the store.

Sparkling a dazzling array of blue and green, proudly flashing his fins to all who came near, his personality overflowed the bowl and permeated the few meters around. You could feel his disdain just by looking at him.

Ernest was a fish with character. He swam around while others napped, he lunged when others nibbled, he was furious when others were merely annoyed. Had he lived in his native Thai rice paddies, he would have been a king, a warrior, a splendid fighter.

Ernest was not a fish to be owned. He was a fish who owned, whose company he chose to share with y0u.

For an entire year, Ernest lived with me. His jewel tones danced back and forth behind the magnifying glass of the fishbowl, like a living, precious gem. Today, he decided to move on, to explore, blow bubbles, and nip at the rest of the Universe.

Ernest was more than just a fish. He was a friend, sometimes. He was an enemy, sometimes. He was a rival, sometimes. He was a confidant, sometimes. He was his own person.

Fare well, Ernest. May you find the juiciest and tastiest bloodworms in the Great Fishbowl In The Sky somewhere. I hope you find Michael Phelps and Galileo up there somewhere to keep you company.



Ernest the Ravenous Nymphomaniac Betta Fish
September 2008 - 15 September 2009

Worrying

I am worried about Ernest.

He didn't eat yesterday and has been laying at the bottom of his bowl gulping miserably since last night. The outlook is bleak.

Don't leave me, little guy! You've got enough fight in you to make it!

A slice of now

Someone is playing the flute in her room down the hallway.

The angles of protein folding seem a lot more complicated when Greek letters are involved.

Conversely, the more Greek letters are involved in the name of an organization, the sillier and shallower it seems.

I had to wear a mask when I went to the SSB today.

The nurse said my coughing, sneezing, stuffy nose and headache were caused by allergies, which I don't believe as I know enough biology by now to 1) recognize the symptoms, 2) know that I am not susceptible to allergies, 3) know that the anti-allergen she gave me didn't work, and 4) know I caught this from my friends. Hopefully the doctor tomorrow will be more reasonable.

I'd like to thank the Academy

It takes a village to raise a child...

I owe this last year in great part to all of my friends.

The friends I met and have come to care for at the University, who are so very different and come from so many places, some of whom like Science and some of whom not, who wave to me on the street, sit next to me in class, grow and sell plants with me, who drop by and say hi to my fish, who study with me and so much more besides. Thank you so much.

The friends I haven't met but admire from afar, who practice the piano in the common rooms, who sing opera in the kitchens of the dining hall, who whistle in the construction sites, who carry teetering buckets of ice in elevators, who have matching umbrellas in the rain, who put clothes on the statue of Lady Artemis in the courtyard, who sing Disney songs in the shower, and so much more besides. Thank you so much.

The friends I met and have come to care for through this blog and theirs, people around the world with fantastic lives and open hearts, people who make me travel and dream and think and laugh and cry and so much more besides. Thank you so much.

The friends I'm a bit intimidated to call friends, but who are always so open and giving and selfless and so much more besides that I can't help but feel proud and happy. Thank you so much.

The friends I've known for a long time and spend my days with, who let me try a bite of their food, who watch movies with me, who talk with me until long past midnight, who curl up in a pile and sleep with me, who selflessly share both their germs and their cold medicine, who dress up in Star Trek costumes and make me laugh and comfort me and so much more besides. Thank you so much.

The friends I've known for a long time and don't spend my days with, who send me flowers and call me on the phone and try to educate me in the ways of the world and also the Internet and know much much more than anyone else and one sends me long emails and the other chats with me on Skype, and so much more besides. Thank you so much.

The friends who are friends by default because they're family. Some leave, some stay, some are confused and all are sad sometimes, but mostly they love me and each other and they are wonderful, they cook food and give me hugs and watch movies and listen to music and so much more. Thank you so much.

It takes a village to raise a child, and my village is the world. Thank you, world.

Not Kansas Anymore

Tonight I helped Mother pack her suitcase.

She is leaving tomorrow morning.

Cookies, Milk, and more Bananas

Tonight:

First, I went to a study group for my Vertebrate Physiology Neurobiology class, where the professor explained to us how our brain turns off our butt neurons so that we don't constantly think about them when we are sitting (that is why your backside may be numb when you get up after a long sit), that most people are hypokaelimic (read: potassium deficiency) and thus less alert (a banana a day will make you more attentive and awake), that 40% of the food you eat goes to working your neurons, and that when you hit your funny bone, a hundred thousand neurons are temporarily turned off in your neck.

Then, I went to a showing of Milk in the dormitory common room, with a plate of fresh cookies provided by the student committee. I'd never seen the movie before, had heard good reviews, wanted to see it, missed the beginning due to the study group, loved the rest of the movie. Definitely one to see.

After that, I talked with Childish Booksmart Friend and Eccentric Legendary Guy for a good hour. It turns out that Eccentric Legendary Guy is interested in research but doesn't know how to get in, and of course I went into teacher mode and gave him a lecture then and there about labs and professors and undergraduate research.

I'd say it was a pretty good day.

Fire burn and cauldron bubble

Today was the first day of the dreaded Ochem lab.

Last night (and early this morning, might I add) were spent writing up the pre-lab, which includes amongst other things drawing a chart of all the chemicals we would be using, their physical properties, any hazards they may cause, and the treatments necessary. Needless to say, it took quite a while.

The lab itself was like something out of a Potions class in Harry Potter: A surly professor barking orders, miles of strangely contorted glass tubing, clinking bottles and vials, and three samples to be collected in bottles and turned in to the professor.

With my customary luck, I picked the bench with no clamps and a frayed water-hose, but eventually, with much toil and trouble (though I don't know what impression I made on the teaching assistant), I set up my apparatus and joyfully distilled away for the next three hours.

Some poor girl on the bench next to me didn't secure her water-hose tightly enough, and it sprayed all over for a few minutes while we scrambled to turn off the water. Ironically, she was wearing rain boots, so no harm was done (and now the floor is clean!)

The results didn't seem too bad, the data followed a nice curve (although of course by being over-cautious I under-heated my mixture and consequently had a huge dip in the middle of the graph), and the gas chromatography analysis yielded a pretty curve.

Maybe this is not so terrifying after all...

***

On the minus side, my friends have been playing hot potato with some virus or other for the past week, and now I think it's my turn. But I've got peppermint tea, so everything's all right.

Playing Frankenstein

Lab Partner and I spent two and a half hours in lab today, even though it is Labor Day.

After a series of complicated, difficult, and increasingly awesome manipulations (made all the more difficult by the use of the biosafety cabinet, which means that you have to watch your every move so as not to hold anything over anything else and douse everything with 70% ethanol before moving it into the cabinet), we managed to transform the finished DNA product (you know, the one I've been complaining about since January?) into chicken cells. Finally. Now all we have to do for the next two weeks is sit there and watch the cells die as the antibiotics take over and kill the non-transformed cells.

I may even have enough free time to do my homework. Now that sounds like a good prospect.

In charge

Friday, I presented the first meeting of my committee in Geeky Science Organization. Today, I received my first email as such.

It's a scary thought, being in charge. I have to organize things, talk to people, answer their questions, keep track of who did what, where and how.

It's not that I don't like what I am doing: if anything, I love the Research Committee and what it does. But somehow, I don't feel like I have the ability to handle it responsibly enough.

On the other hand, practice is the best teacher, and if there is no other way to survive than to do what I am supposed to do, then all is for the best.

Really.

I just wish they realized I mostly have no idea what I'm doing.

A Love Hate Mixed Feelings story

"18/20, Good work."

She hands the paper to the group of guys sitting in front of me. The class applauds, this was a difficult devoir.

"17.5, 17, 17, 16.5..." The grades go down steadily. Oh well, I wasn't expecting a stellar grade. I know I should have done the Algebra portion and she the Geometry, but we didn't think it through. Maybe we'd get a 13.

"12, 11.5..." I begin to sweat. As long as we made the moyenne...

"10, 9.5..." She still hasn't called our names. This is bad.

Finally, there is only one paper left. And she doesn't look happy.

"Mesdemoiselles X and Y, please come to the front of the class."

The walk to the blackboard seems endless. Eventually, we stand there, trembling and on the brink of tears, facing a now-silent classroom of knowing stares and an irate teacher.

A long silence. Then:

"Eight. Eight out of twenty. What in the world were you thinking, Miss Archduchess? I know that you are worth more than a 3/10 in Algebra. You should have looked over Miss X's work, if not done it yourself. Better yet, you should have worked it out together. Miss X, your Algebra is truly terrible. Miss Archduchess, your Geometry is not much better. I am appalled. Both of you. I want this paper signed by both of your parents, and I want a reworked copy on my desk next week. Class dismissed."



I should have known better. Really, I should have.

I'm terrible at math. And it took me until my senior year of high school to realize that.

I thought it was my best subject, but I should have noticed the pattern: when certain kinds of thinking were involved, it became obvious that I did not understand Math. Not in the least.

The first sign was a 6.5/20 on a Geometry test in 5th grade. The teacher put it down to my recent illness, and aside from some snickering, no one thought the worse of me. In eighth grade, there was The Paper. When I handed it to Father to sign, I received a resounding slap. In tenth grade, there was the 73 on the Matrices test.

And, finally, Calculus. An entire year of terrible grades, homework that made sense and exams that didn't, late night lessons with Father, and his constant disapproval and disappointment.

I'm terrible at Math, and I know it.

But I also figured out in seventh grade that an object fitting the requirements of Poincaré's Conjecture would be a hollow sphere in which the inside and outside surfaces were joined in the fourth dimension. I once received a 136/100 on an assignment because I found the problems so fascinating that I kept going and made my own. I received a perfect score on the national Calculus exam at the end of twelfth grade.

I can't help but shudder whenever Calculus is mentioned, but I would gladly take a Topology class if I had the opportunity, intend to take an entire semester's worth of Discrete Mathematics, and find myself looking at data of biological functions in terms of their derivatives and sometimes integrals.

Mathematics and I, we have a complicated relationship. I fear them, dread them, despair in the knowledge that in ignoring them I may be digging my scientific grave. On the other hand, the titles of Math books and classes appeal to me like a choir of sirens, delectable in their familiar yet strangely exotic names.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and the median of a non-isosceles triangle was staring me in the face, taunting me.

Why do I do this to myself?

I could have been asleep hours ago, but instead I went to the free showings of Star Trek at the Student Building Theater. Yes, showings. Two in a row. Bringing the total number of times I have seen this movie to six.

Ay, me. What will I do with myself? And what's more, why is this movie so good?

***

On the way back to our rooms (the usual gang and I), we ran into the weird guys who live in the first room in the hallway after the entrance. They like to come out and greet passers-by, especially late at night. And, uh, this may be the hormones speaking, but I really don't mind that they go around shirtless and both happen to be very good-looking.

***

This Monday is Labor Day, which means no class and extra sleep. I could use both.

***

GB and Bill, tomorrow's post will be for you. (Hah, now I have to write it!)

Kickoff

I live again: today was the first meeting of Geeky Science Organization, to which I wore my special flower hat.

We kicked off to a full auditorium, with a rather thought-provoking video and speech by the head of the University's Undergraduate Research Program. The officers introduced themselves (my public speaking skills are still nonexistent), duties and committees were explained, pizza was had.

As a farewell surprise, our beloved ex-fearless leader (who stepped down due to health reasons) wrote the committee descriptions on the agenda with his customary humor. However, none of the officers knew about this, and hilarity ensued when there were laughs in the audience as the committees were presented on the slideshow.

Hopefully we will retain a fair number of people and once again rule the College of Natural Sciences. I for one am fairly excited about the possibility of touring (once again) the particle accelerator in the Physics lab of University Back Home, or the lasers in the basement of Ridiculously Tall Building, or the leafcutter ant farm, or the lab growing algae from which to extract biofuels, or the telescope, or... or...

I will fall asleep with sweet dreams of Science tonight.

Science, as usual

I've begun to work with sterile cultures in a biosafety cabinet. That means that everything is washed with water and 70% ethanol before and after I work, that I must organize my work surface so that at no point my hands pass over an open container or its cap, and that my homework consists of picking up a plastic tube cap 3 cm wide and 1 cm deep with my index and middle fingers and manipulating it until it is screwed back on the tube.

Without, of course, having my hand over any inside part at any point.

Strangely enough, I picked up the skill on the first try, while my lab partner had to try several times and with her left hand before succeeding. After some experimentation, I have become increasingly certain of a hypothesis I formulated some time ago: I am extremely right-dominant.

My right hand is very dexterous, while my left is slightly clumsy. I can stir or whisk something in the kitchen much longer when using my right arm over my left. I can carry a bag longer if it is on my right shoulder than if it is on my left. I can make some faces with the right side of my face but not the left, raise my right eyebrow, and my right hand is always more mobile than the left when I type. The only exception I can find is that I balance or spin on my left foot and stumble and stagger when I attempt either on my right foot.

I don't know what that means, other than that the brain is fascinating. Hopefully I might know why by the end of this semester, once I have read all of my Neurobiology book.

To science and outer space

My violin class was canceled to make way for music majors, so I'm left with all science classes.

I don't really mind, especially when my Evolution homework is reading National Geographic, the Biochemistry textbook talks! really! excitedly! about Archeabacteria being able to live at 85°C, the Vertebrate Physiology lecture is all about how your brainstem keeps you from falling when you trip and there happens to be a huge traffic jam in the escalators right after class and you can see twenty people in a row trip over the same spot, Ethics talks about Giraffes, and Ochem lab sounds like a Potions class right out of Harry Potter.

And, of course, lab is starting back up and I will be growing chicken cells by the end of the week.

I'm glad I like school so much. It gives me something to clear my brain with.

No news, good news

Today is one of those days when it's very, very hard to play the Glad Game.

This morning, I was happy to talk to Dad and Bro and Sis. They told me about their week and asked, of course, how college was.

Then:

-You're coming home the weekend of the 12th, right?"
-Of course! It's my birthday.
-Good, good... Uh, you know I'll be in Italy until the 13th, right?
-Yeah. But I would have liked to see you for my birthday.
-Ma fille, that conference has been planned for a year.
-I know. But still. I'll be back in the City by the time your plane gets back.
-The reason I asked was because, well... Your mother is leaving for France on the morning of the 12th. So you'll be taking care of your siblings for that weekend. Je suis désolé.

So that's it, then. My father will be doing math on the other side of the Atlantic, and my mother will be leaving us for approximately forever.

On my birthday.

I really want to remember the good things that happened today, the conversation with my aunt this afternoon, the picnic with Highly Selective Science Program, the new people I met, the card games on the old tables in the common room, the National Geographic article I had to read for homework, the splendid Texas sunset.

But really, I can't stop thinking that on Friday the eleventh, I will be stepping into a house with a Mother packing her suitcase, an empty spot at the table where Father should be, a Sis who will be laughing so that you can't see the tears, and a Bro who will act silly and not look at anyone because big boys don't cry.

And I'll put my stuff down and do homework and make dinner, and all that there will be on the TV we don't have is memorial programs for 9/11.

Pillow fight!

Tonight I did something I have been wanting to do for a very long time now: take part in a flash mob.

Now, there is a bridge in The City famous for its colony of Mexican free-tailed Bats. Every night during the summer, and for most of the year, people gather at sunset to watch the bats take off for the night. They sit on a little grassy hill, with pillows and blankets, with their families and sometimes a picnic.

We brought pillows to sit on and be comfortable. Apparently, many of the onlookers had decided to be as comfortable as possible, because there was an inordinate number of pillows.

The Sun continued on its journey downwards, and we settled down, slapping at the many bugs buzzing around, waiting for the bats to come out.

Except that, at 20:00 sharp, an altercation broke out. People started arguing, then hitting each other with their pillows. Soon, there was a massive pillow fight.

There were yells and screams and thuds everywhere. The dead and wounded lay everywhere on the ground.

Suddenly, at 20:04, we sat back down on our pillows, just in time to see the first of the bats come out. There were cheers and applause everywhere.

The bats poured out for ten minutes, twenty minutes.

We finally left. On the way to the car, we met several pillow carriers and shared a knowing smile and a wink with them.

And then went for ice cream.

Anniversary

Tonight we celebrated an anniversary of sorts: more or less one year ago, my friends met Friend Who Likes Science Fiction through a game of Never Have I Ever.

So tonight, we gathered in Friend With Many Pairs Of Sunglasses and Crazy Redhead Mathematically Inclined Friend's room and talked and gossiped and asked each other questions until, well, now.

I think it is a remarkable aspect of our friendship that we all feel comfortable enough with each other to reveal intensely personal things, that no one felt surprised or left out, and that there was no need for secrets because everything was shared.

Except for one thing. Perhaps we were all too tired at the end, or could not keep track of whose turn it was to ask and receive questions, but I never had the opportunity to answer "I write" to the question "What is one thing we don't know about you?"

On one hand, I feel that this is a very important aspect of who I am, but on the other, even if I had told them I kept a blog, I still wouldn't have told them what or where it was.

There was a night, some time ago, when a group of girls told each other some of their secrets and became very close together.

Since then, so much has changed, but tonight there was a group of girls telling each other almost all of their secrets, so much more intimately. They were already friends.

I am glad I have such friends.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

"I'll tell you a secret. When I want to take God at his word
exactly, I take a peep out the window at His Creation." [...]
"The flowers and birds and all, you mean to say that's your Gospel."

-Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

If I had to pick five pictures to describe the incredible beauty of the Place Where The Alligators Roam, it would be these.