Passion

Last night I had a dream about Clark. This is weird, because I have only had dreams with Clark in them on a few occasions, and I can't even remember those dreams clearly. I'm beginning to think that Clark signifies my conscience or my "voice of reason" in my dreams, because basically the only thing I remember about the dream from last night/this morning is that he was asking me, in a manner not unlike the one in which Jess questions Rory, whether or not I really wanted to be leaving school. "Are you really sure?" he asked. In that tone of voice that suggests that of course I'm not really sure, because it's a terrible idea and he's going to say I told you so in five years.
Actually, I also remember thinking, "I'm so glad you contacted me," (and in the dream I remember it was over AIM, and the chat window was all familiar and it was kind of comforting) and wondering if I had been too hard on him when we stopped talking, and if part of my anger with him wasn't really anger at myself and general frustration at my current life situation. I don't think he deserved all the wrath I heaped upon him, although he certainly deserved part of it.

The weird thing about making lots of friendslocked entries is that, after a while, it gets to be nerve-wracking to make unlocked posts. It induces paranoia.

I went climbing tonight and there was great music and I had good new climbing pants and of course the company is always excellent, and I felt like, "hey, this is santa-cruz-y and I'm okay here. I should climb more often." But something niggled in the back of my brain, saying, "This is not what you're missing, this is not why you're unhappy; more time spent climbing is not going to make it all better. This is not your solution." And I thought, "Yes, you're right." But it's interesting how I can have good moments--I had a great weekend too, with Aaron and with some of his friends and a few great rounds of a card game called Munchkin--and be generally okay and still be absolutely miserable. I really am absolutely miserable. And it's really just getting worse, despite everything I'm doing to try to force myself to dig in and put down roots and adjust, damnit (I just got a cat, for crying out loud, and the small furry thing, while I adore her, is not making everything better--I mean, not that I expected her to, but this sort of indicates that it's not an easily fixable thing, you know?).

Anyway, point is--subconscious, or Clark: I am unhappy and I don't know how to fight it without leaving. Fighting it here is not working. I think the unhappiness is inherent in the graduate school at Yale part. It's the being young part. It's the... it's all that. I don't know.

I'm very young and very miserable and very confused. But at least I have new climbing pants.

I think my body is protesting again. I've kayaked, played wiffleball, done yoga and pilates, and gone climbing all in the last six days. Every single one of my muscles has been sore at some point this week, and I think I grew some new muscles just so they could be sore this evening. Also, I am a giant walking bruise. Luckily I look good in blue and black.

Climbing was really good tonight, actually. I'm climbing 5.9s (which is like a CA 5.10b/c), and while my endurance and strength are STILL lacking, my technique doesn't seem to be getting any worse. They're opening up a new gym in New Haven at some point this summer (this month...?), and I think once that's open I'll be able to go a lot more often. Not having to drive twenty minutes each way will be nice, and will make a huge difference in how often I can make time to go. http://www.climbthecliffs.com/ (there are some awesome pictures if you click on the News link)

After three weeks of living in someone else's room, I have finally moved into my own room. It's soooo good to have my own space again. Now, if only I could actually unpack... Only three more weeks until we move into the new house... Surely I can continue to live without 98% of my belongings, and without a real sense of home, until then (even though I've been living like this since I went on vacation June 9th). Right? Right???

I went to the DMV this evening to attempt to get a CT driver's license. Their system went down about three minutes before I got there. *sigh* I knew I'd have to go back tomorrow anyway, because I need to get my car tested for emissions before I can register it, but I was kind of hoping to get the licensing out of the way first. The earlier I get that done, the earlier I can get into line to register the car. And hopefully the line won't be too long tomorrow. I'd like to have time to go into lab tomorrow to start ANOTHER western before...

STARDUST! Okay, so I'm a really, really new convert to Neil Gaiman. I read Stardust, like, four months ago. And I still haven't finished Neverwhere. But I absolutely adored Stardust, and I'll probably love the rest of his books as well. And the movie trailer for Stardust looks amazing. A bunch of us are going to see it tomorrow, and then will probably have some sort of drunken revelry afterwards. I am very much looking forward to tomorrow.
After the DMV, that is.

Also, I need new clothes.

Oh, right, livejournal. Forgot about that.

Grad school kinda swallowed me up last week. I guess it's gonna be like this for another two weeksish, until I turn in the grant/term paper I haven't started writing yet. Frickin homework. Also, I'm giving a rotation talk a week from today, so I'm kinda panicking about that. I've barely had time to check my email lately, let alone update lj.

Anyway, the weekend was actually pretty good. I soaked up a lot of sun last week and felt much happier over the weekend. I also did a lot of social things. Funny thing is that I still find myself picking up my papers and reading in the main lab area, around other people, instead of in the office area where I can eat and drink coffee while I read. I guess I'm a little human-starved these days. I feel a constant need to be around people.

Anyway. It's super late and I'm exhausted, and I haven't gotten any work done since I left lab seven hours ago. Climbing sucked tonight, by the way. Although I did climb a 5.10a, which I think is the first 10 I've done since Santa Cruz. Maybe the second. But for tonight only being the second time back since I took those six weeks off for my toe, I guess I really shouldn't complain. Even though I have a giant rope burn inside my left elbow.

Right, as I was saying... going to bed now. Super knitting update later.

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.

So some fun stuff happened this week.

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