1) I GET TO GO BACK TO DUBLIN. TO LIVE. AND BE PAID. AND DO AWESOME CHEMISTRY. AND SNOG IRISH BOYS. FOR FOUR YEARS.
1b) This exponentially increases my chances of marrying an Irish lad. For the motherfucking win.
1c) This also condemns me to probably never seeing Panic at the Disco (OR MCR ;____;) play EVER AGAIN. (If by ever you mean probably once or twice in those four years, which, um, I do.) Rock Band Tour better be mothertrucking good, boys.
1d) DUBLINNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ♥_______♥

2) The first chemistry paper that my name has ever been on was published online yesterday! Take a look! That's MY NAME on the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY website!!! Bweee!

3) Mehl continues to be ridiculous and hilarious and awesome. Today in class, he asked us why we study enzyme kinetics. When Ross gave a completely bullshit answer, Mehl answered, "Okay. Everyone close their eyes. Now... visualize a pixie." I SHIT YOU NOT. A PIXIE. He spent TEN MINUTES on this metaphor, okay. "The pixie is in the Enchanted Forest. But humans cannot get into the Enchanted Forest! So how do you know what the pixie's doing? What the pixie likes to eat? How the pixie moves? What the digestion period of a pixie is?" This was punctuated by baffled and snarky comments from we, the audience. He rode over them all. "So of course you have to lure the pixie out of the forest, put it in a glass box, and lock it in your basement!" (GABE SAPORTA APPROVES.) "Then, you feed the pixie! You overfeed it or you starve it. You poke it, prod it. Chop off its arm! See what happens!" And meanwhile I am just loling and loling. TEN MINUTES OF THAT SHIT. And he finishes with, "We are not pixie anthropologists. We are pixie physiologists." OH DOCTOR MEHL. ♥

4) Fenlon is... completely absent. He's in the throes of his tenure application, and he's really stressed out and worried about it. He blew off our weekly meeting today. Poor guy! I hope it goes well for him. I haven't even told him I'm, uh, doing my PhD in Dublin! Last he knew I wasn't even considering a PhD! Um, whoops? :P In good news though, my research has finally produced the right product (I THINK) and we're almost ready to move on to the next step \o/

5) Tomorrow is the research fair for all summer projects, including mine! Then I have lab, and then I get in the car to drive to NYC to see MADDY!! and PADDY!!!! Paddy has not yet called me, even though he was supposed to arrive in NYC YESTERDAY, and I am worried, but not particularly surprised. It's extremely Irish of him, to promise to call and then... not. I bet he'll call tomorrow night some time so we can plan up when and how we're meeting on Saturday morning. *hands* This weekend is probably going to be expensive (gas, train into city, taxi to wherever, food for the day and probably going out at night with Maddy and friends) but you know what? It's worth it. Paddy is high in my top ten favorite people in the WORLD, and it is going to absolutely make my month to see his shining face. And tell him I'm moving back to Dublin! I really can't wait.

6) The West Wing continues to blow my socks off my feet. Joshhhhhhhhh ♥ Saaaaaaaaaaam ♥ Donnnnaaaaaaa ♥ Ceeeejaaaay ♥ etceteraaaaa :D

7) At this point, this entry is just rambling! I do want to say though that finding out that I'm going back to Dublin has put all the bounce back in my step. When I was stressing and worrying about what I was going to do for my future, I was simultaneously stressing about school work, and nothing was good. Now, if I get a little bogged down in stuff, I stop and think, "Dublin." And then I'm smiling again. Perhaps it's not healthy to go through your senior year thinking only of it ending, but I don't think that will be the case. I can appreciate my time here all the much better, appreciate having Michelle and Rob in my life to the fullest. The knowledge that I will be picking up my life in Dublin means that I don't have to spend half my time mourning it, as I was before. Now I can look at the pictures on my wall and smile because I will be there again! I will get to go back to Fibbers with Dara and Paul and Richard and Niall and Colin and Conor and Barry. I will get to go to real Irish pubs with Niall and Paddy and Ronan and Louise and Bridget Ann and Sinead. I will get to walk the cobblestones of Trinity, wander among the flowers and ponds of St Stephens Green, amble down Grafton Street, appreciate the fine stouts at the Porterhouse, dance the night away at Doyle's, and spend ridiculous hours in the Sci Fi room, all with people that I love.

Life is pretty damn good.

I feel vaguely nauseous. I got the characterizing spectra back on my FINAL PRODUCTS, that is, the ones I worked ALL SUMMER to make, and NONE of them look great. Some of them look decent, albeit with significant impurity, but others aren't even the right material. I'm so frustrated and upset and I can't believe I have to spend the rest of my year on this project. I am already sick of it, and I have to write a thesis? Ughhh. I am so so so SO SO SO glad I have a path that isn't chemistry ahead of me, because if I had to do this shit for the rest of my life I would be fucking MISERABLE.

Phew. Got that out. There's no one online for me to vent to so you're it, trusty flist.

I went and bought textbooks today. OUCH. Three books = $380. Oh holy god. But then I looked online and I found a book I had bought for $160 at the price of $92, so I ordered that one with expedited shipping and I'm going to return the other one. So I'll get about 70 dollars back. BUT STILL. It's such a painful thing, especially after I didn't buy ANY books in Dublin, NOT ONE, since they were all in the library for me to use whenever I needed.

SIGH AMERICA. There goes my birthday money.

This semester I'm taking a class called Language In Cinema to fill my arts requirement. I'm quite excited for it, because it will be an easy class to balance out my horrifyingly hard double/triple load of chemistry, and it will also just be fun! Movies! Writing about movies! My textbook has Bruce Willis in Sin City on the cover! Awesome.

For next semester, I need to fill my Non-Western requirement, my last math minor requirement, and Physics 2 for my major. So completely different from this semester. Easier, though, hopefully, since that's when I'll be writing my *gulp* THESIS.

While I'm talking about it, here's my schedule for the semester:

Advanced Biochemistry: TTh 9-10:20 AM, LAB W 12:30-4:20
Analytical Chemistry: MWF 11-12 AM, LAB F 12:30-4:20
Language In Cinema: MWF 10-11 AM, SCREENING M 7-10

Then I have my independent research project and my job. The former will happen whenever I have time, probably largely on the weekends, and the latter is 10 hours during the week, probably Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons. Luckily I love my job cataloging books at the library, so that's not too bad. THEN there's choir which I really want to do again, and Oxfam which I'd love to be involved in again, and...

Oh dear, I'm going to explode aren't I? >.< I told my dad I was nervous about school starting up again because I'd have no time to BREATHE, and he was so puzzled because college was so laid back for him. He was a philosophy major and probably did no extracurriculars. SIGH. I wish >.<

Ugh, I can already feel the stress starting like a little worm in my stomach. I want to go back to Dublin :(

Right about now is the time I start getting the I can't do this stress. Which is utterly ridiculous. My dad expressed no little surprise that I still feel that way, given what I KNOW I can and have achieved in any number of challenging academic situations. But. I don't know. It's not a very healthy thing but I don't think I WOULD do so well if I didn't doubt myself and thus push myself so hard.

SOMEONE HOLD ME D:

Hoo boy, it's gonna be a slow day. I wasn't able to run a reaction over the weekend because they turned off the electricity on campus, so I don't have a column to run or ANYTHING. If I'm lucky, setting up a reaction will take up the rest of the morning (a lot of that sitting and waiting for the oil bath to equilibrate) but after that, the reaction takes at least a day, so, nada until tomorrow. I can work on my paper for the summer, but that's BORING. I'm talking to Niall right now but I doubt he'll be around all day.

Right now we're kinda scrapin the bottom of the barrel in terms of supplies. My starting material, trifluridine, costs $1,300 for 10 grams, and I'm down to about half a gram of it. Meep. I'm also out of cyanoethyltetraisopropylphosphane and thus cannot run another phosphoramidite step until that gets here. And I don't know when I'm going to run out of 15N labeled ammonium chloride. Sigh! It's tough working in a poor lab.

Yes, I'm just chembabbling because I can, okay.

Last night was really fun. Rob's girlfriend Dierdre, whom I hit it off with right away (they met while I was in Dublin), spent the night at my place last night (Rob's not around) on her way to somewhere else. Her mom (who drove her here) took us out to dinner, which was lovely of her, and our waiter was an adorably charming young man named Seth. I mentioned that it was my 21st in a week because I couldn't order a beer when he was tempting me with their in-house brews, and then he wished me a happy birthday when he left the check! It was quite ridiculously sweet. I miss flirting and boys. *pouts*

So Dierdre and I had a lovely girls' night in. Her mom had left her a bottle of rum (?! her mom is kind of ridiculously awesome) so we had rum and cokes and got rather hilariously giggly. Then we had brownie sundaes and watched Atlantis - McKay and Mrs. Miller and Echoes. Lovelovelove. *rolls around in Rodney goodness* It was really fun and kind of necessary for my soul, I think.

Lalalala. *twiddles thumbs* Entertain me, o flist?? Just come say hi! *smiles pretty*

I'm sleepy.

My flatmate/bestie's birthday was this weekend, and his grandparents got him a 32" flat screen TV. Homg it's beautiful. We just bought cords and adapters so we can play shit from our laptops on it and omgggg you guys. GERARD'S SO BIG I JUST WANT TO LICK HIM.

...that sounded very dirty. OM NOM NOM GERARD. :D

I called the insurance company today and they're mailing me a replacement phone tomorrow \o/ However, since I'm a failboat, I thought that the fact that it requires a signature for delivery meant I had to have it sent home and make sure someone's there. I didn't think to mail it to the school mail room, where they could sign for it. *facepalm* I r dumb. Rob's being very nice and staying home for the morning (his work is all on computers anyway) and I'll cover the afternoon if it isn't here yet. NEW PHONE YAY.

You know that experiment that I've been agonizing about? Well I think I FINALLY fixed the problem. Or rather, Dr. Van Arman did. He was my orgo professor in sophomore year, and if you've been around that long you may remember that I LOVED him. When we had our poster session last week, I explained our problem to him, and he said "Oh why don't you try X or Y?" I ran the idea past MY professor and he kinda went "Huh. I really like that!" *facepalm* My professor is not exceedingly bright. Between us we quite lack imagination, and since I lack the knowledge/experience besides, it leads to some dead ends. Thank god for Van Arman! \o/ So that's a huge relief. Another reaction I ran today also had the best column separation I have EVER seen, and a great (84%) yield. So it was a good chemistry day! \o/

I also made an important decision. I have this grant money (up to $3000) that comes with the scholarship I have here. I could do two things with it: use it to do a project somewhere besides here, or apply it to my research/thesis project here. I was thinking about using it to go to Dublin in December and work in a lab there for 3 or 4 weeks. Clearly the motivation for that was not the project itself, which I felt was somewhat dishonest. So for various reasons, i think I've decided to use the money for my research with Dr. Fenlon. We could really really use it, as the compound that forms the basis of my research costs $1,800 for 10 grams. Yeah. Also, that means I can use the time in December to go visit extended family in Ohio and Michigan whom I haven't seen in over a year in some cases.

My Hush Sound ticket arrived from my dad for Philly! YAY!

Speaking of concerts, I'm trying to figure out this Empires nonsense. The easiest show for me would be the Saturday show in Baltimore, but their MySpace says 6 PM while the venue website says 2 PM, with a fancy flier and another band booked at 8 PM. So I'm thinking the 2 PM is correct, which is fine since it's a Saturday and easier to travel back afterwards. I doubt I'll have to buy tickets ahead of time - I mean, matinee show of an unsigned band? Yeah. I'm excited!!!

Also, the Cobras presale is tomorrow. There are several dates that are in geographical proximity, but only the Philly one is really feasible in terms of date. However, that's right in the thick of the semester and I think I'm going to be SUPER busy this year. As I just saw the Cobras, and they're not my favorite (musically!), I think I'm going to say no to this one. For now. I have to draw a line somewhere!

Also also, people keep talking about the Cab tour, but I haven't actually seen any info on it anywhere. What's it called? I'm just curious, because someone referenced it being a faily name (WHO IS SURPRISED?) but didn't actually say what it was. I don't think I'll go, as, uh, I'm seeing them twice as a consequence of The HUSHIESSSS, and I don't like the album.

I got my paycheck today (the second half of my summer stipend) and, in total, they took out EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS in taxes. Taxes I will just get back because I'm not going to make enough to need to be taxed! Fucking government. I could really use that money right now.

Uh, I don't want to end this post on a down note. Ergo, FRANK.


DO WANT.

Hi flist! So I might have mentioned a little while ago that I was given an assignment to write a short essay about my undergraduate research experience and how it contributed to my education. The possible use of this essay is vague; admission materials were mentioned. Anyway, I just sat down and banged it out tonight, because that's how I write, at least for shortish things - I start and then I finish, with little break in between, or else I feel incomplete. Anyway, I was wondering if maybe you, my beautiful flist, with your lovely ways with words, would be willing to take a look at it for me? It is quite short, under 1000 words, and I wrote it very informally, like a story. I'd appreciate input on tone, flow, grammar, anything you feel might be improved. Even if you have no concrit, I'd love reactions of any kind, as I am kind of nervous about sending this out into the world!

Thanks in advance, loves <3

( A Mile in Shoes That Don't Fit )

Monday mornings aren't supposed to be unexpectedly nice, but I'm not going to complain! This morning, I was sitting at my computer in the lab, back to the door, and suddenly someone's hand landed on my head and kind of rubbed my hair a little bit. I started, assumed it was my friend Ryan from downstairs, turned to say hi and did a hilarious double take, because it was DAVE!! Dave is my lab coworker from last summer, and it turns out he was just passing through for the afternoon and came into the lab to do some researching through our online resources. It was such a wonderful surprise!! He graduated so he's not around anymore, and I MISS him something fierce. Some of you might remember that I had a massive crush on him last year, and while I'm over it, he still makes me super happy just by being around. He teases me a lot and we're just super comfortable together. It was so lovely to just chat with him for a couple hours (I totally didn't do any work in that time.... oops!). I asked him about his new job as a lab tech at Dupont, which he got straight out of college, and he told me that he's making $56,000 a year, PLUS benefits. Holy crap!! On top of that, he was OVERqualified for the job. This is so encouraging for me, since I'm planning on getting a similar job right out of college to save up for grad school.

So that was a nice start to my week! \o/

Let's see, what else is goin down. I talked to my daddy for an hour on the phone today. I asked him if my tattoo could definitely be my bday present, and he said yes. I then went on to explain my tattoo philosophy to him (which is, ahem, stolen from Frank Iero, because it is that awesome - in short, it's that each tattoo represents who you were at some stage in your life, and if you give them enough consideration that they ARE true to who you are in that moment in time, you can never get tired of them because you don't (shouldn't) get tired of yourself). He seemed reassured and impressed that I give the whole thing so much thought. I think it still weirds him out a little that I'm getting tattoos, and talking about them like this is just the start. He said that he was actually surprised I was brave enough for the pain, and I laughed and said that Mom said that too. And he said that that's probably because I was such a WUSS when I was little, sobbing over the tiniest of boo boos, so he and my Mom both associate that with me still. Even though it's not really true at all anymore. I thought that was really sweet and cute. Somehow we got on the topic of how my daddy raised me and I got to tell him how much I love and appreciate him and his approach to my upbringing, which was very much to let me do what I wanted to do, while just giving me guidance by example in terms of ideals and morals. I am very grateful for my parents in that respect especially - I ALWAYS felt free to be exactly who I wanted to be.

/sappy!

Talking about The Incredible Hulk made me want to see it agaaaaain. Like, ASAP. Ungh so good. I'll just have to make do with Fight Club... my life, so hard!

Hay you guys, fangirls are awesome (or embarrassing? no, mostly awesome) and MADE DAVID HEWLETT SAY "I LOVE YOU TOO JOHN SHEPPARD." NO REALLY. Eeeeeeeeeee!


Ugh ILHIM.

This weekend - WARPED! The weekend after - DC with all of my American girls from Dublin!!! ALL OF THEM! Emmy (Cary's sister) accidentally let slip that EMILY IS COMING TOO! So it's a complete reunion and I am SO RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED I CAN'T EVEN. I knew that this would be perfect timing, because as predicted I am so over this America thing and sinking into a funk of need-Dublin-NOW, so seeing them will really help to stop that downward spiral. They UNDERSTAND my PAIN.

Well, this was a random post! I'm going to go be productive now.

XOXO

Hello beautifuls! I know I haven't posted in a while, I'm sorry. I've been extremely busy!

The major development is that I moved back to Pennsylvania into my new apartment at my college to do research for the summer. I drove down on Thursday night, crashed on a friend's couch, and moved in Friday morning (after an annoying kerfluffle to get my hands on my keys). My apartment is surprisingly lovely, and looks like it was just completely renovated, which I did not expect! Brand new furniture, everything spic and span, and it's BIG. It's for three people and it's almost twice the size of my four person apartment in Dublin. We each get our own bedroom, with a double bed and closet. The living area is big, with a dining table and chairs, a couch and armchair and side tables, and the kitchen is big with loads of counter space and a DISH WASHER. But it also has character, since I think it was just recently a very old and crappy apartment, so it retains some of that age. The walls on the outside are white-painted brick, and criss-crossing all the ceilings are water pipes that are painted a pleasing dark green. There are also three big wooden support beams exposed at intervals down the hallway, they're cool. I really love it, and I can't wait to share it with my two best friends! \o/

I spent the last couple days buying an obscene amount of STUFF to supply it, because although it was furnished, it had NOTHING else, not even, like, a shower curtain. So I went to Sears and the grocery store and Walmart and completely stocked up. At Sears I found this adorable bathroom set on clearance sale, so everything in my bathroom matches, from the shower curtain to the bath mat, to the toothbrush holder, hand towel, and trash can. It's awesome \o/ I also got dishes and utensils and pots and pans and FOOD. It was quite the undertaking, but I am very pleased with my home making efforts!

My friend Thomas, who graduated last year and whom I haven't seen since before I left for Dublin, is living in DC right now so he took a train up and spent the weekend with me! He helped me shop for stuff, and we hung out with our other friends that are here for the summer and had a really good time together. It was really really nice to see him again. It's also great to see the other people staying here, including Fei, Ryan, Audrey, Kathan, Alyssa, and others who I haven't run into yet. I don't think I'll get too lonely this summer :)

Today before I took Thomas to the train station, we took a walk on campus, and we ran into this woman and her son who was wearing a Trinity College Dublin t-shirt! I asked if he went there, and it turned out that his older brother is going there for four years! AND, the woman had a lovely Irish accent!!! They live in Massachusetts but she must have grown up in Ireland. I was so excited! We talked about Trinity and F&M (my college, which her older son considered and her younger one is considering now) and how jealous of her son I was for getting to spend four years at Trinity! She was really lovely, and it was such a coincidental, fun encounter. Even funnier is that her son is in freshman science, so there's a good chance he knows Dara, Paul, and Richard!! So weird, but really cool. That totally made my day :D

So that's kind of all the basics of my current situation. I start work tomorrow morning (blegh) and today is going to be spent first going over to Fei's to watch the Italy-Spain quarterfinal, then unpacking and organizing my new apartment, and reading up on papers to brush up on my research project. I wish my life would slow down a little bit, but I'm okay for the moment.

OH AND ALSO I WATCHED THE LEAKED SGA SEASON FIVE PREMIERE AND PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COME SQUEE IN THE COMMENTS OMG IT WAS AMAZING.

Ahem. /squee :D

Toodles, loves!

I don't know why you don't all yell at me when I get worked up like that. "ANNE YOU'RE BEING A DRAMA QUEEN," you should shout. "IT WILL BE FINE. STOP IT." Because it's always true! And this thing was a blip on the stress-dar, as far as these things go. When I start freaking out about my Honors Thesis defense, then it will be justified, but everything else, bitchslap me, alright?

In short, it went fine. A trickle of about 5 or 6 professors came by and asked questions, none too terribly challenging, and I handled myself fine. Dr. Thomsen and Dr. Brewer were a bit intimidating, but they actually both had really interesting ideas to contribute, so that was cool. Dr. Mehl, the scary one? Um. He kind of charmed my pants off (or skirt, actually). He was very sweet and just curious about the gist of my project, which I could totally handle, and when I mentioned I was going to Dublin for the year he gave me a blindingly beautiful smile. And. Um. I don't know if it's just this context? That he's really nice in? But er. I had him pegged rather incorrectly. Oops!

So all is well! It's Friday! I'm home! Ryan needs to sing all the time! It's Friday! YAY!

ETA: Hahahaha I JUST remembered that Dr. Mehl's first name is - you guessed it - RYAN. Haaaaa. This is hilarious. And I may have a mini crush on him now. WHAT.

Speaking of inappropriate crushes, I may or may not get a little frisson every time I see my organic chemistry teacher. YEAH THE FIFTY SOMETHING ONE WITH TWO DAUGHTERS. THAT ONE. *hides face*

I have started the column from hell and I want to cry. This is the same material that kept me here until 6:30, and it wasn't even pure after all that. I changed the solvent but it doesn't seem to be helping! WOE!

On the bright side, I seem to have fought off the incipient illness with OJ, multivitamins, and lots of water. Er. Maybe. Perhaps I speak too soon.

Oh my god Friday be OVER already.

On another bright side, SHOOOOOOOEBOX! I finally made myself an icon! *HEARTS* Puppies!!

Things Wot I Love

• The Academy Is...! I love chair dancing and car dancing and grocery store dancing to their music, practically 24/7.
  
• Also in music, I currently love Jamie Cullum (fun modern jazz, very summery), Kelly Clarkson's new CD, Tegan & Sara's "So Jealous," and Xavier Rudd, who I swear sounds exactly like Tom McRae, who, incidentally, I also love.
  
• SHOOOOOEBOX!
  "You stole my cake?" Sirius asks. “I thought I ate it while I wasn’t paying attention.” ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
  
• The fact that James Marsters is going to be on Torchwood. The thought of him and John Barrowman on the same screen, being sexy and snarky and, I quote, "violent and horny," kind of essplodes my brain.
  
• Harry Potter in 3 days guys!! *vibrates*
  
• John&Rodney (RODNEY WORE A BLACK ZIP UP!!!1!!), John&Aeryn (o the angst!), Danny&Rusty (eyefuckery! smirking!), Remus&Sirius (puppies!), and of course Sam&Dean (!!!!). ♥
  
• This icon. Dumbledore's Army FTW!
  
• This picture. Thanks muchly to expatiates's spam of joy!

( Aw hell, I couldn't pick just one - more pretty behind the cut! )

Things Wot I Less Than Love

• Working on my presentation/paper for my summer project. I think I'm *finally* making progress, but it's still a wee bit like pulling teeth. On the bright side, my skillz in Photoshop are serving me well to make my Powerpoint super pretty.
  
• The fact that I have to leave in 2.5 weeks :( I've really gotten comfortable living here on my own, with Awesome Roomie and independence and all that wonderful stuff. I do miss my family, but. It seems like the summer's simply flown by.
  
• No Dave at work today! Everything was very slow and boring and quiet without him.

Lalala pointless LJ post! I don't know why y'all stick around, honestly. Much less why more people keep friending me! It baffles, for serious. Which, by the way, hello new people! Don't be afraid to pop in and say hi, I don't bite!