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Sunday, January 3, 2010
2009 in pictures
You know what? This year has been fantastic.
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Thursday, December 17, 2009
creep.
You know that feeling you get when you google yourself (and are very creeped out at the amount of stuff that comes up when your name isn't super common) and you notice that an ex tagged you in a picture on flickr about 4 years ago so naturally you creep his photostream. And you go through the photos seeing people you used to know and you are expecting maybe some twinge of feeling (sadness, jealousy, rage... all those things you once felt) to return but all you feel is a smooth scar and a small smile that is happy that he's happy? And maybe you creep your own photos and see with fresh eyes that you look happy, too.
...um...me neither.
carry on.
...um...me neither.
carry on.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Everything is Amazing
Kristina: hey do you have access to the journal Cytometry A?
like, online access so that you could download a pdf for me and send it?
Dana: probably
Kristina: oh hells yeah
can you try to get this article for me?
Dana: i'll ask my boss if i can't find out a way to get to it
sho nuff
Kristina: Cytometry A. 2009 Oct; 75(10): 874-81 "Measurement of wheat germ agglutinin binding with a fluorescence
microscope." by Model, MA, Reese, JL; Fraizer, GC
well, if you can't get it immediately it's not a huge deal i can go over to the eccles library and print off a copy
i just don't want to have to put on pants
it's not that kind of day
Seriously I can't fathom trying to earn a PhD without the internet, pubmed, off-campus access (you need to get it together, Eccles Library), and Interlibrary Loan (whose 2-3 day turnaround time to retrieve for me any article under the sun is still painfully slow).
My adviser, who received his PhD in the 90s I think, tells me horror stories of Back In The Day when you spent hours in the library making photocopies of articles and your database was 2 phonebook-sized tomes that grouped together related articles that had been published in the previous 6 months. Epub ahead of print? No. You waited 6 months for somebody else's equations that were written out in carrots. Remember carrots? Look above your 6.
Oh, and my CDC connection sent me the article I asked for about 15 minutes before I finished writing this post. What a great time for science and laziness.
Related:
Give it a second! It's going to Space!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thanksgiving
Things to be thankful for:
For me, thanksgivings have traditionally been small. Until I was 16, I had no siblings and still consider myself to be an only child. My mom has a brother that she isn't particularly close to. Two years ago, my mom and I decided to cook our very first thanksgiving dinner at my grandfather's house. My Auntie, in the past, would fill a table with dishes at Thanksgiving, so my mom and I tried our hardest to live up to that. Mom and I giggled and mimicked my grandfather and giggled some more and somehow produced a turkey and like a million casseroles and vegetable dishes (swimming in butter, the only acceptable way in the south). Sitting around the table were my grandfather, my mom, me, my great aunt, and my grandfather's friend, Mr. Nate. Mr. Nate told stories on my grandpa and my grandpa talked about how rich Mr. Nate is while we all pretended to be embarrassed. That was probably my favorite Thanksgiving.
This year I found myself on a couch, next to my fiance, in a room chock full of people, chimes in hand, playing along to a Christmas song. I had that moment where I looked around and wondered how I got here and thought that a year ago this scenario was beyond anything I would have imagined. I mean, not in a bad way, except for the part where an aunt asked me how I was liking it and, not being a very enthusiastic person in general, I told her it was lovely. I think she might have been a little offended because lovely came out a bit flatter than I'd intended. And I guess that's the thing about being around a family that's not your own: you don't get to go take a nap when you're done talking and "meh" is not an acceptable answer. So it can be a bit stressful, at least at first, until maybe people get that enthusiasm is reserved for taking pictures of your friend's wig and nerd jokes, and the humor in the fact that the highlight of your fiance meeting your grandfather was that nobody got punched in the face.
For me, thanksgivings have traditionally been small. Until I was 16, I had no siblings and still consider myself to be an only child. My mom has a brother that she isn't particularly close to. Two years ago, my mom and I decided to cook our very first thanksgiving dinner at my grandfather's house. My Auntie, in the past, would fill a table with dishes at Thanksgiving, so my mom and I tried our hardest to live up to that. Mom and I giggled and mimicked my grandfather and giggled some more and somehow produced a turkey and like a million casseroles and vegetable dishes (swimming in butter, the only acceptable way in the south). Sitting around the table were my grandfather, my mom, me, my great aunt, and my grandfather's friend, Mr. Nate. Mr. Nate told stories on my grandpa and my grandpa talked about how rich Mr. Nate is while we all pretended to be embarrassed. That was probably my favorite Thanksgiving.
This year I found myself on a couch, next to my fiance, in a room chock full of people, chimes in hand, playing along to a Christmas song. I had that moment where I looked around and wondered how I got here and thought that a year ago this scenario was beyond anything I would have imagined. I mean, not in a bad way, except for the part where an aunt asked me how I was liking it and, not being a very enthusiastic person in general, I told her it was lovely. I think she might have been a little offended because lovely came out a bit flatter than I'd intended. And I guess that's the thing about being around a family that's not your own: you don't get to go take a nap when you're done talking and "meh" is not an acceptable answer. So it can be a bit stressful, at least at first, until maybe people get that enthusiasm is reserved for taking pictures of your friend's wig and nerd jokes, and the humor in the fact that the highlight of your fiance meeting your grandfather was that nobody got punched in the face.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Headphones are your best friend while on public transportation or waiting for public transportation. However, their utility is voided if you make eye contact. I thought maybe she wanted to know when the next bus was coming by (not like I knew). For this purpose I removed my ear bud.
"You got somethin good goin on? What you smilin for?"
A harmless question but when coupled with the squirreliest eye and the craziest smile that that woman gave me, it made me wish I really did have some diabolical scheme, the execution of which required riding the #200 down State St.
What was I smiling for?
Well, Blackalicious was really working for me in that moment. Somehow old hip hop and dirty snow plus standing in the sunshine on a cold day were killing it. Also, I was squinting into the sun.
"I'm on my way to get some food with my friend."
Mistrustful yet still squirrely eye: "Healthy food?"
"No."
"Hah!"
At this point her gleeful cackling was replaced, once again, with Blackalicious.
Also, my non-healthy lunch with my tiny friend who is smuggling a beach ball was fantastic.
"You got somethin good goin on? What you smilin for?"
A harmless question but when coupled with the squirreliest eye and the craziest smile that that woman gave me, it made me wish I really did have some diabolical scheme, the execution of which required riding the #200 down State St.
What was I smiling for?
Well, Blackalicious was really working for me in that moment. Somehow old hip hop and dirty snow plus standing in the sunshine on a cold day were killing it. Also, I was squinting into the sun.
"I'm on my way to get some food with my friend."
Mistrustful yet still squirrely eye: "Healthy food?"
"No."
"Hah!"
At this point her gleeful cackling was replaced, once again, with Blackalicious.
Also, my non-healthy lunch with my tiny friend who is smuggling a beach ball was fantastic.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Gratitude.
Naomi has been listing things she's grateful for.
I am grateful for her.
The word grateful is starting to look weird to me.
I am grateful for her.
The word grateful is starting to look weird to me.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
shiny.
Silly me!
The ring.
Like I said, it wasn't a surprise. He's been telling me since August that he was going to marry me. Two weeks ago was the first time that I took him seriously and said Ok, when? We began a roundabout planning of sorts and hashing out of details and looking for rings (then asked ourselves exactly when did we get engaged?). One day, on my way to Coffee Garden to study (and by that I mean read blogs) I wandered in to the Vug - that jeweler to the west of the Tower - and started asking general questions of Joe, the owner. He's patient and personable and kept working on whatever project he had going while I asked things about jewelry and stones that a girl my age should probably know by now. He showed me a catalog and said he could make whatever and said that gold rings are the best for men because other metals (titanium, steel) can't be cut off in an operating room. You can only remove those rings by taking the finger with it.
Anyway, I went away and took Jeff with me the next time to look at catalogs and ask more inane questions. Joe showed me this ring that a customer had left with him a year ago. It had belonged to the customer's grandmother and he'd just wanted the sapphire out of it. It looked exactly like what I wanted: a ring that maybe somebody's grandmother had worn to a cocktail party in the '20s. After what felt like years of stalking the ring's owner, I sort of gave up and looked at other stuff but didn't love anything else really. Jeff bought it while I was in Georgia, then told me he didn't, then gave it to me, and I've been staring at it ever since. The end.
The ring.
Like I said, it wasn't a surprise. He's been telling me since August that he was going to marry me. Two weeks ago was the first time that I took him seriously and said Ok, when? We began a roundabout planning of sorts and hashing out of details and looking for rings (then asked ourselves exactly when did we get engaged?). One day, on my way to Coffee Garden to study (and by that I mean read blogs) I wandered in to the Vug - that jeweler to the west of the Tower - and started asking general questions of Joe, the owner. He's patient and personable and kept working on whatever project he had going while I asked things about jewelry and stones that a girl my age should probably know by now. He showed me a catalog and said he could make whatever and said that gold rings are the best for men because other metals (titanium, steel) can't be cut off in an operating room. You can only remove those rings by taking the finger with it.
Anyway, I went away and took Jeff with me the next time to look at catalogs and ask more inane questions. Joe showed me this ring that a customer had left with him a year ago. It had belonged to the customer's grandmother and he'd just wanted the sapphire out of it. It looked exactly like what I wanted: a ring that maybe somebody's grandmother had worn to a cocktail party in the '20s. After what felt like years of stalking the ring's owner, I sort of gave up and looked at other stuff but didn't love anything else really. Jeff bought it while I was in Georgia, then told me he didn't, then gave it to me, and I've been staring at it ever since. The end.
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