one more miracle

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.

Probably as a consequence of the massive fire alarm debacle of FAIL yesterday, the security alarm in the hall outside our apartment has been going off since yesterday afternoon, a constant high pitched beeping noise. It's obnoxious as fuck, and we called the landlords about it twice. (For the record, it's still going - that's almost 24 hours. FUCKHEADS.) Last night, we couldn't hear it anymore and we thought it had stopped. Then Rob went to leave the building, and he comes back in laughing his head off. He pulls me out in the hallway and I see:



GENIUS.

In another form of genius, AARON SORKIN WROTE A CONVERSATION BETWEEN JED BARTLET AND OBAMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. This pretty much made my life. As did waking up to FiveThirtyEight.com showing Obama winning in 73.9% of statistical projections for November!

You guys, this might actually work out! :O

I am in a bizarrely chipper mood, considering how ridiculous this day is! I think getting actual sleep (5 hours last night PLUS the three hour nap, which is totally valid) and a dash of JOSH LYMAN in the morning does wonders for my mood.

I am right now in my independent research lab, really really quickly doing a test to determine if my reaction is done. I am simultaneously eating my lunch. Yes this is dangerous; no I don't care. I finished my two lectures for the morning 15 minutes ago, and I have Biochem lab in 15 minutes, followed by a guest speaker on grad school, more work in the lab, and finishing my big biochem problem set. See? RIDICULOUS DAY. And yet I'm all Lalala and bopping along to Helena on the lab computer and it's GORGEOUS outside and Prof Moss continues to be ADORABLE and I finally am satisfying my craving with good Sam/Josh (thank you fairestcat!!!) and it's WEDNESDAY which means it's much closer to Friday than Tuesday was!

HOW ARE YOU MY LOVELY FLIST? :D

I am sick. *sadface* It's just a normal viral headcold, but it manifested in a really bizarre way. Last night I woke up at 4 AM and blurrily realized that my eyes hurt so much that I pretty much couldn't open them, but having them closed felt like they were on fire. It was... unpleasant. I stumbled through my apartment, squinting and getting some water and basically completely overwhelmed by OW OW OW OW. I tried to look online for something to help me but I essentially could not look at the screen for more than a second, so I woke up my poor Michelle, scaring the crap out of her. Sorry love :( She helped me by reading some stuff on conjunctivitis. I put warm compresses on my eyes, which turned out to be exactly the recommended treatment, and it helped a little, but I was still in so much pain. She looked at my eyes briefly and said they were SCARLET. Meep. I dictated two emails to her to my professors that I had class with in the morning. I still couldn't go to sleep though so I had her turn on the Buffy episode Tabula Rasa for me to listen to. It's a weird experience to listen to TV, and I was kind of half delirious, but it was pretty funny too.

When I woke up this morning, my eyes felt better but still pretty scratchy. I gave myself an extra hour of sleep and skipped my Cinema class (sorry Prof Moss :( ) but forced myself out of bed for Analytical Chem lecture and lab. I went to our health center and the doctor said I have a viral infection that likes to migrate to the eyes and that I was the fourth person to come in with that complaint. Awesome. This probably means my roommates will get it. Oops :( I had an awful sinus headache all through lab, then I got home and collapsed into bed and slept for three hours.

So that was my day!

Now it's 1:30 and I'm pretty damn perky, though getting a little sleepier. I took some decongestants, advil, and visine, and I feel quite a lot better. No headache right now, yay! Me and the roomies watched more WEST WING, which we refer to as "crack" because it's so fucking addicting (Michelle comes out of her room for a break from paper writing and says to me, "Crack?" And says I, "Josh!" and so we sit down and watch another episode. Or two.) and I would like to flail some. We have finished season 1 and watched the first 3 episodes of season 2, so behind the cut thar be spoilers! DON'T read if you plan on watching the show some time.

( The West Wing, aka I LOVE JOSH LYMAN )

Now I need icons! Or at least one, of JOSH. <33333