So you think you can cook

No, these were not delicious. They taste like burned popcorn that's fallen on the floor.

I'm trying to learn how to cook vegetables besides the way I learned in the south: 1 part vegetable to 4 parts butter, add salt to taste. Here's a list of don'ts when it comes to asparagus.

1. Don't use 3 tablespoons of sesame oil. Yes, sesame oil smells amazing and maybe you once saw sesame seeds on some asparagus in a fancy restaurant. Truth: it smells like burned popcorn when heated to whatever temperature 6 means on your electric stove.

2. Believe them when they print "suitable for low-medium heat" on the sesame oil bottle. Even if you are a scientist and you think you can do what you want.

3. Wash those little pointy brushy things at the top of asparagus. Don't just run it under the tap and call it good. You actually have to kinda work the water in there. Otherwise you will take a bite and find an unpleasant feeling in your mouth like when you are hungry at the beach and you eat something you know got sand in it but you think maybe it's not so bad so you eat it anyway and instantly regret it.

4. If some of it falls on the floor and the dog won't even go for it, not even for a cursory sniff, proceed directly to garbage. Don't put it on a plate. Don't sit it in front of yourself like maybe the rest of the asparagus will taste like sesame and not have dirt all in it.

Hopefully this helps.

boobs and dragons

No I am not changing the scope of this blog to being about boobs.
[maybe]
But look, the previous post was about the life-changing experience of actually being measured for your bra size. I bet 75% of women (you know 90% of all statistics are made up) are walking around wearing the wrong bra size. So go get measured (if you are a girl....or a well-endowed man) and steer clear of awkward teenage saleswomen that hold the measuring tape about 3 feet from your chest and pronounce you a D cup. Wishful thinking, darling, but I looked like I was wearing 2 dinner plates over my chest and if I'd been wearing socks I would have been tempted to shove them in just for fun.

Oh, what other aspects of my life are running amok? Well, I gave a presentation about a week ago in which no one threw food or told me to get out (and in fact were complimentary of my work) and it dawned on both me and my adviser that I have enough new material for a paper. So writing that is underway, although a bit slow because I disagree with the statistical tests that a collaborator used and I'm waiting for the raw data files to show up in my inbox (any day now...). I like statistics and am appalled at their general abuse in the scientific community and the lack of standards to which graduating students are held. One day I will maybe be a formidable voice. Right now nobody cares.

Also, I find it hilarious that I went in with a coworker friend to the Jewish Community Center to check out their faciliti (since it's a 10 minute walk from my desk and clearly the reason I'm not going to the gym is because of Trolley Square's ridiculous distance from my desk) and the man asked us if we were "together." My coworker friend was taken off-guard but managed to keep a lid on it (I've had short hair for a while so am not surprised by the assumption). I guess the JCC has gay couple discounts, too. I'm really excited about the use of a pool this summer that's a 10 min walk from my desk.

Still planning a wedding. I don't have much to say about that except it's going ok and I'll be so glad when it's finally done and we can hang out in our nice clothes and eat tacos with our friends and family. Jeff's mom took some pics of us and they are cute.





Please notice what is going on over Jeff's shoulder.



Yes, we too were delighted to find the battle between good and evil and dragons and warlocks rages on.

How not to conduct research

Naomi: so did you try on 36D's?

Kristina: yeah and they looked like i'm sure that woman looked in the workout room with the saggy sports bra
Kristina: i looked ridiculous

Naomi: ha ha
Naomi: so awesome
Naomi: you should prob just stick with the 36B

Kristina: p.s. thanks for "so did you try on 36Ds?"
Kristina: my adviser was looking over my shoulder when that popped up

Naomi: so awesome

Kristina: yeah

Naomi: I'm laughing so hard right now
Naomi: I'm at Heidi's and she wants to know
Naomi: why

Kristina: tell her!

Naomi: I am

Kristina: tell her not to use growl and adium at the same time if you think your adviser might want to help you find a review article on pubmed

Naomi: she's dying

Kristina: good

Naomi: is he still there?

Kristina: no
Kristina: he's moved on

Naomi: I bet he has

Kristina: let's hope anyway

2009 in pictures

You know what? This year has been fantastic.

January


February


March


April


May


June


July


August


September


October


November


December

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.

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!

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.