one more miracle

So one of my New Year's resolutions is to try to reconnect with LJ. I'll probably fail miserably, but I genuinely miss both the community and the amazing record of my life LJ was for such a long time, so I'd really like to get back into the swing of it. Twitter is a serious hindrance, and I have a whole other social life there, but I'm going to try my hardest. If you DO have Twitter though, please do follow me - I'm exsequar there too and always reachable. :) It's not at all about soccer/football anymore, I made a separate account, so if you're worried about that, please don't be! I'd love to talk to you. ♥

Starting small, I'm just going to make a Life post about my week and stuff! So on Tuesday I completed a reasonably large hurdle of my PhD program - the second year seminar. It's kind of a warm up for our candidacy exams but felt pretty huge on its own. Basically I had to make a 20 minute presentation on my research, presenting to people outside of my lab for the first time. This meant that I had to very clearly introduce the material for people unfamiliar with my field, present and justify my hypothesis, and present what data I have that supports that hypothesis before, as well as providing a coherent plan for my research moving forwards. I also felt I had to be very very comfortable with the literature because I could get ANY questions afterward. What this basically meant was that I spent 4 days with my family for Christmas, then immediately began spending 10-12 hours in lab every day, reading papers and putting together my presentation, as well as getting that last crucial piece of data. I bought a lot of frozen food and essentially lived in my lab. But it paid off, because my presentation went great! My actual slides ended up really pretty - including a model I built from scratch using Adobe Illustrator because all the old ones my lab uses are so ugly - and my labmates and boss helped me construct a clear, coherent narrative so it felt fluent and comfortable. Then I got a really great set of questions and was able to easily answer them all, with bonus references to the literature because I had spent all that time reading! I got lots of positive feedback afterward, and my dad even got to see it and was very proud. I'm so relieved to have it done, but I'm also really proud of how well it went. It was the first time I felt maybe I could really do this thing - that is, be a grownup. Not necessarily a scientist, but a grownup. It's a step in the right direction. ;)

I then spent the rest of this week turning that presentation into a poster to give at a conference this weekend in Chicago! It's a very busy week, yes it is. It's the same conference that I went to last year and I really enjoyed it then, so I'm happy to be going again, I look forward to it. I also get to meet up with some darling fangirls tomorrow night so I'm excited. :D After all of this whirlwind, then it's just back to the normal grindstone of lab research. Doing all of this work on making my project clear to others has made it clearer to ME too though, so I hope that I'll feel a bit more confident in my research as I move forwards.

Also super exciting is THE BUNDESLIGA STARTS BACK UP TOMORROW!!!!! *giddy wriggling* That's the German football league for the majority of you out there who are totally lost. :P It's been on hiatus since before Christmas and I have been DYING of boredom. I mean, it was good timing because I wouldn't have been half as focused on my work if it hadn't been on break, but now it's coming BACK and I couldn't be more excited. :DDD I get my beautiful baby Lewis and my badass Basti and hopefully both Mainz and Bayern kicking ass and taking names. I can't help it, I love Mainz, sorry to my Bayern girls out there. At this point I just want both of them to do really well. It's kind of inevitable that Bayern will end up in at least second, so I don't feel bad for rooting for Mainz to do the best they very can. At this point I would like to register a prediction for the end of the season, and we'll see how far off I am: Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke 05, Mainz. That would put Mainz in the Europa League next year, which would be a fantastic achievement for my little baby club. ♥ (And little Lewis has been hinting that he'd like to stay in Mainz for another year... oh please please pleeeease let it happen, football gods!)

In hilarious fandom-sports related news (yes that was a totally valid segue), Johnny Weir is coming to my Borders for a book signing. Lol. Lololol. I'm tempted to go just for the lolz but I should really be at work at that time, so I probably won't. Oh Johnny. Maybe I'll feel the force of his sparkling from my lab.

Speaking of sparkling, OMG THIS T-SHIRT. Dear My Chemical Cupcakes, ILU. (Danger Days is still, like, the best album ever. Well, after Three Cheers. But OMG SO GOOD.)

Last night I saw I Love You Phillip Morris!! I've been wanting to see this ever since I heard it was being made like three years ago. EWAN MCGREGOR!!!!! Ugh, he was so precious and wonderful, all blonde and earnest and Texan and sweet and I WANTED TO PUT HIM IN MY POCKET. I mean, Jim Carrey was great too, and it was a really good film, funny and weird and poignant and tragic. I enjoyed it a whole lot. But mostly EWAN!!! I now want to watch every single film he's done again. Yes even The Pillow Book. Ewannnnnnn. I miss him. *draws pink sparkly hearts*

I should probably pack for Chicago.... so I'll leave you with that. It felt really good to write an LJ post again, I'm not gonna lie, so hopefully I'll start being able to keep it up. Tell me what's up with you, darlings!

I just lay down on my bed, put on my sound-canceling headphones, closed my eyes, and experienced Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.

( Holy fucking shit )

OMGGGGGGGGGGGG. BRB LISTENING TO NOTHING ELSE FOR THE NEXT MONTH. *_____________*

Things that sucked about fußball/futbol/football this weekend:

• Bayern tied. Again. With Köln. Again. 0-0. Again. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE SCORELESS DRAWS??!??! *pulls out hair* The Bayern season is beyond fucking frustrating right now. Lowest goals scored in the WHOLE LEAGUE, but also very few conceded, because every match is just this push and pull and NO ONE CAN PUT THE BALL IN. We have Müller! And Klose! And Kroos! And Ribéry! These are WORLD class goal scorers, yet they keep coming up empty. We have one of the highest shooting rates in the whole league, yet we've scored TWO goals in FOUR matches. Pathetic. This better be like last season where we just take a while to find our rhythm, but this time there's no Robben to swoop in and save the day - at least not for a while. Sigh.
  
• Arsenal tied in a brutal way, losing Fabrégas to injury, Song to suspension, and missing a penalty kick. The equalizer was scored in the last minutes. It was awful. Poor Gunners. Now let's just hope Cesc isn't out too long.
  
• Liverpool lost to ManUtd in a rip roaring clash of rivals. Berbatov slammed home a hat trick, which is good news for my CL fantasy team (potentially - come on Berba!) but wasn't so nice for Liverpool. Stevie tried his best, putting in a brace from set pieces, but it wasn't enough. Nando mostly fell over and missed easy chances. That boy is breaking my heart. :'(
  
• Back in Germany, both Stefan Kießling (who's usually on the German NT) and Patrick Helmes got injured for Leverkeusen today. After the loss of Ballack, this is the last thing they need. Also I'm just fond of both of them and it makes me sad. :(
  
• MESSI got injured in a real nasty tackle. The pictures of his ankle post-ligament dislocation are nauseating. D: It's little Messi! I don't love Barça, but he is a lovely young man and didn't deserve that very low-brow tackle at all.
  
• Bremen lost to Mainz! o.O

Good things that happened:

• Real Madrid won. They didn't play well, but somehow they won. Yay?
  
• Schalke lost yet again.
  
• Basti and Poldi were reunited in the sweetest way imaginable oh my goodness. Beaming hugs and too much touching and lkjsdfls I love them. There was nothing after the game because Poldi was happy about the draw while Bayern was frustrated and angry, so that makes me sad. But they're obviously still such adorable bffs. ♥
  

Now if you look at all that in the aggregate, basically it sucked to be a fußball fan this weekend. For some reason the injury gods are pissed off and smiting people left and right. I really wish they would stop. But I am glad that somehow Bayern remains entirely intact - a glimmer of light on a very dismal start to the season.

IN OTHER NEWS, I'm really glad I have some other things to keep me happy, like oh say, THE KILLJOYS! Band of my heaaaart. I can't count the number of times I've watched/listened to that video. This is for all you rock n rollers, you crash queens and motorbabies! Sdflskjflk. In all seriousness, I think this is the most genius AND pleasing promotional move by the band. By giving us a video, they give us a taste of the feel for the new album, and where they are as a group of people, and also a bunch of tasty new visuals to work over, manipulate and adopt to our little hearts' contents. And at the same time, we get a massively tasty snippet of a new song, enough to tell us that it's AWESOME, but not enough that when the song itself comes out it will already feel old. I love how TEASING it is, but still incredibly generous in content. It's basically BRILLIANT and I love this fucking band so much I can't even. *____*

Today I went to the Renaissance Faire with my cousins! For once it was PERFECT weather (partly cloudy and upper 60s/lower 70s - exquisite) and we just had a fantastic time. It's a big, fancy one, so lots of things to see and do and buy. I saw glass blowing and a birds of prey show (I LOVE Peregrine falcons) and all kinds of other neat things, including my faaaavorite comedy/sword fighting troupe which I've probably seen ten times now. :D

Right now I am almost literally falling asleep as I type so I shall hit the hay. Goodnight motorbabies! <3333

I just got yelled at by Brian Schechter! Now I know how Frank felt for all those years...


(He linked a picture of a magazine saying that Friday Night Lights is starting this week.)

Also, this happened.



And please note that Mark's happened 7 minutes AFTER Nick's. Wut. I have NO idea if it was orchestrated - I can't imagine why these two people would know each other, but hey, stranger things have happened. Like JANE ESPENSON AND CHEEKS (aka Brad, Glambert's ex-love-of-his-life) BEING BFFS. Seriously, they CHAT on Twitter and it is SO CUTE, I don't even know what to do with them.



Gahh. Twitter, thank you for existing. ♥

I've been floating on a cloud of YAY I'M IN JASON'S LAB YAY YAY YAY! Unfortunately, my current reality isn't quite that awesome and consists of fucking up experiments and a really really shitty group project that I honestly don't know how well we're going to do on. Ugh. So thank god he said yes or else I would be an utter wreck right now. I'm just clinging to it - I'm IN JASON'S LAB! Officially! He even sent out an email today about new lab photos and I was on the email! :DDDDDD

Today has not been a decent Saturday of any kind. I woke up, ate breakfast, went to lab from 2 to 8 PM, ugh, came home, went to grocery store, and worked on aforementioned group project, in the process stressing myself out so badly that I chewed on my fingernails until they all ache and it actually hurts to type. WONDERFUL. Now it's 1:30 AM and I'm exhausted but trying to get through Doctor Who without falling asleep because OMG IT'S AMAAAZING!!!

Tomorrow should be nice though - brunch in Detroit with one branch of my family, then back to Ann Arbor for dinner with another branch! Good times and good food. :D

Although that means no time to work on STUPID PROJECT ARGH. The only good thing about this project is that the one other person in the group actually doing work is this insanely pretty guy. I mean, he would not be out of place on television for us to swoon over. The other day he came to class having not shaved and he had the most exquisite stubble, like Ron Liv's 5 o'clock shadow, and I was captivated. It was kind of a problem. He also has these super blue eyes with long black lashes and a smile to die for... unf. Unfortunately, he's kind of not really my type at all, being from Connecticut and you can TELL. Like, he should be a lawyer with the way he talks sometimes. Gah, I don't know. He sure is purty to look at. And we commiserate about how awful our group is, so that's fun. :P

Random question: how do we feel about the new Youtube layout? Overall I feel it's quite functional, but why did they get rid of the starred rating system? Also, there's no way to tell how many comments there are on a video. They're strange changes that I don't quite get! Overall it does look more streamlined though.

I've been reading a lot of my old entries about just before Dublin and then during. That encompasses my slide into bandom, which is hilarious to watch - did you know at one point I genuinely, honestly thought Gerard and Brendon were gay? LOL. Oh, naive little self. I also thought Frank was the lead guitarist of MCR, gasp! Sacrilege. And it's weird to read myself squealing about Ryan when I really don't like him anymore. Anyway, the beginning of Dublin stuff is even more interesting, to see how different I was. It's very pronounced, actually. Which I knew, but it's awesome to have LJ as a concrete record of that. I hope I keep my LJ archives for my whole life, it's such a potent piece of personal history.

And I need some advice - does anyone have any ideas on the best way to get from either NYC or Philly to Cleveland without a car? I've checked plane, bus, and train, and everything either has wacky layovers (ATLANTA?!) or detours or just takes bloody forever, and it just seems so STUPID. Fucking American public transportation. Or the lack thereof. So any thoughts as to ways I could work that out so it isn't soul-crushingly horrible?

Finally, in Twitter Continues To Be Awesome, Brian Schechter responded to my Twitter-stalking for once. And I just - ahahaha, what.



Love him! He's such a dork. I totally get why he and the MCR boys got along like gangbusters. ♥

Augh so tired. Happy Easter, to all who celebrate! I hope you have lovely days.