more wants

1. Skinny cords:

$34.50, oldnavy.com

2. Black, ankle-high (or skinny knee-high), waterproof boots

$189, endless.com


3. Sweaters to keep me warm. Now that my summer wardrobe is well-stocked, I need to turn my attention to the winter one.


And another thing! I keep hearing my cell phone ring faintly, even when it's not actually ringing! I think it's because I've had the same ringtone for so long.

cringe

You know that song "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues" by Elton John? I hate the whole song for that one line: "Rollin' like thunder...under the covers!"

Another cringe-thing: the word "impromptu" in speech. In writing it's fine, but hearing the -u at the end is just bad.

Shoe update: I think I'll keep them, and I think I need foot surgery or something.

sexy shoes

I caved! It's Heather's fault.

shoedazzle.com

Look at that color! Look at that heel! LOOK AT THE LACE-UP BACK!

Now all I need is an occasion.

people watching

I know two people that turned 10+10+10 on 10/10/10. Too bad there's no 16th month for me!

Today walking to and from the bank I saw a recent mom (with a little kid) who looked SO good: put-together, cute shoes and dress, and happy. Then I saw another!! This is too much pressure.

I also saw a guy who looked exactly like Wayne Jarvis, right down to the facial expression. He could have been saying "Well Michael, I did not find their buffoonery amusing!"

Am sick today.

umbrella vote

All comparable prices, from Amazon.com:

Well?

don't judge

When I saw the Piperlime ad in my inbox with cargo leggings in the subject line, I opened it straight away so I could get my scorn on.

Here is what I saw:

Free People, piperlime.com, $98.

Is it just me, or are these unexpectedly gorgeous? I used to hope the jeggings fad would pass as soon as possible, but this may just make the whole stupid trend worth it.

OMFG

THERE IS A SPIDER.

I'm cleaning/packing my room tonight, and I'm on duty. It's been a great night, up until...

No suspense--you already know. THERE'S A SPIDER. It ran suddenly across my dresser, then stopped on the underlip. My usual strategy (when alone) is to trap it under a cup. This is hard to do on a not-flat surface.

I used my South tassel to flick it a bit, so it ran up the wall. Then I took a ceramic cup I made, emptied the change out of it, and trapped the spider!!!

I reached down, picked up an amazon receipt, folded it, and slid it under. This spider is fucking huge so it wasn't getting out. Still. Scary moment.

Then I crunched the paper TIGHT around the spider, put it on the floor, put a shoebox over the cup, and weighed it all down with a couple yearbooks. It's right by my feet.

Then I turned on my computer and blogged about it.

jdc

"What is your general feeling when you re-read a grant that you submitted in the past? Is it horror?"

-The director of my lab, to the other PIs on the enormous grant we're all in the process of applying for

first polish review

It's about time, right?

I saw Lindsay and Diane on Saturday, after a month of not at all. So...getting Japanese food, seeing these two, that's all I could ask for. But! It turns out they brought the one thing that could improve on that formula: BIRTHDAY PRESENTS!

One was a set of jellies and jams that I am very much looking forward to trying with croissants from Witherspoon Bread Co or the Little Pastry Chef, depending on whether I'm in the mood for flaky or hearty. I'll put a review of those soon, I'm sure.

For tonight, we have the second present: a bottle of FUNKY DUNKEY, from the OPI Shrek collection. Overall, I wasn't impressed with what I saw of the collection, but I thought this and one other were possibles! When I saw the bottle I gasped--I thought at first it was one of the bottles on my wish list. It looked just perfect. A color I didn't have AND wanted!

I got home and tried it out over CND ridge-filler and under Poshe's fast-drying topcoat. The topcoat, by the way, is fantastic. Super quick dry, cheap, readily available. It has the same issue that all fast-drying topcoats do, though: it starts drying out slightly every time it gets used, so when it's about half empty (or gets thick) I start adding maybe three drops of Seche restore about every other time I use it.

The ridge-filler base coat is awful. I'm really disappointed, since lately I've been picking at my nails and liked CND's stickey (regular base coat), so I wanted to like the ridge-filler. Nope. It feels tackier, doesn't hold as well--lots of chipping, and many polishes don't flow as well over it. Not a great choice for trying out a brand-new polish, but I want to use this damn thing up, and I figure since I'm doing a lot of drill-work, I'm going to redo my nails pretty soon anyway.

So: the polish itself! The application was streaky, and felt, paradoxically, watery on the first coat and very thick and tacky on the second. In general good 2-coat coverage, but because of the streakiness a third coat would not have gone astray. I'm inclined to give this the benefit of the doubt; my arms are slightly shaky from all the work they've been doing, the light wasn't great (though that's not really a factor), I was a bit impatient since it was late, and of course, I used the ridge-filler base. Next time I wear this I'll use stickey and see how it goes.

Because there WILL be a next time. The bottle color is a perfect purple that I didn't have. On the red-based side but slightly muted; mid-tone. It's not as dark (or red) as Pamplona Purple, and it's darker and less creamy than Uptown Girl. Yum, I couldn't wait to see it.

And boy was I surprised. I know polishes dry a bit darker than the bottle, but this is FAR darker. It's still very different from Pamplona Purple, and I'm actually still loving it just as much, even though it didn't turn out as expected. It's a great summer-fall color: intense and different enough for summer, but dark and smokey enough for fall. By the way, this is a picture from Wednesday morning, and I applied the polish Saturday night...and in between I've been doing a lot of handiwork. My right hand is more chipped, but this is still excellent wear, especially considering the inferior basecoat.

You can see the slight streakiness on my pointer that a third coat would have evened out.

This is a GREAT color, guys. Thank you so much: you made my day, and the polish was the least of it. And because I promised Diane:

maple candy

Ingredients: maple syrup, butter (haven't tried it with butter, but I'd try 1T butter-1pt syrup)

1. Put a metal pan (cake pan, baking pan) in the freezer. I wouldn't try pyrex in case the temperature changes are too much.
2. In a saucepan, heat the syrup and butter to 235F over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally, and make sure it doesn't boil over (shouldn't happen with butter added).
3. Remove from heat, cool to 175F. Grease the freezer pan.
4. Stir very rapidly until it looks creamy and changes color (could be a few minutes!)
5. Pour into the cold pan. Let it cool slightly and then cut into squares. Remove from pan when squares are hard.
6. Cleanup is ridiculously easy: all the leftover sugar will dissolve in an hour if soaked in room-temperature water.

This made incredibly rich, sweet, delicious maple candy. We did it with pure syrup and just a few drops of oil, added when the syrup almost boiled over. It was a little crumbly for my taste, so I think the deliberate addition of butter will help with that. All my roommates find it too sweet to have more than a small bite at a time...just a heads-up it might be an acquired taste.

compromise

My curse is I get no calls. Heather's is getting lots of calls the night before she has work (her duty nights are Thursdays and she usually doesn't work Fridays).

We had two calls: one at 9pm and one at 5:30am.

civilization

Several people in my lab (3 postdocs, the co-director, and a grad student) are playing a space-age version of Civilization that one of the postdocs developed. This has been going on for a while.

The game is like civilization in that you have cities (or planets, here), technology trees, military units (mostly spaceships), and so on. Moves are submitted, battles simulated, and (coolest of all), videos of battles and outcomes are generated. Two of the postdocs (Pat and Fuat) have been working together on several real-world projects, and seem to naturally be allied. The co-director (Leigh) seems to be on their side too. Consequently, it's sometimes difficult to tell what they're talking about: an upcoming deadline or an upcoming coup.

Recently the grad student (Mike) made a move against, as far as I can gather, the developer of the game (Damon), in an effort to take him by surprise and generally shake things up. Since Damon's the developer, a master strategist, AND the narrator person (like the D&D counterpart?) people have been mostly afraid to do anything to him, to his slight chagrin. He's in it to play, after all.

Mike told me about this while we were scanning, which usually involves at least a couple hours of sitting around trying to keep busy/awake. He cackled and rubbed his hands gleefully, in anticipation of the smackdown. He'd submitted his decisions for this round, and they were scheduled to go through in three days' time. Since then every time I've given him a significant "tell me what's going on" look, or even said "hey, what about...?" he's made frantic shushing sounds and looked nervously over his shoulder for the enemy.

These are things I don't want to forget.

bubble two

We walked down Mass Row, unchanged except for reinforced and more-visible chains blocking off road traffic, and went to Rocky/Silsby where Corey won round two of our knowing-people game.

The game spontaneously evolved starting when I recognized that Santa-Claus guy with the white tuft of hair on his forehead who was always around Collis, managing or just working the register. I didn't know his name, but he was a burst of familiarity that was very welcome after we peered into One Wheelock and found it terribly disappointing. Round one went to me: recognizing someone. Round two was knowing that person's name. For Corey that was Andrew Samwick, who walked out of Rocky just as we were entering.

Here's Corey posing with a picture of himself. In the picture he's presenting evidence for...something. I forget. I didn't have many memories of Silsby and Rocky...just Humanities lectures freshman year and the financial aid exit interview. I also found my bike outside Silsby junior year a few months after it had been stolen. Soon after that it was re-stolen and I never saw it again. Not to imply anything, of course.

We went to Baker next, and explored it more thoroughly than I ever had as a student. We went into those display rooms just off the entrance, which had all kinds of blueprints and pictures of the library and other buildings. The pictures and plans were from various times, and some of the blueprints had never been put into action.

There were a couple hilarious pictures of the Hop that are clearly from the 70s =)

phone companies are getting worse

When Scott left my house at nearly 2 am, after driving something like 4 hours from NH and watching three episodes of Firefly, he didn't text me to say he got home OK. I had a restless night, so when I woke up to find no text, I called...and got a ridiculous automated message:

"Due to events beyond our control, it is not possible to complete your call."

Would you think this is normal, or would you freak the hell out? Guess which one I did.

bubble part one

The bubble continues to exist despite establishing myself outside it. I like that, Katie! Like the tree falling in the woods: I don't have to be in the bubble for it to be there. This is a very good thing, because I can always go back and have it seal around me again, for short amounts of time. This was the first since I graduated.

This is not to say that the place hasn't changed. I'd heard a lot about changes from current students and those that had visited before. I visited most of the places on my list, and some that hadn't been on it.

One of the most different was Thayer dining hall. It was mostly closed down for extensive changes, but the building itself was open, so we walked through what we could. Corey was disappointed at the lack of the FoCo runway: FoCo was totally closed off, being used as storage while other places were being redone.

No more Blend, or Remix, or whatever people don't call it anymore. No more Kitchen Sink for Scott.

Homeplate was still open for the interim students, but not at the hour we were there. Remember the dessert demos? The Sunday Brunch? It wasn't left unscathed, however.

The first feeling I had when I saw the Homeplate seating area was one of space. That's because that elevated step is gone and the half-wall enclosures are gone. No more nooks, booths, cozy feeling. Instead: rigid rows with no personality. A second FoCo.

You may also notice the solid wall on the right side. There is no longer a FoCo-Pavilion-Homeplate circuit. Presumably the Pavilion is still there, but there was no way to get to it with the FoCo doors locked. The recession in the wall is only a couple of doors, possibly restrooms.

This was one of the weirdest things: The stairs leading down from Topside have been walled off. The stairs are still there, I guess, but there's no way to get to them. We later went up the other stairs and found lots of construction. It also turned out that the stairs pictured actually go from nowhere to nowhere. There doesn't seem to be any reason for this whatsoever. It's not like they're taking out the stairs in order to create room: why build the wall in that case?

There were also a couple tanks of helium in the Thayer dining entrance. H-croo was active and probably needed them for whatever they were doing with the crowds of trippers there. Too bad we couldn't play with them.

In a mild state of shock and disappointment, we headed off to other parts of campus.

what was this?

On I-91 in northern Connecticut, we started noticing that there were an awful lot of police vehicles stopped on the side of the road at intervals, lights flashing but no sirens. Sometimes it was just one vehicle, sometimes several (like 6+) all gathered together. This went on for several miles.

Then we saw that at all the entrance ramps, vehicles were blocking traffic from entering. Huge huge delays I'm sure--the lines of cars on the ramps went as far back as we could see (which admittedly wasn't far).

It wasn't just police vehicles. There were ambulances, fire trucks, even an animal control truck. It seemed like every type of official vehicle the towns could spare was there.

FINALLY we saw the convoy: the reason for all those stopped cars. It started off with motorcycles and went on for another mile, all official vehicles, all with lights flashing but no sirens.

Lots and lots of people.

And all kinds of vehicles. The people standing by them were all saluting or looking somber and official.

Finally normal cars followed the convoy. You can see the line of cars waiting at that entrance ramp.

So what could this have been? We speculated: a state official or military official being transported? Why would they have driven on the highway and not flown? The most satisfying answer was that it was a funeral convoy for some important person, but we don't know for sure. Google searches have yielded nothing.

Another weird thing: On the way up we did a little car/people watching. We laughed at strange bumper stickers and when cars or stickers didn't match what we expected the driver to look like. On the way down we spotted someone we had seen on the way up! He was one of the few drivers who looked like what his stickers suggested he should: a young artsy-type...the stickers were about music and music teachers.

collection

Adam
Aeneas*
Ambika
Anjali
Aoife
Colin
Connor
Grace
Hermione*
Imogen
Isaac
Jillian
Mark
Ninnoc*
Pilar
Remy
Scott

* too cruel to actually name a child

180

Yesterday started out awful, and ended up marvelous. Funny how people can do that.

Also: Hanover
Friday: PM showers 86
Friday night: 64
Saturday: 71
Saturday night: 52
Sunday: 68

Brrrr!

stop stop

Christine Macken 7/5/2010

Jennifer Brunckhorst 8/28/2010

Brian Welsh 8/29/2010

you BLOW MY MIND Mr Welsh.

class to audit

Probability and Stochastic Systems, taught by Erhan Çinlar, MWF 11-11:50, engineering building.

An introduction to probability and its applications. Random variables, expectation, independence. Poisson processes, Markov chains, and Brownian motion. Stochastic models of queues, population dynamics, and reliability. Must have taken Multivariable Calculus.

Reading: Ross, Introduction to Probability Models; Bremaud, An Introduction to Probabilistic Modeling;, Introduction to Stochastic Processes

OR

Quantitative Analysis in Psychological Research, taught by Andrew R. Conway, TR 10:30-11:50, Green Hall.

An introduction to quantitative methods in psychological research appropriate for first and second year graduate students. The topics covered include experimental design, null hypothesis significance testing, power, effect size, and confidence intervals. Specific procedures covered include ANOVA, ANCOVA, multiple regression, moderation, and mediation. Not open to undergraduates.

Reading: Keppel & Wickens, Design and Analysis: A Researcher's Handbook; Abelson, Statistics As Principled Argument; Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis

OR

Psychology of Language, taught by Adele Goldberg, TR 11-11:50, Green Hall.

The cognitive processes underlying the use and understanding of language, and in learning to speak. Topics include speech production and perception, grammar and meaning, knowledge and words, and pragmatic aspects of language.

Reading: Dabrowska, Language, Mind and Brain or Carol, Psychology of Language or Whitney, The Psychology of Language

?

a few lists

Things I want to do in/around Hanover:
1. Pettigrew-Cousins wedding!!
2. See all my friends!
3. See Mao Laoshi and Prof Bucci
4. See the senior apartments, the River, Thayer engineering and dining, McLane, Baker/Berry, Kemeny/Haldeman, Moore, Dartmouth Hall, the Gold Coast, the Hop, Collis, the Chinese building (forget its name omg)*, Rollins, Occom Pond, and Balch.
5. See downtown Hanover and cross the bridge to Norwich and Dan and Whits
6. Eat at One Wheelock, Gusanoz, Mollys, Canoe Club, Murphys, Yamas, The Fort
7. Buy Butterworks Farms yogurt, lots of it, at the Co-op. Buy more Dartmouth stuffs, like another hoodie maybe
8. Visit a dairy that sells raw milk: I'm thinking Upinngil.

Weather forecast in/around Hanover when I'm there next weekend:
1. Friday 78 and sun
2. Friday night 55 clear
3. Saturday 74 and scattered showers (noooo!!!)
4. Saturday night 53 and scattered showers?
5. Sunday 72 and sun

Things I need to do for moving:
1. Pay Jenny for her furniture and fridge
2. Move my bed up the stairs
3. Pay Wouter or Sara the furniture deposit
4. Open a PSE&G account
5. Paint a lot of purple and cream
6. Move all my stuff
7. Make (elephant?) curtains
8. Find/buy a full-size bed frame and standing lamp

Things that were all over my car this morning:
1. Frost. What?

Projects at work:
1. The J Neurosci paper
2. Future directions on the J Neurosci paper
3. The peak experiment (c'mon undergrads sign up I won't complain about you anymore!)
4. The dots experiment
5. Grant work looming, no doubt

*ETA:  The Chinese building is called Bartlett. I remembered all on my own!

what goes up comes back down and back up and

Camping during the Geminid meteor shower, Melbourne at Christmas, Albany in October, Jamaica right now, London anytime ever. I keep making plans I know won't work out.

Finally I felt myself mentally capable of re-reading Redemption Ark. Done in two days and I love it again...but I won't read the next one.

Another 2-hour shift with no calls, so I got to drive the rig around a lot, and it was pretty OK. Then I ran a red light I never knew existed and found that sitting too close to and pressing a stiff pedal with huge boots leads to intense cramping of places I thought weren't muscle.

The lab is slowly returning to normal. People are back or coming back from vacation and interns are leaving. But Marieke was hit by a car while she was on her bike. Please be careful.

Ellen and Robert's wedding is in less than two weeks.

I had a good dream last night, though that's all it can be. At least I can look forward to more good dreams. There's no limit to what I can come up with: my good dreams are as good as my bad dreams are bad, and often just as possible.

twit

So driving 11 hours in a day makes my knees hurt. Good thing I was numb on the way home!

I went out a week ago to watch for the Perseids...was super tired and ready to sleep at 7, but I stayed up. I watched for a while, not sure of which direction to look in. I spent most of my time looking north and amusing myself with guesses as to which constellations were which. I'm pretty sure I got the big dipper right, and I can always recognise Orion, though it wasn't up that night. To the east was a star so bright I was convinced it was an airplane.  I'd like to know what star that was.

Finally I turned southwards and saw a single flash! It was pretty cool, but that was all. Presumably there were more the whole time my back was turned. After staring at nothing for awhile longer I had the distinct sense that the world was revolving very quickly and taking me with it, so I went inside so as not to fall down.

picture post

So each one is like a thousand words right? I'll include some extras as explanations. Also: you can click on any of these to see them way bigger.

A double-yolk egg. I got these from the farmers market, and while they don't look particularly orange to me, I totally see the difference when I break open a store-bought one. Anyway, I was pretty happy since the yolk, when runny, is my favorite part.
Extra extra: a site that starts out innocuously enough, with explanations for double yolks. Things quickly get gross, and I'm reminded that eggs come from biological beings.

I took the GRE general test on the 27th and never have to take it again (which is the important part). The building I took it in had an impossible to find elevator—I took the stairs—and a recessed door, which was thankfully not what I was looking for. I mean, really.
Hint: check out the name on the door.

It was my dad's birthday on the 30th, and at Penang that evening Kim asked the waiters to bring a dessert and sing. My mom was skeptical: could these fobs know how to sing happy birthday? I, remembering the birthdays people had in China, knew better. Asian restaurants are the absolute best place to embarrass someone on their birthday.

Lindsay had a GREAT get-together on the 26th of June, and unfortunately a lot of people had to miss it (sorry Charu). She made delicious cupcakes and was, once again, a perfect host.

When Roland and Vicki, my dad's brother and his wife, came to stay for a few days in the beginning of July, I slept in Michelle's room and found a  dire threat waiting for me on the pillow the second night. Needless to say, I removed my face wash and toothbrush from her room RIGHT AWAY. Also, those cut out pieces of paper on the page opposite were used for warning and other notes slipped under doors and carefully signed.

I like my new friends/future housemates in Princeton.

I don't even know this guy's last name (first name Justin), yet I drew a vague Abe Lincoln on his arm in blue glitter glue, just in time for the funeral he went to tonight. Alison the intern (or is it the intern Alison?) finished the job with a fat T-Rex and USA. Come on.

Finally, the tattoo I will probably never get (on my left ankle, if you're curious). It'll just be an outline of the elephant, so ignore the paisley, as awesome as that would be. But you know what would be even awesomer? A Where's Waldo tattoo. TOW all the Waldos.

moving

So it looks like I'll need to put in $400 to furniture etc for moving to Princeton. This is way easier than moving to Houston.

Sorry, that was more of a tweet. Hm, filler stuff: wearing my elephant shirt and things are all right so far (may even go home early), and I ordered flats because for sure my old ones create ridiculous blisters especially when I run several blocks to catch the train and I have a gift certificate for a bunch o' money on endless/amazon.

take a look

My advertisement online, just for comparison.

It's Friday morning, I'm feeling really overloaded and twitchy, so I need to do something stupid. I went to La Jolie at 11:00 to ask for their next available time. I was told 2pm.

The adventure begins with a look of horror from my stylist, Amanda, when I show her what I want. Not the most encouraging start.

I looked like Hitler for a brief moment.

Other stylists and customers got into the action, encouraging and comforting me.

Amanda does photography as a hobby (not really. well, i don't actually know).

Amanda went over every square inch of my head at least three times: length, texture, thinning. She listened and was SO patient with me, and found the best compromises between what I wanted and what my hair type and line would allow...

And here's the result:

Taken with Photo Booth on the iMac I work on. Bonus: this is my office area.

people who always make me feel better

Theresa: i don't get used to it, everytime i wonder how anyone can be so bad
               it's like, i discover that *** is a fool for the first time, every time


No wonder you're a resource for concerned parents everywhere.

shirts

I kind of like message shirts when they're funny and not moralistic or offensive to anyone. One of the postdocs in our labs has one I really like:

haikus are easy.
but sometimes they don't make sense.
refrigerator.

I recently bought one and wore it for the first time on the 5th of July, which was supposed to be a holiday but was spent working for 11 hours on a grant due the next day. I thought it appropriate for that day.

(topatoco.com)

So today I wore it for the second time...and it's turning out to be an equally bad day! Not much sleep, forgot my mug (so I'll have to pay $1.75 for coffee instead of $.50), keep thinking it's Thursday (so I went to the farmers market and had to do an awkward 180 when I realised it's not), the smelly participant came in today so I could learn that his helmet smells like gym shoes (in addition to his general person smelling like sweat), and I have a foot injury that's 99% probably not something interesting like a fracture (pain no gain). Does the shirt make the day? Does the name make the person?

I'm wearing a T-rex shirt on Saturday for the Dinosaur Comics shirt day thing.

what a weird...

week. at least i get to relive the glory days by rooming with kristin for ellen's wedding! I'M SO EXCITED I COULD JUMP. actually that's saying a lot, because i'm so very weary just now.

and according to charu, it's raining buckets in phl, so hopefully that will rumble over here and do away with our humidity...tomorrow. because there's a cookout tonight and i need to study tomorrow.

am getting voted in (i hope) to be a PRS member next thursday, with the endorsement of the chief and a classmate who died this week. such a sad SAD thing: she was young, of course, and did good things with her life. what's better than helping people? i'd heard she was on the squad just before hearing she died, and was looking forward to working with her.

ah, like learning a new word and then seeing it everywhere. theme!

shallow!

me: i wonder what it'll be like not to have loans
Theresa: i think it will feel like back problems and arthritis
               and thinning hair

Nope, not for me! And you'll notice she didn't include wrinkles in that list, because We Believe in Sunscreen.

I'm in quite a good mood today, so this is going to be really shallow. It started with yesterday, hearing funny stories from a new facebook friend (hi John) and having adventures with the new audio system in the scanner. We also watched Return of the Jedi—at least, a little bit of it. I think I'll do Leia-hair again tomorrow!



Speaking of hair, I took a picture of it to post up on that site where you sell your hair. I think I'll sell it and donate it to charity instead of donating it to locks of love. They actually don't turn out many wigs, the wigs often go to kids with alopecia, and I think there are more worthy causes out there. Somehow disasters and diseases, while terrible, don't seem as bad as the pure evil you encounter when people do bad things to other people.

All right, so work ended with me getting free pizza, which was tempered by bits of mushroom, gah. I got home and watched a bit of Best in Show, got a weird call from Max about writing a song (?), and ate toffee (the dry English kind). Also, my mom asked if she could wear my red lipstick. Imitation, people! I like it.

This morning, good mood preserved: I got enough sleep. This was at the expense of getting-ready time, so I had to skip my morning cup of tea. So far it's OK. I went to the summer-fall Princeton farmers market for the first time with Max, intending to get eggs, lunch, and whatever else struck my fancy. Somehow overnight I figured out what he was actually asking me to help with: not casting Oklahoma into a new genre, but writing lyrics to the tune of Oklahoma. The lyrics should be a tribute/roast of his uncle Charles, who I know nothing about, and I don't actually know much of the Oklahoma tune, so I couldn't be much help. But the thing is, Scott and I used to do that sort of thing spontaneously! And that was always really fun, and I thought I was pretty good at it. Anyway, I had a couple ideas about Max's project, and it turns out we think the same way about it, which could be good for working together, or it could mean we just have redundant ideas.

At the market I got my eggs and lunch (a really...TOUGH salad. Is sharp an adjective normally used to describe salads? I'm thinking not, but it was still pretty good.) and peaches! I remembered the warm peaches I picked with the Newbrys in Oregon, and getting pelted with them by Chad and Joe, and how Scott defended me valiantly. Warm peaches are lovely, peach smoothies are lovely, and peach pie is loveliest. I'm still unhappy about the farm stand on Dey Rd in Cranbury that closed down.

To conclude: It is July, and I like seeing the html here, because I used to able to write in it, and now I've forgotten everything but know more about programming in general.

OH DUH

Now that I have a blog, I have somewhere to write about all the stuff I want and have tried and wish I could have. I can unload here instead of in gchat or in my own head. This is a win-win because I AND you just have to see this once. Also, I have a permanent record so I remember this stuff, and if anything I write is helpful, you will enjoy that. That makes it a WIN-WIN or a WIN-win at the very least. The "yous" here are my readers, which I think is only ktr. OK, so it's a WIN-win.

I'll start off with this:



$12.50 at martinandosa.com. Understand: I want the shirt, the lady, and her hair. I've only put the price of the shirt.

Also: the neuro/psych IM soccer team I play on is in 9th place of 10 teams. The only team below us is the brand-new one that joined up a couple weeks ago, woo! To quote Max: the stage for our dramatic ascension is set. The great thing is, he could be talking about our standing in the league OR my fitness level as indicated by butt-pain as I climb the stairs.

access to a room of one's own

When I heard my aunt and uncle were staying in New York instead of in my room, I was less relieved than I thought I'd be. Apparently having my own room doesn't matter: I shared one with Scott for a year and was perfectly happy. What mattered was having consistently free access to the room that has all my stuff! And over the past few days I'd moved most of my essentials into Michelle's room...so moving back into my room was actually an annoyance: changing the sheets and moving everything back.

Yeah yeah, back to peak responding experiments. This is what I do instead of science museums, so I guess I'll be updating a lot.

It was cold this morning. Maybe that's what I need to shake myself out of this rut. Last week and the week before was all frenzied activity at work, so I didn't have time for the three other huge things I should be working on (becoming a scanner operator, riding with the rescue squad, and STUDYING FOR THE GRE). Now that I actually have time to do this stuff, all I want to do is lie around and read. I blame the economy.

f.

http://www.maitinepal.org/

broked car

So! As you may have gathered from my gchat status a couple days back, I am having car troubles. The transmission needs replacing, which will cost about $1200, which just under half the worth of the car. I don't need this in my life. Right now it still gets me from A to B, with occasional bouts of crap this is hard to drive with a bent shaft! As long as it stays that way until I move to Princeton, it'll be ok, I think. I won't need a car so much then...

If it breaks down before then, I'll have a decision to make I guess.

I'm really excited about moving to Princeton, but there are a few ways it could go wrong. We'll see.

I signed up to take the GRE on Tuesday, July 27th, thinking that would force me to study. As it is I continue to forget, and haven't studied much at all (except for the much part). I only need to cover the verbal, math, and writing parts, though. Whew! Looks like easy times ahead.

This leads me into today's mishap: I'm the new assistant secretary for the Dartmouth club of Princeton (this wasn't the mishap), and my first duty was to survey the members about their preferred dates for the next meeting, and then let everyone know what the consensus was. Step one, good. Step two, I was really proud of how I included the date and time clearly in the subject line and in the email itself. Go me, until I get a reply two minutes later telling me the 7th is a Wednesday, not a Monday, and asking could I please confirm the date again. D'oh. Anyway, expect a post sometime after Monday, July 12th telling y'all how my first minute-taking went.

Here's another survey: Is it likely for a girl named Pilar to be called "Pilly"?

Last of all for now: I like how Fei says indeedio. What a great way to start off being 24.

one thousand one

Reminds me of the CPR training I had 3 weeks ago.

I didn't mean to open with that, since a cool-sounding thing like "I've learned CPR and will start EMT classes in the fall" should be accompanied by "and I've ridden in an ambulance to someplace other than Romeo's pizza". But I can't manage that and be telling the truth, so we'll just shelve this for now.

For those who don't know, JC stands for juice chug, and des is from my last name. The idea was that most first names sound good with my last name, as opposed to a last name like Case, where first names like Justin are to be actively avoided. We thought of weird combinations like Mordor and Juice Chug (from the Garelick drink) and found that even those were OK. That's all I have to say about that.

Most other possible names for this were taken already! laura, laurad, jcd, etc...all taken. The worst part is none of these "people" have more than 2 posts, and none at all in the last 5 years. How is this fair? Can I petition to boot them off and let the more active people take over those names? I mean, I already have 1000 posts. Clearly I deserve it more.

I'm at work right now, so I shouldn't make this too long. I think the only other thing I have to say right now is I need more sleep. Perhaps in future I can read this post to start myself on the path to slumber.