one more miracle

Hi LJ!

A quick wander through my memories in search of McShep fic (hey, I was feeling nostalgic) brought me on one of my old posts where I mused about SGA fanon vs. canon, first discovered Tom McRae, and reported that my study abroad to Dublin would be cheaper for my family than staying in the US. It flashed me back real hard, to a much simpler time, when I was younger, more innocent, more introverted, but also connected to a beautiful web of people through this... place. Livejournal. And LJ, I miss you. I know you're fading, have been for ages, but I will not let you go until they pry you out of my cold dead hands.

I don't just miss the community. I miss the record of my life. I miss that every moment of my feelings was recorded here. I've tried keeping private journals but it just isn't the same. Pretty much impossible to keep up the same way, really, for me anyway.

In any case, have a kamikaze update!
( Career change, boyfriend and migraines, oh my! )

Ummm so yeah! Things! Happening! A mixed bag but overall I'm doing pretty well. I still don't feel anything approaching a real adult but I'm trying to make steps to get there so we shall see. To Be Continued, I guess, probably a long time in the future.

Talk to me! Who's still out there? Anybody? Bueller?

Yesterday was pretttttty fantastic, and I'm going to tell you why!

1. I woke up epically, ridiculously sore. Like, difficult to lift myself out of bed sore. That's not the fantastic part! The fantastic part is that I'm sore because of indoor soccer and every time I think of that it makes me smile. :D
   
2. SCIENCE!!!!1!!!1!11 Science totally WORKED for me yesterday, and I got this awesome amazing result that will guide my project into truly exciting directions. I am such a nerd but this was SO happy-making. I've been feeling a little blah on the science front lately so this was a highly welcome kick in the pants. It also means I get to start doing new and exciting experiment types, which is great cause I was bored of what I was doing before! YAY SCIENCE! I had a great brainstorming session with Jason (my boss) and we have sooo many ideas. *twirls!*
   
3. DIE NATIONALMANNSCHAFT! In the past few days, this amazing book has come to light called Die Spieler which is literally 200 enormous glossy pages of photographs of MY BOYS dressed up as old 40s crime drama film characters. SERIOUSLY. THERE ARE HATS AND SUITS AND OLD MERCEDES AND PIANOS AND CAKES AND PILLOW FIGHTS AND POOLS! STRIPPING IN POOLS! Um. They might have deviated from the crime theme a little bit in favor of NAKED WET FOOTBALLERS, but I am seriously not complaining. Unffffffff. One bit that should be delightful to any girl with a beating heart is the following clip, in which Mario says "Wow wow wowwww!" about Basti and Basti declares that "This is fashion!" Yes in English!
   
   
   ♥♥♥♥
   The only thing that sucks is that I WANT THAT BOOK SO BADLY but it is $55 with shipping from Germany. :((( I may cave yet...
   
4. Relatedly, all of my girls at loewsmiserables! (The fan community for the German national team.) Even though the World Cup is over, the fandom rages on with so much life and laughter and delight! I have made three posts there with over 100 comments of giddy glee and gifs and awesomeness. I love that place and I love our boys. <3333 It's really cool to feel so involved in a fandom - it's been a while!
   
5. Also relatedly, my #Ger girls on Twitter! I posted on Loews asking if people wanted a Twitter support group during the World Cup about 3 weeks ago, and what resulted was this super awesome group of girls with whom I have exchanged literally THOUSANDS of Tweets. It's been a blast. I love you guys. ♥
   
6. And the best for last... I went on a date last night! :D

So I already told the story about how a barista at my favorite coffee shop offered me his number but I ended up giving mine his later and blah complicated silliness! Well, we have been on two (~three?) dates since then! :D He (Matt) called me last week and asked if I wanted to go to dinner and a movie, and so we did, and it was quite nice. We saw Winter's Bone, the Sundance festival winner - a very stark and gorgeous film, I highly recommend it. Then we got dinner and drinks and capped off the night with a stroll by the river where we hung out on a bench at 2 AM! It was quite a lovely date, but I must admit that I wasn't feeling a zing - there were a couple things about him that rubbed me the wrong way, so I was having my doubts. But then yesterday he texted me and asked if I wanted to go out for dinner, and of course I wanted to give him a second chance so I said sure, and suggested this noodle bar next to his coffee shop that he loooves but that I hadn't been to yet. So I go to the restaurant and he's not there - turns out he locked his keys in his car, WITH THE CAR RUNNING, and is waiting for AAA. *facepalm* Lolz. He was only a couple blocks away so I walked there, laughed at him, and we hung out on the grass for a while waiting for the AAA dude. It was a beautiful summer evening so I didn't really mind! Then we went to dinner, and then to my house for a bit where I gave him my Empires and Gold Motel CDs because he's totally into little indie bands and I want him to LOOOVE them, and also my Dollhouse DVDs, aaaand everything was lovely! I think we were both a lot more relaxed this time and everything was just sweet and fun and he really makes me laugh a lot. I'm definitely, definitely fond and will be seeing more of him!

Now I can tell you a lot of the reasons he's awesome, since this appears to be continuing. So he's a super experienced barista at my favorite coffee shop, which = free coffee and also he's a coffee nerd, which I find AWESOME. He got his degree in "general studies" at UMich after transferring from a couple places, and that included mostly English but also Womens Studies (!!!!) and a bunch of other random stuff. He's from a tiny town in upstate Michigan. He loves Firefly and Arrested Development and knows way too much about way too many indie bands (though he's not TOO pretentious about it). He's good friends with most of the people in the local music scene. He rooted for Germany in the World Cup (mostly because his boss is German, but still!). He smokes quite a bit of pot but is smart about it, haha. He wants to get his MFA in POETRY. I just. How is he real! I looove that he's a nerd so we speak the same language, but he's a totally different KIND of nerd than I'm used to. It's extremely refreshing to spend time with someone who isn't a scientist!

SOOOOO that's my life right now, in a rather long winded nutshell! Soccer = awesome, science = awesome, fangirls = awesome, German fussballers = awesome, and new boy = awesome.

\o/

Firstly: Happy birthday glamorous_nymph! I hope it is a lovely one. ♥

Secondly: LOOK I HAVE A JACOB PITTS ICON. He's so pretty siiiiigh. I maaade it! And I feel I should share the original picture with you, because HOLY PIERCING EYES BATMAN. *___* ( Click at your own risk! )

Speaking of Jacob Pitts, I rewatched some of Justified episode 2 today (and right after I tweeted about it, Brian Schechter tweeted only the words "Justified episode 2" - it was creepy) and man, I forgot that Tim (JACOB PITTS) has some really great scenes there! I love the conversation he has with Raylan about watching targets when he was a sniper in Afghanistan. I want more character development like that, and more one-on-one hotass dudes time! C'mon show! Overall, though, I'm REALLY loving Justified. A lot. You should watch it!

So I had a whole bunch of things planned to post about, and then I randomly clicked on a tab in which I've been going back and reading all my Dublin LJ entries. I found one where I talked about Niall, near the end of my time there, and god, it's SO OBVIOUS that I was completely ass-over-teakettle for him, and he was for ME, and we did nothing about it until my last week there. Why do we fail so hard? I don't say this lightly, but - I love him. I do. We've been an ocean apart for two years, yet I feel closer to him than most other people in the universe. We've maintained a beautiful friendship through emails and talking all the time, and he's just - so important to me. I love him. I do. I think I might do something about it this time I'm back in Dublin, because even though we can't really be together, I want him to know how I feel. *decisive nod*

Okay, current things! On Thursday, I was starting a new big experiment I've never done before. And it was my second to last day in the lab. It was a day of total fail - the fire alarm went off twice for no reason, a machine I was using cut out, etc. Long story short, I was in lab until past 11 PM, and ate Cheez-Its for dinner. Awesome. So needless to say, I was exhausted, and the next morning my alarm made nary a dent in my rock-like slumber. I woke up at 2 pm, woozy and confused, and went OH SHIT. I emailed my boss and rushed in. She told me she hadn't laughed like that in a while! Haha. Anyway, it was a great motivator to have such limited time (I had a dinner party to be at at 7:30!) and I got a shitload of science done in a very short time. I got one very exciting result! As in, the first result that made me go "oh wow!" all semester. Better late than never right? :P So that was my last day of experiments. On Monday, I'll give my research presentation, then I'll be done! *hands*

Apparently, I "matched" with four guys from speed dating - three engineers and a computer scientist. Hilarious. All three engineers have emailed me, which is sweet, but I honestly don't really remember which they were, except for one of them, and he's pretty zany. Which can be a good thing, but I don't know. I'm dithering. Anyway, my roomies poked and prodded at me until I just said yes to the one who set a concrete time and place, so we're going for brunch tomorrow! *hands* We'll see. I highly doubt this will turn into anything (these guys, like, embody my problems with Dave multiplied by a billionty, and rather made me miss him, honestly) but it could be, if nothing else, a nice brunch and conversation. Plus, it's at Zingerman's, which is kind of what Ann Arbor's famous for - it's a whole block away from my house and I've NEVER BEEN. So he wins at setting up a date, haha. He might actually be the one who liked Supernatural - I can't remember! That would be fun.

On Friday, Emily and I went to Noah's for dinner with a bunch of his friends, which was fun, and then we all went out. We went to a bar called the Jolly Pumpkin where they distill their own liquors, and I had I had this AMAZING cocktail called a Cran Strawberry which was their in-house cranberry vodka and muddled strawberries and OMNOMNOMNOM. Amazing. And a huge plus, the waiter was SO CUTE I COULD HAVE DIED. He had short curly hair and this really deep, sexy voice and unfffff. I left my number on the receipt because he was so hot I just couldn't NOT, but obviously nothing came of it. No way a guy that looks like that is single, and no way he finds me attractive anyway. :P

Hmm, boy-crazy, ME? And to think I let a perfectly nice one go. /o\ Gah, I don't know. I still wonder if that was right. But then I think about how much more intensely I feel about Niall than I did about Dave, and I probably did. Just that one happens to live in my town and the other is across the ocean. :-/

Lalala, rambling entry is rambling. I'll just put it out of its misery. I really should go to bed, so I can be up and at em for my brunch date. Do you realize that this is kind of my first actual date with a guy that I don't already know quite well, or that I'm not already seeing? Yeah. Guess it's time!

As you might have guessed from my delightful drunkpost, last night was pretty nutty! And super fun. So there's this guy, Noah, a second year PhD student that I met at the biochem retreat last September. I've hung out with him lots, and my roommate Emily has become friends with him too. We went out with him and his friends on Monday to celebrate him passing his candidacy exam \o/, and that was so much fun that he invited me and Emily to a weekly gathering he has with friends on Friday. We met up with them at a bar at 5:30 PM (SO EARLY) and started drinking immediately. I think we ended up with about 15 people there, it was a little crazy but great. I had two beers and some appetizers and was already feeling pretty tipsy. Then we all walked to Noah's house, picking up booze on the way. We all congregated in his basement, which has fully six awesome couches that he's accumulated for free from Craigslist! The next several hours were full of pizza and beer and wine and progressively more drunken shenanigans.

Several times I found myself on a couch between these two guys. Craig is tall, kind of cute in a football player kind of way, and a friend/ex-crush of my roommate Debbie's, so we sort of knew each other. He was being very flirtatious in that fun drunken way where you touch too much and make stupid jokes and whatever, basically the exact kind of flirting that I love but isn't serious at all. He was doing the same with another girl there, Anna, but I wasn't upset because 1) I totally was not going anywhere with him and 2) she was awesome and girl-on-girl hate/jealousy is stupid. I also had a great time getting to talk to Mark more, who's a good friend of Noah's. I sat across from Mark at the bar too so we had some good conversations. He's super adorable with floppy brown hair, round face, glasses, beard, and general sweetness. The catch: he's definitely got a girlfriend. I have no idea how serious they are - I may need to do some intel gathering - but she's in Boston so she obviously was not there last night. At one point I was between Craig and Mark, leaning back on Craig's chest and with my legs twined over and under Mark's legs. Haha, yeah, I was a DRUNK SHARK. But man, it was just COZY. I love when I find people who will let me be my touchy drunk self. I love physical contact! I am a cuddler! So yes, it was super lovely on that front.

One of the best parts of the evening is when the DUCT TAPE came out. First it was normal silver duct tape and I tied up a couple people... I forget exactly who. Mark and Craig, probably. :P BUT THEN, OH THEN, SOMEONE GOT OUT HOT PINK DUCT TAPE. Ahahaha WHAT. I used THAT to very thoroughly tie Craig's hands together. IT WAS GREAT. I have photos! The two of us were really very drunk at that point, but we went searching for scissors to get him free. Luckily the scissors we found were safety scissors or that could have been a VERY bad situation. I'm usually not stupid while drunk! But apparently there are exceptions. :P

Toward the end of the night, I was drunk enough to pick up a bottle of wine with about 3 inches left in it and just start drinking from it! *facepalm* That obviously did not help with the inebriation problem. :P

At only about midnight (because we'd already been out for >6 HOURS) some group decision was made to head home, so we all walked back. I used Mark's arm as an aid to NOT FALLING OVER. He really is super sweet. Even if it turns out he's like, engaged to this girl, I'm glad to have him as a friend. And everyone else who was there too! It's a really fun group and I hope we get to hang out with them more often. We have been invited back for dinner next Friday, so yay! :)

I obviously have to share some photographic evidence with you. Also, I DYED MY HAIR! Yes, again. And I'm really happy with it again, but I hope it doesn't fade away in a week like it did last time!

( Hair colouring and hot pink duct tape ahead! )

And that's it - FOR NOW. Tonight is karaoke with Francisco and his lab, which promises to be DELIGHTFUL TIMES. So stoked. :D Hope you are all having a lovely weekend. ♥

I haven't been posting pretty much at all, and it's really unfortunate. Kind of a bad side effect of Twitter - I already feel like i've talked about myself enough every day, I don't really feel the pressing need to make a blog post. But I know LJ is so much more lasting and coherent than Twitter updates, so I'm going to force myself to make a long one now. Feel free to skip as much as you like - I just need to have this on the record, so to speak. Now with handy headers for skimming!

The Midwest Stress Response and Molecular Chaperone Meeting
I went to that conference in Chicago with Jason's lab, and it was great! It was a topic-specific meeting, for our very small field, so I understood everything quite well (much better than at a typical mixed-topic conference) and learned a lot about the state of the field and how people approach the questions in it. I got to talk to the woman whose work is the inspiration for my own - she's an experienced professor who was quite intimidating, but I'm glad at least that she now knows who I am and is at least marginally aware of what I want to do. Even better, I talked to her postdoc who did some work that's really interesting to me, and I asked him how he accomplished a particular experiment, and he was like "Oh I'll just send you what we used!" which is actually a pretty hefty collection of really useful tools (overexpression plasmids, for the scientists in the crowd) that will really help give my project a kick in the pants. When/if I join the lab! The weekend gave me great hope that I will in fact join - just the fact that Jason brought me along, and a long conversation we had about the possible directions for my project. I also had a great time hanging out with the people in the lab, and all in all it just reinforced my certainty that this is the place for me, and that Jason thinks so too. So yay. :D (Update: I just forwarded an email conversation I had with that postdoc to Jason, and Jason replied almost immediately with "Thanks Anne - this is exactly what we need." :D I'm so proud of myself! I started a collaboration all on my own! \o/)

Second semester classes
Classes have been going fine. Remember that new academic experiment I told you about, where every class is 10 students giving presentations but no actual lectures? Well, it's actually working out much better than I expected. It still sucks having to put together two presentations a week, but it's getting easier with practice, and the two talks I've given have gone really well. And the other people's talks have been much better than I expected! I've learned about a wide range of topics and all in all it's been quite cool. Props to Dr. Sherman for totally pulling it off, in complete contrast to Dr. Fuckhead from last semester. :P My other class is low key and simple, though our big project, to pitch a new "product" to accomplish some biotech goal, is a little intimidating. I tentatively like the people in my group, though I'm holding out judgment on that.

Second lab rotation (anti-cancer)
Lab is fine. I've only just gotten started doing my own experiments. My first one went quite well, reproducing nicely the results of our very experienced tech, so that's encouraging. I did another, very big, experiment for three days, but I still need two MORE days before I actually get the result, and there's no way of knowing right now if it went well. I'm nervous, but I think I did everything right and it should come out at least reasonably well! *crosses fingers* Working with my new boss, Zaneta, is very different than Jason. She's very smart and I think I'll learn a lot from her, but she's also rather more hands-on. Which is fine, it will just take some adjusting. As for cancer research, I'm less excited about it than what I was doing before, because it's so... I don't know, dismal? "Successes" in the cancer field are analogous to dismal failures in other diseases. It's just very difficult for me. I know it needs to be done, and something is better than nothing, but I know it's not for me. Which is fine, since I definitely can't join this lab, so in the meantime I'll just learn and absorb techniques and do the best job I can.

Auto Show!
In NOT science-related things (seriously - I guess this is the life of a grad student!) I went to the Detroit International Auto Show yesterday with my uncle and three little girl cousins! It was AWESOME!! You may know that I LOVE CARS. Like, A LOT. So to roll around in them for four hours was beyond heaven. :DDD And while the Maserati and Lexus concept car and the Audis and the Maybach and the Teslas were gorgeous and sexy as fuck, I'm at heart a modest-yet-badass kind of car lover, so the highlight for me was sitting behind the wheels of a Camaro (unf, you guys, UNFFFFFF), a Mustang, a Challenger, and a Charger. The latter two have rather cheap interiors, but I wanted so badly to put the pedal to that metal. :D My other very favorite (and the display I lingered around the most, sighing wistfully) was the Mazdas. I have mentioned that I have a very serious desire to purchase a Mazda 3 or a Mazda 2, and after sitting in the former and gazing upon the latter, I have an even more serious desire! They're so pretty and small and sporty and fun. The hatchback model means I'd still have some cargo space, and by all accounts they have fun, zippy handling that would be a sheer delight. Let's have some pictures! ( Sassy little lime green cars behind the cut! )

Sorry, sorry, I'll stop drooling now. In conclusion: CARS!!!! :DDD I had a great time with my uncle and cousins, and afterwards I went to their place for a delicious homemade meal of grilled whitefish and swordfish, om nom nom. It was a lovely day, if entirely exhausting!

Afterwards, I drove straight to Francisco's house here in Ann Arbor to hang out with him and Steffen, Kate, and Jenna. We watched CENTERSTAGE and MONSTERS, INC. Why yes, I love my friends, thanks for asking. :DDD Eion Bailey in Centerstage was beyond adorable, omfg. How is he so beautiful??? :D

Lol dolphin trainers

The night before the auto show, my roomies said they were going out for "a drink" so I said why the hell not. We went to a bar, actually sat AT the bar for once, and promptly met two cute grad students who were completely ridic. I was already quite tipsy from beer at dinner, proceeded quickly to drunk with a margarita, and landed squarely on smashed after the guys bought us tequila shots. Oops. :) The guys managed to convince drunk!me that one of them was a dolphin trainer here at Michigan, which, lol - cause there are TOTALLY dolphins in Michigan. I bet they're still proud of pulling that one over on a poor guillible drunk girl. :P I got waaay too cozy with the other dude, but not illicitly, just super-affectionate like I can be. After a couple hours, they walked us home and we said adios - doubt we'll ever see them again, but boy was that FUN. I had forgotten how much fun it can be to just go out, meet random people, and have a good time. In fact, I've been more social in the last three days than I have in three months, which brings me to my final point:

Dave

Dave and I are on a break right now. It's complicated. I've got a mixture of relief, guilt, sadness, and uncertainty, and it's really hard to talk about. So I'm not going to sully this post with that. Maybe some other time.

Last but not least, Teevee

I haven't even seen the new Supernatural yet, but this week's Bones was FANTASTIC. HODGINNNNNS. *squooshes him* If they're going where I think they're going, COUNT ME COMPLETELY IN. BWEE. Also, Castle was lovely and touching and Kaaaaate. Poor darling strong wonderful girl. The tone was definitely more serious than usual (NO ALEXIS *pout*) but it worked reasonably well. Continues to be one of the best shows on TV, with the most heart. ♥