one more miracle

Things!

THOSE MY CHEMICAL ROMANTICS ARE AT IT AGAIN!!!! I'm really kind of overwhelmed by how much I LOVE this, and how it's completely new and wacky and different and yet still so THOROUGHLY them. This band has changed so, so much since they made Black Parade, and I love that they've landed on this sound that stays true to their roots while blazing ahead into ridiculous, wonderful POST-APOCALYPTIC COMIC BOOK LAND. Did you see their hair?!???? The clothes??? The ray guns and the GRANT MORRISON and the dude in the roller skates and the helmets and the Mikey Way cheekbones?? EVERYTHING IS AMAZING. And the song bit is getting stuck in my head! I NEED THIS ALBUM LIKE OXYGEN. DO IN FACT NEEDS. Come to meeeeeeee musical geniuses of my heaaaaart! Ugh ♥

In OTHER news (I know nothing could possibly be that important!) this week has sort of... vanished without me noticing? I'm at a weird point in my research, one I don't particularly love, but I'm also no longer in crisis mode, so that's nice. (*ruthlessly squashes remaining qualms*) I've been trying to write a paper for my boss - a "research plan" for the next 12 months - and having a reeeeally hard time with it. Hopefully I'll be able to make serious progress tomorrow.

One VERY exciting thing that happened this week is that I FINALLY GOT A SMART PHONE!!! I know I am so behind the curve, but I had this adorable little LG flip phone with Verizon that was solid and functional and reliable and pretty much did everything I needed a PHONE to do. However, when the iPhone 4 came out, I was like ".....oooh. Do want." And started thinking about what my life would be like with a smart phone. Since then there have been more and more occasions where I've been like DAMMIT WHY DO I NOT HAVE A SMART PHONE (the worst of which was getting stupidly lost in Chicago on my way to Stargate Creation Con with musictoyourlips, sigh sigh), and so I finally decided to get one. But I did NOT get the iPhone 4, for various reasons, the biggest being not wanting to switch to AT&T. Instead I got... the DROID INCREDIBLE. And, you know, it is pretty incredible! I'm still learning how to use it, but I'm discovering new features every day, and overcoming frustrations, and pretttty much I love it. I also got this fucking sweet case for it, all red and black and sexay. His name is Bastian, of course! :D



So YAY for finally joining the 21st century, lolol. If anyone has the Incredible or Android in general and has any tips/warnings/apps I should download, please do speak up!

Still completely obsessed with fußball, nothing's changed there! Bayern has been frustrating but I still love them to pieces. The scoreless draw with Werder last week was beyond annoying - we should have played so much better than that. Lucky to come away with a draw, honestly. Then the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE started!!! I have a fantasy team in a league run by friends, and I was so excited to get the ball rolling. I took a couple serious knocks to my fantasy team - found out Drogba is suspended so had to transfer him, and then Berbatov wasn't even on the BENCH for ManUtd (a massive mistake, as they ended up 0-0 against the RANGERS, thanks a lot FERGUSON) but my defense did beautifully (thank you Bayern and Real bbs!) and all in all it was such a fun time to follow all the games on my beyootiful new phone! :D Bayern looked so much better against Roma, at least in the second half, and finally, on an exquisite, jaw dropping goal by our very own Thomas Müller, we broke through and ended with a deserved 2-0 victory. Yay Bayern! \o/ TOMORROW we play against KÖLN, aka Lukas Podolski's team. I hope it won't be super frustrating with Köln just sitting back on their heels. I hope instead it will be exciting and goal-filled and Lukas and Basti will make out hug at some point. Hey, a girl can dream! :D

Tonight was the dedication of a brand new soccer stadium here at UMich, so my roomie and I went to the inaugural men's soccer game! (There was a women's game earlier, but we couldn't make it. We're disappointed because it was a 5-0 trouncing by our girls! Go Michigan!) The game was 0-0 but the experience was so worth it. It was weird being among undergrads and community members and kids and all kinds of different ages, not just grad students! Some undergrads seriously make me want to punch them in the face, but over all it was a really cool experience. Reasonably good energy from the crowd, team is pretty decent, and it was awesome to see soccer up close and personal after watching it on my laptop for these past months. We'll definitely be going back to more games - especially since it's free for students! Go Wolverines!

This weekend I plan to 1) watch soccer, 2) write my paper, and 3) go to the Renaissance Faire with my cousins! Yay!

How are you, my darlings? Have you recovered consciousness after the shock of new MCR amazingness???

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. ♥

I DYED MY HAIR! :D

I've had the dye (a "more natural" temporary Clairol dye) sitting around for a couple weeks, but I haven't found the time to actually do it. This past week I've been feeling a bit bummed and down on myself, so I decided tonight, fuck it, I'm going to stop reading this horrible science paper and make myself a redhead! Soooo I DID!

I've never dyed my hair before, ever. I guess I've just been too chicken. But one of my roommates now dyes her hair all the time, so I felt confident with her there to keep an eye on me. It was messy but fun, and now my head is a sort of deeper, richer color, darker with a strong flavor of red, though more purple/cooler toned than orange. I LOVE IT!!

( Before and after! )

Oh, and because y'all wanted to see, here's some pictures of me in costume at the Renaissance Faire, plus a few others! It was such a fun day with my wonderful cousins.

( I even got to see the brilliant Rogue Blades! )

It's 2:40 AM! Today has been woefully unproductive! I haven't seen Dollhouse OR Merlin, which are both supposed to be amazing! CLEARLY MY LIFE IS SAD.

♥

So I had yet another adventurous weekend of fun! On Friday after work, I drove up to my cousins' so that we could go to the Renaissance faire on Saturday. The morning dawned dark and stormy, but we went anyway, hoping it would clear. When we got there, it was still raining, but not as hard, so we went in to the almost empty faire, where vendors were huddled under their tents. About 15 minutes after we got there, the sky opened up with another deluge, complete with teeth-rattling thunder, so we sheltered in an armorer's booth. After that passed, it rained rather lightly for another hour before it finally stopped, and the sky gradually cleared to yield a sunny, extremely muggy day. I almost missed the cool rain! The day was a fun adventure anyway. I bought myself a costume for the next faire we go to, and all the ones we'll be going to in the future - I don't have a picture yet, but it's a long grey-green dress with pretty bunched sleeves that flow away from my elbows, along with a cream bodice with a curly golden pattern all over it, which laces up VERY TIGHT and makes my, ahem, endowment very apparent. *grins* It's totally sexy and I'm really excited to wench it up at the next faire, mwahaha.

My favorite part though was the HORSELESS JOUST. The horses would have hurt themselves in the deep mud, so instead the "knights" ran around poking each other with lances. It was hilarious. ( Here are a handful of photos from the day! )

Also during the weekend, Meg started watching the Angel DVDs I lent her - she's never seen it before, despite being a massive Buffy and Firefly fan and a general Whedon accolyte! We blazed through 6 episodes during the weekend and I think she loves it. We even watched I Will Remember You, because I had a moment of masochism, and owwwww my heart. I love that show so much. ♥ It's extremely bizarre to see David be all young and broody and foreheady, though, after watching all this Bones. He kind of seems like a different person! I love both versions though. :)

Then today Meg and I went to IKEA!!!!! Woo!!! It was an extremely successful trip, as you can see:

Those boxes contain 4 major pieces of furniture, and I got several other odds and ends, but the whole thing only came to $650! IKEA, ilusomuch. Meg and I had an absolute blast, even when we had to haul all those boxes into the back of the van in the ~90 degree muggy heat (ughhhh).

( Come see what I bought! )

I love all of it SO MUCH and I can't wait to put it all together in my new room! Eee!

I was planning on going out for drinks with some of the girls in my program tonight, but I got home from IKEA around 4:30, sat down to catch my breath, then headed straight into my lab where I worked for almost 2 hours. There were some things I just really needed to get done. Then I got home and ate and showered but at that point I was like.... I want to lie in my bed and make an LJ post and watch Bones. Really. So I decided not to go. :( I'm going to plan a night out for next week though since it's my biiirthday, yay!

I hope you all had fun weekends too! ♥

Finally, I want to say a belated-in-her-time-zone but no less heartfelt HAPPY BIRTHDAY schneestern!!! ILU. ♥