one more miracle

So as you may recall, I've had to keep the fact that I've gotten into Jason's lab a secret from the people who it affects, i.e. other people who want to get into his lab. But it's been driving me nuts, having to lie directly to my best friends. So today this happened:

SCENE: Sidewalk, University of Michigan. STEFFEN and ANNE have just left FRANCISCO after lunch.

ANNE: Can I tell you a secret?
STEFFEN: Okay.
ANNE (rushed): I got into Jason's lab.
STEFFEN: I didn't think that was much of a secret!
ANNE: Oh! Why?
STEFFEN: Well, you haven't slit your wrists yet.

Touché, sir. Touché.

We (meaning my whole program - 14 people) had a conversation with our program director yesterday. He's kind of a douche, and we haven't had much contact with him, but he asked us for our feedback on the first year of the program. The issue of how hard it's been to get into labs came up, and we had a pretty good discussion. He highlighted explicitly that we are the first class in this program to run headlong into a fucking recession, and that it's affecting us profoundly, via how its affecting the professors. Everyone's tightening their purse strings, and we're getting a lot of the fallout of that. I personally hadn't drawn that concrete of a connection between the two phenomena, but it was really helpful, I think, because we've been resentful of the older students who are like "Oh everyone always finds somewhere they're happy! Don't worry!" but no, it's a genuine worry this year. Fantastic students are caught in limbo and honestly have no home yet. It's very sad. I am incredibly, INCREDIBLY lucky to have gotten exactly what I wanted. I'm a quite humbled by it, to be honest. Jason had an array of great students to choose from, and he... chose me. I only hope I live up to that huge vote of confidence. (Can I share one amazing statistic? Jason published SEVENTEEN PAPERS during five years of graduate school. SEVENTEEN. Seven in 2002 alone! INCLUDING 4 first author papers! INCLUDING A FIRST AUTHOR NATURE PAPER. How is he real?!???)

Francisco's still up in the air. I'm so sad for him, and sad for me likely losing him. Sigh. :(

More cheerful things! THE AMERICAN IDIOT BROADWAY CAST RECORDING HAS BEEN RELEASED! Yay!!! I just bought it and I'm currently basking in my first full listen-through. It's amaaaazing. *___* I might be a little biased, but my favorite so far is Are We the Waiting - STARK. His voice has this beautiful, subtle rasp to it and unffff. I also really love the Last of the American Girls/She's a Rebel mashup, with the gorgeous cello weaving in and out. Favorite Son is beautiful - it's nice to have a song that I haven't heard before. And Whatshername is exquisite. AW HELL THE WHOLE THING IS AMAZING. I know what I'm listening to for the next month. :DD

valmontheights found a super awesome preview video of the musical, with clips from some of the greatest numbers. UGH IT LOOKS SO AMAZING I WANT TO SEE IT TWENTY ZILLION TIMES. STARK SANDS YER FACE AND YER VOICE OMG. AND YER BICEPS OM NOM. <333

OH AND: A FANGIRL HEARD FROM JON HUERTAS HIMSELF THAT THE GEN KILL BOYS ARE PLANNING A TRIP TO NYC TO SEE STARK IN AMERICAN IDIOT. MY HEART GROWING TEN SIZES, LET ME SHOW YOU IT. :DDDDDDDD

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 am so very very drunk right now, drunker than i have been ni a while. noah heeld a night out and party atr his place. he usually hs potluck suppers ubt this wee k wit was just pizza. went with roomie emily.

seriouly very very very drunk. i should just go to e=seleep. its omly midnight! thire was this dude who was hot and a total slutth fluirt. snuggling with me AMND other girls a lot. i tied him up with pink dut tape seriously, be needed scissors to get out,it was great. itwas nie to even have physical connection with anybohy, indication of despiration i spose.

there was also mark, who is cute adn smart and funny and i like him a LOT. too bad he has agirlfried. i dunno how serious they arew but in grad school the fieldis narrowing in a srious way, bah. oh well i will find someone i hop.e

i have lots of work to do this weekend but i mgoin to karaoke tomorrow with francico and his lab. i love francsioc. i wish he wasnt probably gong to florida.

im really to drunk to even edit this shit, sorry. i should stp now.

PS ILOVED SUPERNATURL OMGGGGGG>

Today has gotten off on an awful foot. Forgot I had class until literally the minute it started, discovered I have a 2010 estimated tax payment due that needs to be postmarked TODAY (I was so proud of getting my 2009 taxes done!), and the coffee at work was COLD. *pouts* It is, however, a gorgeous day outside (78 degrees and super sunny!) and I endeavored to rescue myself from a miserable day sitting in lab with no experiments to do by asking for a library day to work on my research presentation. I'm not being dishonest in any bad way - I really had no experiments to do, and I really plan on working on that presentation. However, I am at home instead of the library (om nom lunch!) so I can prepare my taxes and walk them to the post office.

There's no real reason you needed to know all of that. It's just the state of me!

OH, one hilarious thing - me and my roommates signed up for graduate student SPEED DATING. Lolz! We have all been moping about our lack of boys lately (and I really, really need to distract myself from Dave), so we figured why not? Should be fun! Anyone have any stories to share from speed dating, any advice?

Let's talk about Justified! The first five episodes, to be precise.

( Spoilery spoilers )

In short: thumbs up! Definitely enjoying and will be watching every week. Because I totally needed more TV.

Off to walk to the post-office in the exquisite sunshine! I think it's funny how some people either don't check the weather or haven't quite adjusted to the fact that it's SUMMER outside today, so they're in jeans and sweatshirts. Oops! I myself am in capris, tshirt and flip-flops. :D

Before I go, a music rec: Airplanes by B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams. I'm not a rap fan by any means, but this is a really beautiful song with a catchy melodic riff, and the choruses by Hayley are exquisite. Her part has been stuck in my head for a whole day. I'm finally getting to see Paramore on the HCT in August with angel726 and I'm SO excited! :D

This post has a case of whiplash! But I think both of these things are worth sharing, so here we go.

A Very Modern Military Partnership - An adorable article about a Lance Corporal in the British Army who married his boyfriend with the full support and witness of his fellow soldiers. The reception was held in a regimental barracks. The whole thing put hearts in my eyes. Make sure to check out the pictures - they're so cute! Anytime anyone talks about how repealing DADT would cause chaos and tension, I want to whip out this article and be like IN YOUR FUCKING FACE, DUMBASS. ...ahem. They're so cute! >.>

On the flip side of the coin (i.e. America...), while not the same issue, still something deeply horrifying:

When the Army uses 'Enhanced Interrogation' on an American Soldier - A truly heartrending short piece about a very upsetting practice. Some soldiers, when they receive a serious injury in combat, are forced to agree to a discharge claiming they had "personality disorder" (wtf is that?), a pre-existing condition that is the cause of all their problems, and therefore the Army has no obligation to give them medical support or any other support for the rest of their lives.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

The sheer gall of this bald-faced lie is simply shocking and appalling. No person with a brain in their skull would ever believe it for any of these poor soldiers, and yet it's happening, to thousands upon thousands of young men and women. They are discarded by the government they served for, that they gave their physical well-being for. I just - it makes me want to SCREAM. First we have this totally unjustified war, and then we have all these soldiers, many of whom just wanted to do what was right, who are falling victim and suffering for the rest of their lives. It's a travesty. Veterans should be treated with the utmost respect, not like so much garbage. It's a ringing condemnation of our society - even beyond this specific instance, veterans are given no social support. Right now, with all the negative opinions about the war itself, that anger is misplaced onto the soldiers themselves.

I obviously can't help but think about GenKill when I read about stuff like this. Think about this happening to sweet little Walt, or about Doc Bryan receiving the order to diagnose one of his men with "personality disorder" just so no one has to spend the money. It hurts my heart.

:(

A couple days ago, I finished the most incredible book. It's called Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson and it is truly a tour de force. It's also a beast, clocking in at 1130 pages in my paperback version, but honestly? Worth every page. I had my doubts at first, doubted whether I'd be able to stick with it, whether it could really be that good, but my dad had read it in three days (!) over Christmas and I was intrigued. Three months later, I have an incredibly battered and spine-creased copy that I can only gaze at in awe now that I know what it contains.

I'll give a spoiler-free pitch outside of the cut, then go into details behind the cut in case anyone wants to come flail with me/help me wrap my head around it. So! Cryptonomicon is an epic story about three different lives. There's an American code breaker in World War II who's personal friends with Alan Turing and whose mathematician perspective on life is both fascinating and frequently hilarious. He's my favorite. There's also an American Marine who starts in Guadalcanal and goes on a wacky ride around the world, getting caught up in all kinds of crazy missions that he doesn't really understand. Then there's a modern day (read: late 90s) computer scientist/entrepreneur who is working in the Philippines to develop the first major "data haven" in the world. He also happens to be the code breaker's grandson! All three of these lives are separate for the first, oh, half of the novel, but slowly they start to wind in towards each other, crossing and parting and crossing ways again, until at the end it really is all one story and you are astonished at the sheer skill it took to weave that many strands of narrative into a satisfying and startling conclusion. At first I was a little put off by how plot-driven it was, how the characters were almost sketches of people, but over time, the three main characters especially became quite vivid and sympathetic and I found that I definitely never wanted to leave the book without finding out what happened to them.

( Now some specific, spoilery flailing that perhaps will only interest Elle! )

Elle Elle come talk to me about Cryptonomicon! Tell me your favorite parts and whatnot, because I will likely be all "OMG YES THAT!" and it will help flesh out my memories of the whole book, as well as perhaps my understanding of the story? Cause I'm not sure I got everything, haha! Anyway, COME FLAIL. ♥

Reading that book felt like an accomplishment, goddamn. Been a long time since a book felt that satisfying. Next up: Stephenson's Snow Crash! :D

Eeee, I can has a PUPPY! Thank you so much, oxoniensis!! It was my pleasure to be a ridiculous enabler, I'm only glad it worked. ;) ♥

It is Friday! This is Yay! I've had an... interesting week in lab. Science is going semi-okay, though it seems like I NEVER EVER get results that are consistent with each other. NEVER. IN THREE MONTHS. Ughhh what human cells I HATE you. I'm very very ready to be done with these stupid cells and moving on to working with JAAAASON YAY.

I got that group project turned in! THANK FUCK. We also have to give a presentation but it's not graded so what the fuck ever. That asshole did NONE WORK, and the final product had NONE of his work in it, but whatever, that's his problem! Me and the hot dude who did the other bulk of the work might talk to the prof about it, idk. WHATEVER IT'S DONE YAY.

I realized when I was buying my Dublin plane tickets that I had no idea where my passport is. /o\ I noticed when I moved into this apartment that I didn't appear to have it with me. Most likely it's buried in all the shit in my room at my dad's house. But he doesn't seem to be inclined to dig through it, so I just applied for another. Ah well, what's an extra $100 here and there? (Kind of true, for the first time in my life - YAY FOR HAVING A SALARY!) Especially because I'M GOING BACK TO DUBLIN YAY.

TELEVISION. I have thoughts!

Doctor Who - OH MY GOODNESS SO MUCH LOVE. Eleven is charming and delightful and zany and endearing and wide-eyed and sweet and lovely. I want to take him home and feed him fish and custard! And I watched the Confidential and Matt Smith is just a lovely, lovely guy. It's a shame he has such a profoundly bland name, but he is DARLING. He can stay. I enjoyed Amy as well, but for now I kind of preferred young Amy, haha. She has spunk though and the structure of her introduction gives them some really interesting character stuff to work with. I'm VERY excited for this season! :DD

Bones - ( >:( Big spoilers. )

Justified - I've only watched the first two episodes but I really like it! People (*coughrhombalcough*) have been flailing about this, largely because of Jacob Pitts, who's really mostly a minor character, but is also Hoosier in The Pacific, and obviously worth stalking, but what was I saying? Oh yes! Justified! I find it to be a really unique show so far, with its own flavor. I am not familiar with the Western genre at all, but apparently it is borrowing a lot of those tropes? Anyway, I love the mix of drama and wry humor it has, and how it feels just very grounded and human. I'll be very intrigued to see where it goes.

Southland - I've finally arrived! Geez, took me long enough, am I right? I've only made it through four episodes, but oh, Lydia. I love her. She's such a fierce voice in a world that only occasionally listens, but she never stops yelling. She's amazing. And so broken, personally. I just really love her and thought she carried the fourth episode amazingly, despite the lack of Cooper and Ben. :)

In other news, I'm PRETTY FOND of those Chemical Romantics! *chinhaaands* Today Mikey wished Gee happy birthday in the SWEETEST way on Twitter, ugh, he LOVES HIS BIG BRO SO MUUUCH. ♥____♥ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOU GINORMOUS JERSEY DORK. ILU. NOW GIMME AN ALBUM. ;) The Nylon interview was also great. I love that he and Lyn-Z got all nervous about seeing each other again! THEN THEY GOT MARRIED! They are so MFEO, ugh. And these are REAL PEOPLE! Gives me just a little bit of hope. :) And Mikey talking about JERSEY SHORE! Ahahaha. "You try to explain Jersey and they don't believe you, but now - see?" Ohhhh WAYS.

For some reason my wrist is killing me, so Imma stop typing. Night loves. ♥

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.

So there's a guy in my PhD program who's a decade older than I am and served in the Navy. He's gruff and funny and really cool. Today I asked him if he and his fellow Navy dudes ever danced and made idiots out of themselves on Youtube, and he said Youtube didn't exist when he was in the service! Shocking. Then I mentioned I'd been watching some Marines be ridiculous and he said "Well it's Marines, there's your problem right there." Then he told me this: "You want to get a Marine mad? Tell him Marine means 'My ass riding in naval equipment.' You wanna get him real pissed off? The alternative definition is 'Muscles are required, intelligence not essential.'" Ahahahaha! I was so amused. What a genuine piece of boys being boys. ♥

My morning has been fine, including a quite nice lecture by a real smart woman. It would have been much better, however, if I hadn't forgotten my coffee on my desk at home, and therefore wasn't in an exhausted daze right now. It would have been much MUCH better if I hadn't ALSO forgotten my wallet, and therefore can't even buy myself a latte like I was planning. I can get free coffee when I get back to lab but I've got my priorities and I'm using my extra time from class ending early to chill in a common area and read my book.

My meeting with Jason was moved once again, to tomorrow, due to a sudden scheduling conflict. AHHHH! *headless chickens some more* One way or another this is gonna be resolved soon...

I'm quite scared of the prevailing wind in our country at the moment. It can't lead anywhere good, and I honestly don't know what it will take to stop the trend towards catastrophic violence. Just this weekend, the FBI carried out raids practically in my own back yard on a Christian militia group that was selling pipe bombs and plotting to kill law enforcement officers. This is on the front page of NYTimes.com right now.

This NYT Op-Ed has some interesting historical context and commentary on the situation.

"The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play."

When you put it that way - well, yay for progress, but holy shit am I scared for the backlash.

Thank you crediniaeth for the adorable Peep bunny virtual gift!! I am nomming on it happily. :D You are so sweet! <33333

I just finished watching the Buffy series finale (well, last two episodes) (for, to clarify, the 80 billionth time). So many tears!!! ;___; Willow's transformation is still one of the most striking images I have ever seen. "Oh. My. Goddess." SRSLY TEARS. But man, my Buffy/Angel OTP heart still beats so. fucking. hard. When he appears and her face is just glowing and they kiss all sexy and beautiful and just kind of gaze at each other for a while? sldkfjlksdjf my heart grows like 20 sizes. And then I rewind and rewatch and it grows ANOTHER 20 sizes. Seriously, I love them with alllll of me. ♥___♥ The cookie dough speech is so ridic but also so lovely, sigh. I love themmm. I also love Faith and her mountain of issues, and how Robin starts to help her through them with a bit of tough love, they're very much great together. And Giles and Xander and Dawn and Spiiiiike and Anya and Andrew and LITTLE FELICIA DAY and everyone! Man, I kind of really really love this show. Still #1 in my book.

Also tonight, I received a most spontaneous invite from Francisco to go to the movies with him and Steffen and Kate, and I was very excited about this! Because I have been home and quarantined and sad and unsocial. So we went to see How to Train Your Dragon in 3D, an animated film from Dreamworks. It was very, very adorable, and included a lot of awesome dragons. It was kind of extremely weird in that the human characters were supposed to be Vikings, but the adults had Scottish accents while the children were American (seriously? um) so I had to seriously handwave that, but a major benefit of the Scottish thing is that CRAIG FERGUSON IS ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS. I had no idea and I totally called it during the movie! I looooove him ridiculous amounts. <3 So yes, another fun, lovely movie from those wacky animation folks!

Then I kind of really wanted to have some time with Francisco and watch either Inglourious Basterds or Band of Brothers, both of which we've been wanting to do for a while. But a girl in our program had organized a night out at a bar, and both Francisco and Steffen wanted to go, so I said okay. We went to the bar, I couldn't even drink cause I'm on penicillin, and we just kind of hung out for a while. It was nice enough, but I just don't feel super duper comfortable in that friends group, at least not like I can let go and totally be myself. And without any alcohol at all, that was kind of accentuated. So I stuck around for about an hour and a half, but eventually I just left. I was kind of over it. It was one of those unfortunate cases of feeling kind of lonely in a crowd. I don't know if Francisco's uncomfortable around me right now or what, because of the whole lab issue thing, and it's all just kind of awkward. One way or another, things will be resolved on Tuesday (Francisco and I are both meeting with Jason separately), and I'm kind of scared.

I am currently listening to Backstreet Boys thanks to yet another video of Marines dancing and being ridic. I think this is my favorite find of the whole day (thanks to wordsalone!):



And I'll leave you with that. ♥

Today's moment of zen: Marines dancing to the cha cha slide!



I AM SO CHARMED. They just KEEP DANCING, as other Marines wander in, join in for a bit, lol at them, leave, whatever. But the two dudes are just completely dedicated! I love the guy on the right - he's got some MOVES, goddamn! Hoorah, boys. Ray Person would be all over that shit. <33333

There's quite a lot of videos of Marines dancing on Youtube, actually. I suppose they have a lot of time on their hands, and, oh yeah, ARE RIDICULOUS HUMAN BEINGS. (Gen Kill is maybe the best public relations move for the Marines ever. Sure it portrays moronic commanders and an overall completely misguided war, but the boys on the ground? They are boys, albeit completely foulmouthed ones, and I love them. ♥)

Having STREP THROAT has kind of sucked, but after yesterday morning I started feeling much better and since then have been on a general upward trend. Right now I feel practically normal. So basically I've been sitting at home for two whole days, drinking buttloads of tea and watching TV and reading some fic and making a big dent in the 1100 page novel I'm STILL reading and working on a moodtheme and doing my FUCKING TAXES which turned out to cost me, oh, $1000 I DID NOT expect to have to pay, fuck me, and uh. Stuff. I did watch some oldschool Buffy - three season 2 episodes - which was beyond delightful, okay. Tiny Willow and Oz are the sweetest ever.

But now it's Friday night and all of my roommates (except one who I think is still in lab, that poor thing) are out with friends having a good time, while I am stuck at home being contagious. And tomorrow I wanted to do movie night with Steffen and Francisco but I think they're going out with people in our program to a bar to watch basketball and I don't particularly want to do that and I really kind of need a new friends group and I'm not at a very high point in life. Depending on how my meeting with Jason (moved to Tuesday because of aforementioned contagiousness) goes I could either start being much more optimistic or, uh, want to die. So there's that. But even if I DO get into Jason's lab there's a good chance Francisco won't and I'll be profoundly depressed about that and I don't think he wants to see me very much right now and um.

I didn't mean to come here and do an emo rant, I swear. Being home alone for any extended period of time feel pretty nice when it's happening, but it always tends to send me into a way too introspective and gloomy headspace. This why I should never, ever live alone. Ever. It would be awful. Though it's not like having 4 roommates is helping me right now. (But honestly, 4 is a lot better than just 1 or even 2. It means you have varied people around to have chats with and stuff. I like it. So long as you like all 4 of them, of course! And I do, very much.)

Oh hey, fourth roomie's home from lab and boy howdy she can talk! So not feeling lonely anymore, haha.

And the verdict's in: I have strep throat. /o\ At least it's treatable?

I knew it felt like strep... it's been so many years since I felt that horrible, clawing pain, but it was unfortunately familiar. Now I just hope none of my roommates get it or my coworkers, since I struggled my way through a full work day yesterday. Oops :-/ At least it's near the end of the week. I'm only missing two classes and I think our tech can finish my ongoing experiment tomorrow. Does mean I have to move back my meeting with Jason... sigh.

Oh and do you want to know the cherry on top? Today, while I was curled up in a miserable ball at the clinic, I GOT MY PERIOD. Ahahahahahwhat. Body, what the fuck did I do to YOU? Oh, started exercising again? Well wah wah! Big baby. >:( F. M. L.

I hope you are all having much better Thursdays than me. Though I am using my newfound free time to watch Life, Southland, and old episodes of Dollhouse (Topher and Adelle all drugged up! Priceless!). Also, the throat lozenges and tea and ibuprofen have conspired to make me feel a lot better than I did this morning, so I was even able to drive to the pharmacy to get my penicillin, and now I'm eating chocolate without wanting to claw my throat out. \o/ It's the little things in life, you know?

Everyone on Twitter has heard far too much about this today, so I thought I'd bring my whining to you lovely folks! This morning, I woke up with a yucky sore throat. Not a horrible one, but still obviously sick. I didn't feel very hungry either. I drank a cup of tea, and forced myself to eat a couple slices of toast.

Today, since then, I have drank 5 more cups of tea, ate two bowls of ramen (for lunch and dinner), ate an orange, and nothing else. My sore throat has progressed to the type where I have to brace myself every time I need to swallow because of the horror it will bring. I have gargled salt water, I have eaten spoonsful of lemon and honey. The tea helped for a while each time, but now it's stopped helping and I am simply pure misery. I am achey and tired and I *feel* flushed, but the thermometer assures me I don't have a fever. (Another weird thing: despite the massive amount of fluids I've consumed, I've only had to pee like twice - if I was healthy I'd have had to go at least 5 times by now. Just another demonstration that my body is Not Okay at the moment.) I've felt this lots of times before - the cold that feels just like how everyone describes the flu, but it isn't actually the flu. Hopefully my symptoms will be better and not worse tomorrow, because I have a busy day ahead of me.

UGH MISERY. *makes pathetic faces at you*

In other news, I have an appointment with Jason on Friday.

Commence quiet freakout.

In NEWS OF AWESOMENESS, I have almost-concrete plans to go back to Dublin! YAAAAAY! With Cary and Emily, two of my American friends from my year in Dublin! YAAAAAAAAAAY!

*does the boogie dance of I'm-going-back-to-Dublin-YAY* You WISH you could see this dance!

For all newcomers to this here corner of the internet (I'm so sorry to the vets! At least I haven't rambled about Dublin in the recent past?), a brief recap: from 2007-08, I spent 9 months studying abroad at Trinity College Dublin, studying chemistry/biochemistry. I lived in a posh apartment in downtown Dublin, met dozens of wonderful Irish folks who became literally some of my best friends in the world, met 4 American girls who formed a very close pod of awesomeness and with whom I still keep in touch almost daily, had more life experiences than I have in my other 20 years of life combined, and kinda-sorta-maybe fell a little bit in love... with the city, with a boy, with the person I discovered inside myself when I was there. The before and after photos of my soul would be striking - Before Dublin (B.D.) I was withdrawn, shy, lonely, and wracked by self-consciousness and self-doubt, but After Dublin (A.D.) I was confident, assertive, bold, and happy. I emerged a different person, complete with a whole new passel of friends who accepted me completely for who I was. They still keep me going on a day-to-day basis.

I cannot say enough about the transformative and joyful nature of that experience. I have said loads in the past - if you are at all curious, my "dublin" tag has all the dirty details (including the sordid accounts of eleven ~encounters with Irish boys. Mm hmmmmm ;) My first kiss was from a red-headed Irish boy in a pub while drunk on Guinness during my first week in Dublin - top THAT) and my "dublin - missing" tag has all the nostalgia and reflection. I have often gone back and read those entries in order to recapture even just a fraction of the joy I felt while writing them.

SO ANYWAY, I went back to Dublin last May, and it was everything I remembered and more. I've resolved to make Dublin returns an annual thing whenever possible, a biannual (as in, every other year) thing when not. This year, I was going to try to go with the 4 American girls mentioned above. Unfortunately, a couple people have fallen through, but it looks like 3 of us are going to be able to go at the same time! We'll only overlap a couple days, but they'll be a GREAT couple of days (I haven't seen these girls since August 2008!!!) and then I will stay about a week longer to see my Irish loves (most of them are still there doing PhDs, Masters, or working). It is the MOST EXCITING EVER and I am practically vibrating out of my skin with anticipation.

THE CAVEAT: This plan hinges pretty sharply on whether or not Jason accepts me into his lab. If he does, I am 95% certain that he will totally okay this plan and everything will move ahead smoothly. If he does not, the problem is twofold: I will have to work hard to find another advisor I want to work with, and also I have absolutely no way of knowing if that person would be amenable to me taking a week off to fly to Europe during my rotation.

SO. In short. I am so fucking nervous about Jason's decision I could puke. The ramifications go FAR FAR beyond my trip to Dublin. If Jason accepts me, I will have a wonderful graduate experience and get to do science I am truly excited about. If he doesn't - I honestly don't have a clear alternative at the moment. FML.

I just emailed Jason about setting up a meeting. It's likely the meeting will occur within the next week or two.

Everyone cross all of your appendages, pray to whatever deities you believe in, and send good vibes my way, will you? ♥

You know, it's really uncomfortable to have to sit through a verbal reaming that is not targeted at you. We have group meetings for our lab on Monday mornings, and today my boss decided she had several things to get off her chest, including rants about how her students never meet deadlines and how none of them have plans for publications and if they don't get publications they won't get their PhDs. It was all rather melodramatic - somewhat necessary, but I felt it could have been handled in a rather more measured fashion. Meanwhile, because I am but a rotation student and will be leaving within a month, I just sat there meekly and tried not to look at people. Awkward!

On the other hand, during this same meeting I met the eyes of the Hot Guy who works in the lab I think... 2 or 3 times across the table. He was looking at me! He's so pretty, you guys. He's got tattoos on every limb and wears Tool sweatshirts but is also a nerd. I am very fond. I may or may not work up the balls to ask him out for coffee when I leave the lab - we'll see.

Health care reform passed! Amazing! All the biggest stuff comes into effect in 2014, which is just about the time I'll be graduating with my PhD and therefore losing my grad care health insurance - A+ timing! But more than that, of course, I think this will actually do really good things for a lot of normal Americans. I'm very happy. I also wish that this would shock some sense into the Republican party - not a single one of them voted for this historic victory. The party is so petty, selfish, hateful, and vicious - and they don't see any of these things as a problem. I'm sad that we still have to deal with this legitimized fanaticism, but at least we squeaked something around their obstreperousness. (Yes, my "political" icon is Obama with a small child. Don't judge.)

Man, Mondays suck even more now that I have to spend the whole day bouncing and waiting until I can LEAVE and watch The Pacific! I watched about 15 minutes while I ate breakfast this morning, and ahahah - so not a good idea. I just love a little gore and death with my morning yogurt, don't you? :P

Lalala that's it! Science time!

I'm a little >:( facey at the world right now. Not for any real reason, just minor school stress. We have an exam on Thursday, which I haven't studied....um, at all for, and it's probably going to be really hard, and fml. Then I also am supposed to have something written for my group project by Thursday, buuuut idk if that's going to happen, given the aforementioned test. I should have done both things this Sunday, but I was like OMG A DAY OF REST THANK GOD and just watched True Blood and Life Unexpected. /o\

Speaking of True Blood, THAT HORRIBLY TRAGIC THING THAT YOU WERE ALL TRYING TO AVOID MENTIONING JUST HAPPENED and I am all ;___; and >:((( because HBO WHY YOU GOTTA PLAY ME LIKE THAT?

I just had a fun discussion about tattoos with my two Adorable Co-workers (one is a fellow grad student (I shall call him G), and really quite hot, and also funny and friendly and ugh stop being so cute! the other is the Cute Undergrad whose cheeks I always want to pinch - I shall call him M). G showed me and M the outline of his new tattoo that he just got all over his calf - it's a really cool design with all these things from ~SCIENCE~ all intertwined, like the DNA double helix, chromosomes, nucleosomes (the organizational substructure of DNA), all this really neat stuff in a very cool artsy way. It's completely nerdy and COMPLETELY AWESOME. M adorably asked me and G what the pain is like with a tattoo. I showed him mine ('think happy thoughts' on my ankle), which turned out to be a bad idea because ugh my skin is so dry and I haven't shaved in forever. /o\ But he was sweet about it.

It's nice having two cute boys around, you know? :D Yesterday, the first thing M asked me was "Did you see the Pacific?!" This is the boy who borrowed my Bill and Babe book and told me that he really likes Doc Roe's accent. SIGH TINY CHILD WHY SO TINY. :P He hasn't seen TP yet (can we call it that? typing out The Pacific every time is tiresome, but I don't want to call it toilet paper /o\) but he's real excited to, bless him.

Now I need to study. I woke up today feeling about as animated as a sack of rocks - combination of bed too late and somehow waking up in the wrong part of my cycle, PLUS daylight savings time. Means that it's going to be real hard to get work done today, which suuuucks. /o\ FML, seriously. Meh, I bring it on myself.

Happy Tuesday, ladies and gents. ♥

Tonight I got an amazing treat: I got to see Boondock Saints, the ORIGINAL, in the theater!! WOO! You may remember how much I FUCKING LOVE that movie, to the point where I can quote even the stupidest of lines. It was amazing to see it on the big screen, Connor getting all bloodied and worked up about his brother, Murphy's incredibly intense eyes, all huge and MOVIE SIZED. It was beyond wonderful. Then afterwards there was a fun set of interviews and behind the scenes footage, largely from the second movie but it was still hilarious and delightful. Norman Reedus, marry me plz. *___*

What made the night even more awesome was that my bb Francisco came with me! \o/ We loled together and it was fantastic. Then afterwards, because we had both come straight from lab and therefore had no dinner, we stopped at Red Robin and had burgers (well, I had a chicken sandwich) and I had a milk shake, om nom. I'd never heard of Red Robin but dayum it was tasty!

However, the problem with spending time with Francisco is that the more amazing it is, the more painful, because... I'm pretty sure I'm losing him. It sounds very much like he's leaning towards going to Florida. And it breaks my fucking heart. Every day I realize another reason I love him. And I really do - I love him, in a pretty intense way, and I don't think it's romantic at all (though if my life were a TV show, people would be shipping us HARD - whenever I wander into his lab floor, where I used to work, people go "what are you doing here??" and I say "picking up Francisco!" - it happens at least once a week!) it's just that I am so comfortable with him, and so pleased by his sense of humor and his perspective on life. Today we discussed our perspectives on faith. It was just a really beautiful, quiet little moment to share.

When he finally drops the bomb on me, I'm going to cry so hard my lungs come up. :(

So... yeah. Things were finally looking up, but this is tearing slowly at my sanity.

I had an awesome time seeing my two college best friends this past weekend. I spent Thursday night and Friday with Rob - we went into Philly Friday, saw Under the Sea in IMAX at the Franklin Institute (I REALLY wanted to see the Body exhibit, but tickets were almost $30, WTF, and we didn't really have enough time to justify that kind of money), had lunch at the Reading Terminal Market, and wandered around. We met up with MICHELLLLLLE, my lover, and took her out for dinner at an awesome Mexican place. Then Rob went back home and I spent Friday night and Saturday with Michellllle. Our time consisted entirely of: being in pajamas, ordering in Thai and pizza, and watching the entirety of Band of Brothers (well, eps 4-10 since she'd seen 1-3). IT WAS GLORIOUS. Michelle is my most favorite person in the world, and being with her is actually more relaxing than having time to myself, which is kind of the only person I can say that about. And now she's finally seen all of BoB! And knows just how completely Nix and Winters are married! Yay! It was fun. I still cry at the very last bit: "But I served in a company of heroes." ALKDJFLKSJD WINTERS. ;____♥

Anywhoodle, that was grate and I am very glad I got the chance to see pretty much everyone I know on the East coast, including dozens of high school teachers and college profs, and my parents of course. Good times, good times.

Now I am back at the grindstone and it's mostly okay. Just got an unexpected deadline dropped on my shoulders in lab and I'm a little freaked out because I'm really really not sure I can generate the results in time, but um. Deep breaths, it will be okay.

What I really wanted to post about though was a piece of potentially quite bad news I got today. My dearest darling Francisco, one of my two best friends here at Michigan, is currently rotating in a lab that he thought he was going to join. However, the professor has been offered and has accepted a job at the Scripps Institute in Florida. And here's the kicker - he's thinking about going with her.

I was seriously devastated when I heard this news. I mean - he's my Francisco. Over the past few months, he has quickly become someone very near and dear to my heart. He and Steffen have become my little support network, the people around whom I can truly be myself. And the thought of losing Francisco makes my heart ache in a very real way. I don't know if it will actually happen, and believe me I am doing my very best to suggest alternatives to him, and to make enormous sad eyes at him to guilt him into staying. The thing is, he really doesn't want to move to Florida - his family's in Chicago, he's already started to find a home here, etc. But he feels like there's no other lab for him in our program. I have to believe that isn't true, but the other lab he might like to join is Jason's, aka the one I have my heart set on, and Jason only has so many funds, and a lot of students interested........ yeah, it's kind of a problem.

I'm really really worried about this. My heart literally goes all clenchy and my eyes get hot and teary if I think about it at all, and I just. I can't deal with the thought of losing him. I'm not going to examine those emotions too closely right now - I just know I need to try my best to keep him here. Because he belongs with us.