sunset!

I was sitting on my new deck last night, drinking a beer. Luckily it was nice enough that I could, because I have been thinking about doing just that from the moment I saw the deck. Anyway, the sunset was awesome from the deck and I took a picture!

Homeowners!

Adam and I closed on our house today! We own a house! Holy crap we need to pack!! Moving in four days! Puppy is going to have so much fun in the backyard. We got her a fence!!

happy holidays

My cousin was in the Joffrey Ballet's performance of the Nutcracker in Chicago and I was lucky enough to see it on Friday. It was absolutely fantastic. We then went to Custom House for dinner, a very fancy restaurant on Dearborn and Congress in downtown Chicago. The dinner was amazing (especially the gnocchi in a mushroom sauce, oh my goodness, it was melt in your mouth amazing). It was great fun with a few of my aunts and uncles and my mom. My cousin wanted to hear stories from my mom about how her father was bad when he was her age, so lots of funny stories were told. Then, my mom and I and one of my uncles had to leave to catch the train. My uncle set a bag on the table. We were then saying our good byes and thank yous and my cousin then yelled, "your bag's on fire!" My mom was speedy and grabbed a napkin and put out the fire, the waiter used a water at the table to put out the ashes, and the rest of us stood there dumbstruck. The waiter then relit the candle, so I had to ask, "Are you sure you want to do that while we're still here?"
You can dress us up, but you can't take us anywhere!

graduation

today was the graduation ceremony. the other two times i graduated (high school and undergrad), i was done. i got my diploma right away and did not have to worry about anything else. graduating being not finished really makes graduation day not mean as much. it was neat because the three of us who started in the lab together that are still there walked together. my boss was busy hooding more than anyone else. and her husband loves taking pictures, so lots of photos were taken. so, now i'm back to writing. i need to have most everything written by jan 2 so that when we move on jan 3 i'm not flipping out. formatting pass jan 6. then i'll have two weeks to prepare my presentation and finish up the rest of the experiments that i need to do. rah rah rah!
when i'm done with this, i'm going to buy myself a massage.

winter blows

well, the formatting person was out sick today, and there was a note on her desk to let me know, but the door was locked so that i could not see the note on her desk. reason 1 why winter blows, illnesses.
the ice storm that came through last night. while it was warm enough to melt everything here today, it was not warm enough to melt anything where the parental units are. which means they cannot come to graduation on sunday. which makes me somewhat sad. my aunt was hoping to come and is not going to either. it's much more important for them to be safe, and adam is here to come to graduation. Not to mention, I'm not done yet, so walking doesn't mean quite as much. So, I will tape graduation and show it to them when I go back next week. reason 2 why winter blows, having to cancel travel plans.

waiting...

i'm currently sitting outside the office of the thesis formatting person. her door is locked, she's not answering her phone, and our meeting was supposed to start 11 minutes ago. I am annoyed. I've been busting my ass all week, my house is a pigsty, and she's not here. ROAR.

why did i go to work today?

I'm writing my thesis. My first formatting appointment is tomorrow. I'm a bit of a mess. I'm not saying that it's an excuse, but it at least explains my behavior earlier.

To make a long story short, I made someone cry earlier today. I've never made someone cry before. I suppose you are bound to have firsts all your life. Not just first steps, first words, first car, but also first day you make someone cry...

What's really amazing is she cried to her boss. Who called my boss. Who called me and told me to apologize. And I did apologize, before the crying. And I was over it, it was done, I have more important stuff to do and worry about. But then I find out I made her cry and I had to apologize again. Which I did. But I really think the entire experience was competely ridiculous, and has wasted basically my entire evening, which I should have spent writing, and I haven't.

And, telling someone "don't get all antsy" more than once, especially someone with red hair, you're just asking for anger. Hello red headed fury. It's not like my fury is hidden, I wear it on my head all day long. And I have for 27 years. There's a reason there is a saying called red headed fury, and it's not because we make fairies sprinkle fairy dust on a land of ooey gooey gumdrops to make sunflowers and daisies grow giant sparkley flowers. Nope, not where the term red headed fury came from.

What started out as a stupid argument that lasted less than 5 minutes has turned into over an hour of me being baffled. But, now I can get back to writing.

another shoe

I cannot seem to help myself, but it turns out that my inspiration is shoes. A little distraction at looking at a shoe, and then I can get back to writing thesis. So, today's favorite shoe:

Jessica Simpson Delia in Pine Tree at jessicasimpsoncollection.com $54.99. Smartbargains.com has it in Carbon for $49.99, but my being obsessed with colorful shoes means I love it in green.

And this will be the second shoe I've posted and not purchased, and I'm becoming more okay with this. I just like looking at a beautiful shoe. The Leve I did not purchase because not in my size, The Delia I will not purchase because I will be mad at myself if I spend that much on a shoe. If it was $30 it would be much more difficult to resist.

I am so excited for the day that I live in the same town as a DSW. Closing in two weeks! DSW here I come!

snowing

I have my first formatting appointment on Friday, which means I need to finish Chapter one by Thursday night. Yippee. Luckily, that means I'm spending lots of time at home surrounded by papers and less time in the lab. And less time in the lab means I did not feel like I needed to stay at work during all this snow, and I just drove home. Safely. But, what annoys the crap out of me, and has for years: snow = instant idiots all over the road. It is truly amazing. If you are that worried about driving in the snow, don't do it. Or get a vehicle with four-wheel drive. The idiot drivers I'm sure cause more accidents than the snow or ice on the road does. Drive straight, leave plenty of room, and go very slow when you turn. So not that hard. And stopping in the middle of the road to turn left because the left turn lane is full of snow is a BAD idea. Stopping in the middle of the road when it's 70 and sunny is a bad idea because people can't stop, but mix ice and snow in and you'r just asking to get rear ended. ROAR. Okay, I'm going back to writing

compliment #2

Adam went to a work party over the weekend. I did not go with him because of the illness recovery and not wanting to ruin all my hard work of sleeping and not writing for three days. When asked where I was, Adam told everyone that I was still sick. The girlfriend of one of Adam's coworkers then told everyone they have to meet me because I have the best hair!
That makes me happy. When I was younger little old ladies would tell me how much they loved my hair, but it doesn't happen anymore. I miss that. But thanks, Melissa!

Thesis writing has made me feel a little bit like I'm in the Pit of Despair and hooked up to The Machine that sucks the life out of you, and I'm going to make that hair compliment be my chocolate covered miracle from Miracle Max.

a well needed break...

I have been hard at work on chapter 1 of my thesis today (aka, a review of the literature). After 6 hours, I have not gotten nearly as much done as I had hoped, and I am exhausted. This is the first day I've had coffee since Tuesday, and can I just say, OH SO delicious. I forced myself to drink tea to help get over the illness, and now that it is mostly gone, bring on the coffee!

I am currently surrounded by papers and binders, on the table, on the floor. There is a slight method to the madness, but the method keeps getting mixed up. I have three or four piles of mice deficient in different proteins, drug treated mice, cells deficient in proteins, 5 different diseases. This means about 10 piles. And I keep coming up with more needs for piles.

And when I don't know what else to say or I can't find a paper I'm looking for, I start to play with my hair. I found out today that my hair is long enough to be in a side ponytail. If I wanted to dress 80s, I could. Not after Friday when I'm getting my haircut (thank goodness), but now, bring on the 80s.

sick thesis writing

I'm sick. My head feels like it's either going to implode or explode, and I'm not quite sure yet which one. The illness is in my ears and therefore I am dizzy all the time. It's not pleasant. At least it's not as bad as the drunk-need-one-foot-on-the-floor-dizzy. But since I'm at home, this would be perfect thesis writing time. Except that I cannot seem to stay awake. And thesis writing puts me to sleep when my head is normal.

But, found out about a neat website yesterday: www.wordle.com
You can paste any text in and it turns that text into a picture and words used the most are the biggest, second most second biggest, etc. So I pasted Chapter 1 of my thesis in the website as is, and it gave me the perspective of what I haven't talked about enough yet. When chapter 1 is done, I'll wordle it again and paste it on here.

You see, I was a little bit productive!

Compliments

A friend of mine from undergrad is now in graduate school, working on her master's. She worked a few years between undergrad and grad school, and so I have a few years head start on this wonderful experience. She's having a hard time right now, and asked me about it today. I did my best to help her feel better, and her response:
as for the research stuff, you always make me feel so much better!! if ever i need a pick-me-up i just need to talk to you!! i'm so jealous of the people that get to work with you. thanks!
She is too cute, and made me feel so good, I just had to share!

And I need to feel good today, because I feel like crap. And this illness is in my ears and it's making me really dizzy.

I turned into....

I realized years ago that I have turned into both my mother and my father. Yesterday, I realized I have turned into my PI (principle investigator, aka boss).

I'm slightly frightened by this but also entertained.

I was talking to the person taking over my project about her future directions, today is group meeting and she needs to let our PI know her future directions. So, I was giving her a list. I eventually had to tell her to just walk away from me because I would just keep coming up with things for her do to. Anyway, she has been having a little trouble with some cloning that I talked to her about a month ago and haven't thought about since. This is where my "I've turned into my PI" moment comes in. She started to tell me about her problems, and I had NO CLUE what she was talking about. I always thought it was strange that my boss didn't know what I was doing, when I knew I'd talked to her about it already. Now I understand.

This is from phdcomics.com (11.14.08). They are so right on, every time.

To craft. And shoes. And boundaries.

I am really itching to make something. Anything. And I am trying very hard to focus on writing my thesis. Maybe that's why I want to make something, because it would be more fun than writing. Anyway, lionbrand.com sends me emails once a week with patterns and this week's email was gifts to make in a hurry. And there were two super cute hats in the email that probably would knit or crochet up super fast, but I'm not allowed to think about that right now. Lionbrand is torturing me! I really have a list of things I want to make for babies and rugs for the house and anything else really, but I have to hold out until January 23!

I am also being somewhat tortured by shoes. All the shoes in the universe. And I want all the cute ones. So, my shoe of the month:

Jessica Simpson Leve in Purple/Green Irridescent Patent. $31.05 at 6pm.com. But not in a 9.

I have a thing for colorful shoes, I'm not sure why. I used to want black and brown, now I want everything else. And irridescent opens up a whole new world of fabulousness!

Okay, I have to vent for a moment. Just a little moment. As I was writing fabulousness, there was a new development and I'm now rather upset. Our custodian spilled her bucket of dirty water on her shoe and, since she knows I have spare shoes in the lab for my use when I'm in heels or sandals and my feet need a break or need to be covered, she asked to borrow my shoe. I have a real problem with this for two reasons: 1. she spilled dirty water on her shoe, and her sock got soaked, so her foot therefore was doused in dirty water too. 2. she put my shoe on without a sock, her dirty water foot is now in my shoe. I wanted to tell her no. I tried to tell her I have weird feet and they would probably be really uncomfortable. She didn't care. I have thrown shoes away for less than this. I don't think I can wear those shoes ever again. At least they are old and I got them on clearance when I did by them. I didn't really think I got all the use out of them that I probably could have. But I'm not going to be able to wear them again. Does this make me odd? Maybe, but I don't care. I don't like other people's feet coming near me and she has put her dirty foot in my shoe without even a sock barrier. So gross! This person does not understand boundaries AT ALL. My poor shoe.... :(

I have to add, if this custodian's feelings are hurt in any way, she stops cleaning our floor. I can't wait to get away from walking on eggshells around this woman. She has no boundaries and has no problem passing over my boundaries on a daily basis. Grumble....... My poor shoe.

rubber ducky

So, I'm a little crazy. I'm okay with that, I've known it for a while now, and I figure that if my ridiculousness makes people laugh, it's all good. For some reason, why I'm not totally sure, but I know lots of kids songs. Lots of them. This comes in handy when playing with nephew. I learned a few from co-worker with child who loves songs, but some I just know.

Nephew LOVES taking baths. Nephew has lots of rubber duckies (big ones, little ones, and medium sized ones). Me being that fantastic crazy aunt I am began singing "Rubber Ducky". Nephew could not take his eyes off me and had the most absolutely huge grin on his face. Song ended, he went back to playing. Fast forward to the next time I was home, baby took a bath, I sang the song. My mom therefore wanted to learn it because baby loved it so much. The rest of the time I was home (and Thanksgiving was a LONG weekend), Mom was practicing. Mom practicing was making Dad not happy, and he finally reached his breaking point when she was singing while baby was sleeping. I then came back to school. On Tuesday night I was talking to her on the way to the grocery store and all she had to say was "sing the song" and I sang it again. Honestly, if someone was listening to the conversation they would have been so confused. Anyway, I then was in grocery store and she asked me to sing it again and I wouldn't, not in public. Next night, talking to mom, again, sing rubber ducky. But this time she was ready with pen and paper and I had to sing it slow so that she could write it down. Adam got to witness that one. And yes, I learned my silliness from my mother. :)

So, for anyone who want to learn the lyrics:
Rubber ducky, you're the one
You make bathtime lots of fun
Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you

Rubber ducky, joy of joys
When I squeeze you you make noise
Rubber ducky, you're my very best friend it's true

Every day when I
Make my way to the tubby
There's a little fellow
Who's cute and yellow and chubby
Rub a dub dubby

Rubber ducky, you're so fine
And I'm lucky that you're mine
Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you

Every day when I
Make my way to the tubby
There's a little fellow
Who's cute and yellow and chubby
Rub a dub dubby
Rubber ducky, you're so fine
And I'm lucky that you're mine
Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of -
Rubber ducky, I'd like a whole pond of -
Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you!

And if you need to know the tune, I found Ernie singing it on youtube:

the move

I have great news about our move. Not only did the apartment people say it was fine to stay through the weekend so we will move Jan 3 or 4, they aren't going to charge us an arm and a leg, they're going to charge us what those 4 days would cost us regularly. Amazingly enough.
And the mortgage people got us an even lower interest rate, so our monthly payment is going to be $17 less a month! Gotta love that!
So despite all this drama, good things are happening, and I'm not feeling like I'm going to vomit anymore. :)

prop 8 - the musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Ain't no time to hate.

no snuggle time? oh no!

I've been writing materials and methods all morning and I need a break. My fingers therefore brought me over to my blog.

I am able to get the most writing done while sitting at the kitchen table. I can spread out papers on fabulous things like mice deficient in essential enzymes and the distraction of the television is in the other room. This whole sitting at the kitchen table thing has thrown poor puppy for a loop. She enjoys her mommy snuggle time when mommy gets home from work, but now that mommy has a very specific deadline and lots to write about, mommy doesn't technically ever come home from work. She is home, yes, but still working. And not snuggling. Which means puppy stands or sits at mommy's feet with the saddest look of "but, i need to snuggle" and breaks mommy's heart. And she then throws a few "whine whine whine"s in there, driving mommy crazy. I'm a giant softee... I need to toughen up! I am the master of science, hear me roar! No softee here in master of science-dom! Puppy, you will have to deal without snuggle time. If I can, you can!

defense insomnia 2

Well, two days ago I was awake at 4 am for no reason other than I'm flipped out about moving and defending. Yesterday I was not awake at 4 am. Today I am awake at 4 am.

What is the difference between the awake days and the day I actually slept? Benadryl. Apparently I only sleep when I cheat and drug myself. This is not a good start to the month. If only Benadryl was not a capsule, I could break it in two and just take half. I don't want to take a whole one because I'll sleep for way way too long or just not be able to wake up no matter how much coffee I drink. So, I'm just awake. At least Sleepless in Seattle is on. I love this movie.

I think I finished one of my appendices last night, good good. Just 5 chapters and three more appendices to go. Yippee skippee!

closing late

I'm busy. Like a beaver. There is no question of that. But today I was informed of some not great news that makes my busy beaverness a bit nuts. To make a long story short, we cannot close on our house until after Christmas because of the type of loan we are getting. What was originally going to be two weeks to move will now be two days. And if the weather sucks, too bad. I am so totally bummed about this. Granted, this is two weeks we won't have to be paying for two places and two sets of utility bills, but ROAR, I am so worried about the weather and moving in December anyway, and now we will have to manage no matter what. This just makes me extra nervous, and I don't need to be using up any nerves on this. There is nothing we can do, and at least our lease and house will overlap 2 days instead of no days, or negative days. And I was debating with myself about when we would actually move, now there is no debate. We're moving the last two days of December.

So, just to put out there my December and January:

• experiments galore until the very last minute
• write write write my thesis
• pack pack pack the apartment
• Dec 21: walk in graduation
• Dec 25: to grandpa's house I go
• Dec 26: the Nutcracker and dinner with family (cousin is in Nutcracker)
• Dec 27: who knows, lots of crazies to visit
• Dec 28: back to school
• Dec 29: finish packing, attempt to begin packing vehicles
• Dec 30: close at 11 am and move as much as humanly possible
• Dec 31: move everything else, which will be insanely difficult since adam is working ALL DAY. We will succeed! ROAR!
• Jan 6: FINAL formatting deadline. I will need to have initial formatting appts before this. Aka thesis must be written or mostly written by this date.
• Jan 6-22:
• hope boss lady will proofread so that I can get to work on corrections
• finish up any experiments that need finishing and write them into thesis
• work on powerpoint presentation for defense
• practice defense presentation. practice practice practice
• Jan 22: pick up Aarti from airport! yay!
• Jan 23: defend. then celebrate. all weekend. yes!
• Jan 26-30: finish up corrections, experiments, check out of university, deposit thesis
• Feb 2: start post doc

Can I just say that I cannot wait for Feb 2 and I wish that I didn't have to do all that other stuff between now and then. Sigh.

Quit bitching about it and get to work! Okay! I need a cheer:

defense insomnia

it is 4 am and I am awake. I have been awake for a while, and I am honestly in SHOCK that it is 4 am. When I looked at the clock I didn't believe it. But all the clocks say the same thing, and they can't all be lying. I was laying in bed thinking about all that I need to get done and where we are going to go to celebrate my phd-hood (I cannot help but think about the party). So, I am up and I thought since I was thinking about finishing up, I should get up and write something. Maybe awake in the middle of the night = inspiration.

I think I'm just going to have to start taking benadryl before I go to bed.

defense day

I have finally finally finally scheduled my defense. Friday, January 23 at 2 pm. I have less than two months to finish up lots and lots of experiments and write write write. I am so excited and so scared that I won't get everything done in time. I know that I have done enough and anything that I don't finish will be my underling's job to finish, so I'm trying to not get completely worried. I just want my thesis to be as complete as possible. I just need to remind myself that there is no way for me to tell the complete story, so much of the story is still unknown and it is not my job to finish it. It's only my job to write what I know and a long list of future directions.

Heather defended today. We started together, it's been a crazy 5.5 years, and she's finished! And I'm not far off!! It's just been such a long time, an amazing time, and it's so crazy that it's ending. Finally finally ending, I've been wishing for the end for 4.5 years (give or take), and I'm kind of amazed that it's here. I knew it was close, but actually having a date and watching Heather defend on the same day is throwing me for a loop. Wowie zowie!

standing guard, a note from spunky

Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi, my mommy let me use the computer again. It seems as though this only occurs after visiting grandma and grandpa's, but that's okay. I just wanted to tell everyone how much I love their great big yard of trees and bushes. I get to guard the yard from the bunnies and squirrels and chase them out. They are not welcome in my yard, and they tempt me so much. They like to sneak back in the yard while I am inside either sleeping, begging for food, or running away from that small person, but when I go back out there I chase them all away. And my bark is SCARY! After I chase all those yucky critters out of the yard, I like to stand by the door and check out the wonderful job I did, scanning the yard for anymore critters. And they're frightened, let me tell you. I am super dog, chaser of critters, restorer of the backyard peace!