Passion

I was doing so well. I had almost a couple months there with no drama. I was involved in the drama of others, but at least I hadn't created or walked into any drama of my own. And then recruitment weekend goes and happens, and suddenly I'm left wondering if there's a cosmic setting for me somewhere that's been moved to "chaos" again. How do I keep getting myself into these sorts of things? I must be a lot more naive than I think I am.

I feel a strong desire this morning to talk about something, anything, normal, to forget all about the cadre of guys occupying most of my brain energy, and to focus on something a little more mundane and a lot less complicated. Like Cofactor Dynamics and Sufficiency in Estrogen Receptor-Regulated Transcription. Thank the gods, all of them, for Advanced Eukaryotic; I think that class is keeping me sane right now. It's hard but not ridiculously so, and the required reading is only one paper every week and a half, so it's certainly not like it's taking up a lot of my time. Plus, it's fascinating. Well, this particular paper wasn't fascinating, but the last one was, and the lectures have been pretty good too. I feel lucky to be able to take all these classes this semester; it's the first time I've ever been allowed to take real electives, and with the pressure of needing two H's gone, I'm just concentrating on enjoying the work and only worrying about not looking stupid in front of classmates.

Last week I worked a couple of 9 to 5 days in the lab. I think they marked my first ever 9 to 5 days, and for the first time in my life I understood the whole "hard work feels good" mentality that old men are always preaching. It's not that hard work itself feels so good, it's that spending a whole day working on something you enjoy and find to be a noble cause feels good. If you feel like your work is worthwhile, and you don't hate it, then it feels good. Lab is so much more enjoyable in grad school than it was in undergrad! I love that I get to choose what I'm working on; I love that I know enough about science to be able to choose what I'm working on. I love understanding what the other graduate students are doing. I love seminars and lectures and lab meetings and reading papers and UNDERSTANDING what's happening. For the first time, I really feel like science has lit (litted? lighted? litten? dude, wouldn't litten be an awesome word?) me on fire, and I actually WANT to work, I WANT to go to lab in the mornings. It's such a strange, wonderful feeling. Man I love grad school.

Please remind me of this post in two or three years, when I start to become bitter and exhausted.

*sigh* All right; I have an assignment due in Euk in about three hours, and I should try to get to lab before then, so I guess I'd better go do my homework. Last time I wrote a page, single-spaced, and I got it back with a little note on the top that says, "double-spaced in the future, please," which I think is hilarious, because it took me all of ten minutes to write the single-spaced page. A double-spaced page only gives me enough text to say, "This paper was AWESOME. The authors are BRILLIANT. If they follow up on this they'll win a Nobel."
Anyway.

Bleh, I was hoping to update more this week, but things just got INSANE.

Monday I spoke with an advisor, and then with a new lab, and then came home to contemplate my decision. The next day I suffered through class, still largely undecided ("but I'll hurt his feelings..."), then made my decision and marched (okay, skulked is a closer description) into my PI's office to tell him what the deal was. (He's a younger Asian guy, and he talks really fast, so keep that in mind as you read this.)
Me: "Hi, I wanted to talk to you for a second... I just wanted to let you know I've decided to end my rotation early--"
PI: "Right, right, okay that's fine, yeah, yeah."
Me: "...Um... Okay. Well, tell Daria it was good to work with her, and--"
PI: "Right, okay that's fine, that's good, yeah, okay."
Me: "Um, right. Bye then!" *runs away*

Luckily I never have to go back there, so I never have to determine why he blew me off as I was attempting to explain to him why I was leaving. Perhaps he expected me to switch labs, perhaps he just didn't care. At any rate, that was Tuesday afternoon. After that I went to class and then retreated home to recover.

( The rest of the week was better. )
Oh yeah, and P.S. here are the results of the quizzy thingy you guys filled out. Thank you! (I know it's all kind words, so I won't thank you for them, but I do thank you for taking the time to click on them. :-P )

Arena (known to self and others) friendly, intelligent, loving, mature	Blind Spot (known only to others) adaptable, brave, caring, complex, confident, giving, independent, ingenious, logical, observant, reflective, searching, self-conscious, sentimental, silly, sympathetic, tense, trustworthy
Façade (known only to self) accepting, idealistic	Unknown (known to nobody) able, bold, calm, cheerful, clever, dependable, dignified, energetic, extroverted, happy, helpful, introverted, kind, knowledgeable, modest, nervous, organised, patient, powerful, proud, quiet, relaxed, religious, responsive, self-assertive, sensible, shy, spontaneous, warm, wise, witty

Dominant Traits

100% of people agree that oceantheorem is intelligent

All Percentages

able (0%) accepting (0%) adaptable (33%) bold (0%) brave (33%) calm (0%) caring (33%) cheerful (0%) clever (0%) complex (16%) confident (16%) dependable (0%) dignified (0%) energetic (0%) extroverted (0%) friendly (33%) giving (16%) happy (0%) helpful (0%) idealistic (0%) independent (16%) ingenious (16%) intelligent (100%) introverted (0%) kind (0%) knowledgeable (0%) logical (16%) loving (33%) mature (16%) modest (0%) nervous (0%) observant (16%) organised (0%) patient (0%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (0%) reflective (16%) relaxed (0%) religious (0%) responsive (0%) searching (16%) self-assertive (0%) self-conscious (33%) sensible (0%) sentimental (33%) shy (0%) silly (16%) spontaneous (0%) sympathetic (16%) tense (16%) trustworthy (16%) warm (0%) wise (0%) witty (0%)

Classes start today!

Commence excited happy dance! I'm gonna go to at least ten, Rory-style, before I pick my schedule! Shopping week is such an awesome idea.

*is running behind schedule* *runs off*

Geh, so this week has been really boring. Mostly, I lolled around on the floor, alternating watching Scrubs with sleeping for two or three hours at a time, only to be woken by people calling to see how I was doing. Monday and Tuesday were okay; I was sick enough to be happy to just sit around. But Wednesday was harder; I had to run errands to entertain myself, even though I was still really too weak to get anything done. Thursday I tried to go back into lab, and the first thing my PI said when I showed up was, "You look sick. Come back Monday." After some cajoling, I got him to give me some reading to do, and I got my postdoc to agree to teach me some things today, and I figured out that they wanted me to go home not because I was sick but because they still didn't have anything for me to do. So I spent yesterday afternoon running errands (and still being wiped out), then slept like a rock instead of going climbing. Today I went back in to lab and worked with flies for the first time, to learn what the different marker mutations look like. I can pick out curly wings and different colored eyes really easily, but stubble hairs are a bit trickier. I accidentally ripped off one fly's leg, and impaled another one, but both were anaesthetized at the time and were killed shortly after, so I'm trying not to feel too guilty.

I have problems with microscopes but I feel like I'm too advanced in my career to admit this to anyone who could possibly help me.

In other news:

I have successfully "learned to knit." I define this as being able to knit without supervision. I'm making a scarf and it has a pattern and I think I'm becoming addicted to knitting. I find myself thinking about knitting while doing other things. ("I'm waiting for the bus. Could I knit while I wait? Hmm, no, too cold." "I'm reading a paper, can I knit while I do this? Yes, if I stop to turn the pages." "I'm walking to lab. Can I knit while I walk? Probably not...")

I decided yesterday that I want to write a novel. I thought about this for a few hours, and have no clue what I would write said novel about. I also realized 1)I can't both write a novel and become a knitter; both take up too much of what little free time I have. 2)I don't quite have the dedication required to write a novel, even if I decide to stop knitting. Therefore, I'm going to... not write a novel.
I'm somewhat sad about this.

My sister had her first birthday Wednesday. If I had pictures I'd post them, but my parents haven't sent me any.

Classes start Tuesday. I'm super excited and am going to approach them in a Rory-like manner; that is, since we have "shopping week," I'm going to attend ALL the classes that sound interesting and then decide which to take based on subject matter, location, and professor. I'm such a nerd sometimes.

Oh yeah, and I really want a new layout for my livejournal, but I have no idea WHAT exactly I want. Maybe I should poke Megan about this....

No really, what does LOD score mean to YOU?
( How do I make lj put the pictures big in the entry so you don't have to click on them three times in order to read the text? )

Good grief. I got almost 30 emails today. This whole grad school thing is sure keeping me on my toes.

I hate oranges. Because of this, I hate orange juice. I also hate the color orange, but that's not really related. So anyway, yesterday morning I went to Au Bon Pain to get myself some coffee and a pastry for breakfast. I picked out a pastry and realized I didn't really want coffee, which is unusual but not weird. Every now and then my body rejects the idea of caffeine, and I figure this is its way of regulating my coffee addiction, so I go with it. So no coffee. I turned around and there was this large open refridgerator, with all the juice and yogurt and fruit on display, and right there at eye level was a shelf full of orange juice.

I hate orange juice.

And yet my body saw the juice and suddenly screamed, "I want that! I want that NOW!" in a very six-year-old sort of way. My brain very calmly looked at the orange juice and replied, "No. You won't drink it. You hate orange juice." To this my body replied that it knew what it wanted, and what it wanted was what it saw, and I would damn well buy the orange juice and I would drink it. Furthermore, I would buy the large 16 oz cup and not the dinky 8 oz cup. My brain ogled, but was swayed by my body's apparent conviction. So I bought 16 oz of orange juice. And I drank most of it. It was very strange.
I must be vitamin deficient. I took a vitamin when I got home last night.

Today was LONG. I woke up and wrote an article for B Magazine about this year's Nobel prize winners, then walked over to Church St and got a proxy-capable ID card printed, so I can get into Pierson college to take meals, then went to lab and transformed some yeast and some bacteria, then went to Cell Bio and read a Genetics paper instead of taking notes, then went back to lab to plate some bacteria, then wrote a summary of the Genetics paper I didn't really finish reading, then went to a friend's house for a dinner, then went to Genetics discussion, then walked all the way across town to watch Lost with another friend, and now here I am back at home, avoiding reading two Cell Bio papers for the seminar tomorrow morning.

As hectic and stressed as today was, I feel okay right now. It was a productive day, I was stressed out, I did some intelligent things, and I came home to a safe and warm apartment. I don't know why being stressed out makes me happier, but I guess that's part of why I'm in grad school. Maybe it's that I feel like I'm contributing something, or I'm not overprivileged, or whatever. I don't know why, but being happy always makes me feel really guilty.

I'm definitely still lonely though, because I'm still finding myself missing people I shouldn't be missing. *sigh*

Coming soon, to a schedule near you:
* Genetics retreat this weekend--Friday and Saturday
* GPSCY party Saturday night
* Cell Bio midterm Monday
* Cell Bio midterm questions due to study group by Saturday
* Pay rent and car payment
* NSF due next week (or possibly the week after, if I decide I'm applying for Life Sci and not Interdisciplinary)
* In lab tomorrow: dilute yeast colonies because I overgrew them, transform three more bait vectors into said yeast, miniprep today's 30 bacterial colonies and hope to get prey vectors out.

All right, off to bed, so I can get up in six hours to finish reading the aforementioned Cell Bio papers.

This week has been madness. One long week of wonderful, ridiculous, frenetic madness.

Monday, Genetics and Cell Bio were both pretty good. The professors change almost every week, and this week's batch is, surprisingly, hilarious. So both lectures were pretty good. I think. I actually can't remember Genetics. But I liked Cell Bio. Monday afternoon was also the first meeting of the 900 class, the one associated with our rotations. That, I have decided, is the most boring waste of time ever. They had a librarian (poor thing, she obviously didn't do well speaking to large groups of people)(I just remembered I left the stove on, brb)(back) speak to us about the resources at Science Hill (we've already had the library resource talk for the med campus, which is where my lab is, so really, I couldn't care less about Science Hill library resources), which consisted mainly of her reading someone else's Powerpoint presentation to us, in a very dry, monotonous, whispery voice. I briefly considered stabbing myself with my pen to 1) stay awake and 2) make an excuse to leave, but I settled instead for attempting to solve the Sudoku in Sunday's Yale Daily News. (As an aside, I still haven't been able to solve that one, which makes me angry. It's the first Sudoku I've ever not been able to solve.) The second half of the class revolved around the NSF grant I will be writing this month. It's due November 1st, and I must write it, and I have to request transcripts from UCSC and GRE scores from ETS and dah. This is not going to be the most fun project ever.

Tuesday was better. I had colonies, which means I may have found some interesting protein sequences, and if all is lucky then when I sequence them next week they will be consensus sequences, and they will also be somewhere in my protein of interest. My advisor is really excited about these colonies, so I guess I am too. Tuesday night was also the season premiere of Gilmore Girls. I missed the first fifteen minutes, but from the online synopses I read, I don't think I missed much action. I don't know why everyone is so upset about this new writer; I thought he did a good job with this episode, and it wasn't much like last season, but no one LIKED last season. The characters seemed to be acting more like they did back in seasons 1-3, which is cool on the one hand but not as cool on the other. I don't know why no one liked last season, because I thought Rory grew a lot as a person. Yeah, the Luke daughter thing was dumb, but I liked the way Lorelai handled it--I thought it was very true to her character. And I actually liked this first episode of season 7. It was still Gilmore-y, there were plenty of quips and lots of fast talking. And it's only one episode. So everyone just needs to Calm. Down.

Wednesday was frenetic. I went to class and read a paper and went to class and stopped by lab to do another PCR because I still didn't have any bacterial colonies and I finished reading a paper and took a nap and wrote a summary and went to discussion and came home and read a paper and collapsed at 1 am.

I woke up Thursday absurdly early to finish reading the paper I'd started Wednesday night, made a ton of coffee, and went to Cell Bio seminar tired but SERIOUSLY buzzed on caffeine. I probably shouldn't have had quite so much. But class went well, and I learned a ton, and I do really like this week's professor. I went to lab afterward and had lunch with my labmates. They do crosswords at lunch, so I've been working with them, and I think I'm starting to get better. After lunch I plated some more bacteria and restreaked some yeast (more positive colonies yay!). I came home last night and watched four episodes of Lost.

Today I got up and lazed about, then walked to Starbucks to buy coffee. I forgot that I never buy regular coffee at Starbucks, so I was halfway down the block before I realized that I'd forgotten to put sugar in it. So I walked the rest of the way to the med school and spilled hot coffee all over myself because it was too strong and black to drink quickly (I can drink black coffee, and I like black coffee, but I have to drink it slowly or it overwhelms me. sugar makes it possible for me to inhale it) and for some reason I can't walk with coffee and not spill it on myself. This is a recurring problem. No, spill-proof containers do not help. I am just that uncoordinated. Anyway, I got sugar in lab, started another transformation because STILL no bacterial colonies, even with the shorter PCR template, so Susan suggested that I try transfecting them with just the vector and no insert. Maybe maybe MAYBE Monday I'll have some bacteria. In the meantime, the yeast are still looking good, although I'm not sure that the ones I restreaked yesterday are real positives.

Tomorrow there's a swing dancing lesson. Four hours of professional instruction, plus lunch, for $7. I love Yale.

Also, today I got paid, which means I can pay my rent. And I started to budget out my money and calculated in car insurance and car payment, and then realized I've ALREADY PAID THEM BOTH. My car insurance is paid up until December, and I already paid this month's car payment, so I have more money than I thought I did! You know what this means. That's right, I can afford to buy warm clothing for the absurdly cold Connecticut winter that I know is just waiting around the corner to sneak up on me when I least expect it. I'll be sitting on the lawn at the med school, eating my lunch and soaking up rays, and all of a sudden WHOMP! I'll be covered in snow.

A couple more of my cousins are getting married. There are only two of us left in my age group. I'm starting to feel like an old maid. Not that I have any desire, not even the tiniest little urge, to get married. Quite the opposite. But I'm starting to feel a bit of pressure. Like, no one wants to say it, but everyone I'm related to is thinking, "So when are you gonna settle down? Gonna have some babies and start your life?" I feel like that's not me. Family is not going to be my life. Research is my life. Expanding the scope of human knowledge is my life. And that's noble and that's cool and I'd be a horrible mother anyway. But I still feel like an old maid.

Oh yeah. Andrew (climbing Andrew) went climbing yesterday and apparently they DO sell monthly memberships, and it's a reasonable price, so I will be able to start climbing here regularly, and my budget will be able to afford that. So I need to find me an REI and finally buy me a harness, and then Climbing! All the time! Exercise and climbing and yay!

All in all, things are going extraordinarily well. I love grad school, freneticicity and all. I'm really happy. It's been a while since I've been single and this happy. It's nice to see that I can control my own life and make myself happy and I don't need to rely on men for that.

That said, I'd be a lot happier if Yale was in Santa Cruz.