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Back in August my boss hired two more assistants for the lab. This was very welcome because in addition to having some help with the numerous projects on which I've been working alone for the past nine months, this meant that someone else was going to take over making fly food. So I spent the past two months training the new minions for all of the various tasks they would perform. One minion was sent off to work on finishing up The Unending Project of Doom, and the other minion worked with me. My minion was the one taking over the fly food duties.
Unfortunately, she quit. Her last day was today. When dealing with rejection, I find it hard to not look back and try to identify things that I might have done wrong. Did I overwhelm her with too much too soon? Was it the fly food? Was it because I repeatedly referred to her as "my minion," to her face?
Now I must begin the arduous task of raising a new minion. It was really nice that the previous minion was able to start in August, because that allowed me to spend two 40 hour weeks training her. Now I'm left with 15 hours a week, whenever our schedules align. And really, when it gets down to it, I'm just not sure if I have room yet in my heart for a replacement minion.
Posted at: 21:46
[path: /work] permanent link
I haven't written in a while, and I don't really have much to say right now. I'm reformatting my computer, and in the process I found a list of items that I wanted to blog about last summer. So, in lieu of actually writing, here's a few tidbits:
Bathroom in Strong Hall
-Hand-painted "rustic" MENS door
-Designer's first bathroom? This bathroom was made by someone who has never seen a bathroom
-Toilet never flushes. Regulation: must flush for no less than 2 seconds to be called a toilet?
-Scary stall totally full of (non human) refuse
-Sink has scalding hot or ice cold NO SHADES OF GREY
Fox & Friends
-Woman "shocked" over "suck it Jesus" at the emmys. "Why were they laughing? Is it because they respect her as a comedienne?"
-News story about religious observances in schools, headline "Chicago: Afraid to Offend Muslims?" PS: halloween is not a religious observance.
Misc
Bob Odenkirk and David Cross: very funny. Bob Odenkirk by himself: not even slightly funny.
Posted at: 18:22
[path: /yt] permanent link
Starting Monday we're going to participate in a program through which we will host two teachers from smaller Kansas City middle schools and show them how we do science. I'm pretty excited about this, but there are a few things that give me pause.
My boss is out of town all next week, so it falls to me to introduce these folks to all of the research projects we have going. While I feel pretty confidant in my understanding of what we do, I'm sure they'll find questions to ask that I'll have no answer for and I'll end up looking like a jackass.
Also, they're going to be in the lab from 8:00 to 5:00 every day, while I'm only in the lab from 12:00 to 5:00 once classes begin on Tuesday...and most of the other research assistants in our lab graduated in May. So, I have a three hour block of time on Monday, after their orientation, to teach them how to do enough tasks independently to fill four hours every day while I'm in class.
I spent hours today printing and collating lab protocols as well as a number of journal articles published by our lab and other related labs. I know that if I showed up on my first day and was handed a giant binder full of jargon I'd feel pretty fucking intimidated. I really hope I don't scare them off.
I want to assume that these teachers have either some collegiate background in biology, or at least a personal interest in the subject, since they volunteered for this program. They are getting paid for it, though, so I guess they could just view it as an easy second paycheck for the summer.
There's this woman who proselytizes for a program for science and math majors to expedite the process of getting qualifications to teach K-12. She says that there's a dire need for people who are experienced scientists and mathematicians to teach at that level. This seems like a really noble goal, since science literacy in this country seems abysmal, but I just can't see myself teaching middle or high school. I remember what I thought of my teachers back then, and the prospect of putting up with little shits like my younger self for $30K a year is not very appealing.
So, yeah, I hope my new friends are cool.
Posted at: 20:41
[path: /work] permanent link
I'm not sure when or why this started, but I have a habit of writing "ya'll" all over the last minute study guides I make for myself during finals. For example, from my chemistry notes: "Buffers --> it's the common ion effect, ya'll." This is a function of how very, very tired I am, but always it makes me laugh like an idiot for much longer than is productive.
Posted at: 01:45
[path: /school] permanent link
Next Thursday marks the end of my first successfully completed year of college in five years of failed starts and half-hearted attempts. I still need to make it through finals between now and then, which is sort of complicated by my premature celebratory feelings.
I am starting to question whether medical school is a reasonable goal. I've had to really struggle to make it through a year of introductory science classes, and I know that it's only going to get worse. On the one hand, all of my classes were so basic and so abstract and boring that it was very, very difficult to muster the motivation to study. I'm pretty sure that my remaining classes will be more stimulating and less superficially challenging. On the other hand, these classes should have been really easy, and I made this hard by my well-practiced method of truancy and procrastination.
I frequently think to myself "I need to start acting like a pre-med if I'm going to have a shot at getting into med school." Haven't really seen much follow through on that, yet.
In retrospect this year seems to have been one indefinitely long, blurred memory.
In unrelated news, we got a new neighbor this week, and every night since he's moved in there has been hours of what sounds like RC plane noises in the skies around our complex. I've yet to actually catch him, or anyone, remote-handed.
Posted at: 02:20
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I am back in Lawrence.
I realized while working on my taxes that I've been paying an average of $260 a month on gas. Since this is basically a rent check, I decided it was time to end the commuter student experiment. Some friends were looking for a financial break, so things moved pretty fast, and here I am.
Since I am incredibly contrary, I can't help but focus on some aspects of living at home that I will miss. While my relationship with my parents has always been a bit contentious, I have to say that I miss having breakfast with my mother every morning before I left for school. While she'd frequently make a shitty comment that would spoil my morning, I definitely feel a sort of lack of companionship.
And while I don't miss spending an hour and forty-five minutes commuting between Lawrence and home, I do sort of miss the quasi-meditative experience that driving that much afforded me. I suppose I could just sit at my window and stare outside for thirty minutes, but it's not really the same.
Also, living 45 minutes away gave me a really handy excuse for avoiding things that I really didn't want to do. I guess I'll either have to become a better friend or a more talented liar.
I'm also kind of worried that I'll fall back into old, bad habits. I've been living at home since I've come back to school, in an earnest effort toward completing my degree. I made a number of lifestyle changes as well in this process, and I am really happy with where I am right now. I guess I just worry that now things have gotten a lot easier that I might backslide.
Posted at: 22:43
[path: /yt] permanent link
This pretty much sums up my weekend
Posted at: 10:02
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It's really not that complicated...
I think that this article may have broken my brain. It's a discussion of how vegetarians supplement their diets to stay healthy. Admittedly, this is the UDK so a certain level of mediocrity is to be expected. However, this is insane:
Lindsey Cable, Eden Prairie, Minn., senior, hasn't gotten around to fully supplementing her diet yet. She has been a vegetarian since she was 11 years old and has taken daily vitamins at time, but has now stopped.
"I get sick every two or three weeks because I don't get enough iron or protein," Cable says. "I used to take a vitamin, but now I don't. I guess I really should but I haven't really looked into it."
Cable has seen a doctor about being vegetarian and tries to keep her diet evenly balanced. She says she tends to eat healthier than most of her friends but that it mostly stems from the natural diet of being a vegetarian.
I don't even know where to begin. I can't even imagine what she's eating that she has such an iron deficiency as to make her sick several times a month. She could eat pretty much any type of bean, spinach, tofu, tempeh, kale, green beans...even potatoes, tomato juice, almonds, and sesame seeds have fucking iron in them. Soy milk, if not regular milk? This is also ignoring the huge amount of processed foods in which calcium and iron fortification seems to be increasingly ubiquitous.
Even if she can't cook, it's not like this is Olathe. There is a huge, varied body of vegetarian-friendly restaurants in Lawrence.
If she is that iron and protein deficient, there is no way she has a balanced diet. I know that a lot of young girls use veganism and vegetarianism as a cover for eating disorders, so maybe that's what's going on here?
It pretty much blows my mind that an article devoted to maintaining a healthy veg diet makes no mention of healthy foods, just vitamin supplements. That's the hard-hitting reporting you can expect from the campus newspaper.
Posted at: 19:34
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Some thoughts on future pharmacists
Walgreens had a table set up in the pharmacy department yesterday through which they were distributing bright red versions of the hideous backpack that I described here. Now that I'm boycotting Walgreens, I guess I'll have to find a new place to buy my recreational cough syrup.
I have a ridiculous amount of impotent rage for the pharmacy department at KU, for several pathetic reasons. There is a bridge that connects the biology building and the chemistry building. This is convenient because both buildings are on the side of a hill, so it's easier to cross this bridge than hike up the hill. However, all of the pharmacy classrooms and labs are on the chemistry-end of this hallway, and those students are perpetually standing shoulder-to-shoulder across the hallway. After eight months of dealing with this I've pretty much lost all reservations about just plowing through people.
I guess the main reason that I hate the pharmacy department, though, is that all of their stuff is so much nicer than ours. I look in to their labs and see austere beauty, whereas the undergraduate labs are foul and mouldering. The pharmacy hallways have giant plasma TVs that seriously display static images, acting as proxy bulletin boards. Our sister lab in Haworth had to beg for a year to get the facilities people to come and remove the plaster and plywood that was inexplicably covering the only window in their lab.
So, yeah, petty jealousy.
Also: one last midterm, and then Spring Break (woo).
Posted at: 18:04
[path: /school] permanent link
I shall no longer receive your accolades
I've removed comments because I can't keep up with all of the spam. Sadly, the little CMS that could doesn't have much firepower against spambots. You will have to return to adoring me in silence.
Posted at: 18:52
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Zach and I drove to Iowa City to visit Aaron and Sharon for the weekend. Iowa City is always about 10 degrees colder than Lawrence, and while that is awesome in the summer it is fucking awful here right now.
Within moments of our arrival we were leaving to pick Sharon up at the hospital. Aaron drove Sharon's car directly into the giant snow dune in front of him, and got the front axle (of the front-wheel-drive car) high-centered on some extremely dense snow and ice. It took us about three hours to liberate the car. Casualties included: a mop, a tennis racket, my right shoe, my coat, our pride, and a hanger. We ended up having to buy a shovel to get it free.
Once free, Sharon spent about five minutes hacking apart the icy mountain the car had been stuck upon. I asked her later whether this was a public service or vengeance. She assured me it was both.
Posted at: 08:53
[path: /travelog] permanent link
Tuesday I was on campus for 14 hours. Yesterday, another 14 hours. Today, another. Is it midterm time already? Nope, just three back-to-back days of evil, late night tests.
I really wish there was some place on campus that one could go to take a nap. I like the Nap Store, or the Sleep Library...or, a motel?
The most recent episode of This American Life, Tough Room features a piece about the writing process at The Onion. Go, listen.
---
PS: I considered researching how to properly typset the name of a radio program, but I realized I am far too tired to care.
Posted at: 17:55
[path: /school] permanent link
When I recently changed my e-mail hosting, I decided to have all mail sent to any address at my domain forwarded to a catch-all address, so that I could sift through in case I was missing something. I haven't really gotten much spam in recent years, thanks to my very convoluted e-mail set up, which I described here. It's actually been kind of fun to sift through all of the garbage to see all of the hilarious random text that gets generated for these mailings. The message that inspired me to write this follows:
Date: Today
From: Randomly generated woman's name
To: Me
Subject: Public Ruination
Pelt the frame!!!!
Of course, the body was a link to some malicious website.
I found this one particularly amusing because most of the spam subject lines try to trick you into thinking it's from a friend by being incredibly vague, or by indicating that the sender has some kind of magic penis enlargement pill/service/raygun to sell. I guess this one was shooting for that one in a million chance that it would be read by someone with a really guilty conscience? About throwing things at other things?
I guess it's equally possible that "pelt the frame" could be some slang that I'm not hip to.
Sidenote: All of this spam is being sent to an e-mail address I used the first time I registered this domain in 2001, but didn't start using again when I re-registered in 2004. I'm can't imagine where I must have dropped that address to warrant something on the order of 50 spam messages a day...
Posted at: 12:05
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Unfortunately, I didn't see that school (and by extension, work) was cancelled until after I showered and drank some coffee at 6:00 this morning, so I got a pretty early start at puttering about the house aimlessly.
Double unfortunately, I don't really have any food right now. I just checked the pantry and I have like half a serving of dry pasta, a bottle of Sriracha chili paste, the detritus at the bottom of a box of Life cereal, and half a quart of rice milk. Every time I look outside, I see cars sliding through the intersection at the top of our cul-de-sac so I'm sort of afraid to leave the house.
While I often feel ridiculous still working on my undergraduate degree at 25, getting random days off due to inclement weather appeals to my inner man-child.
Posted at: 12:36
[path: /school] permanent link
I shall receive your accolades
I have finally found a satisfactory solution for comments through blosxom, so feel free to take the time to let me (and my legion of readers) know how awesome you think I am.
Posted at: 15:58
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Posted at: 12:58
[path: /yt] permanent link
Dude, can I have a moment of your time?
I've tried to be cool, but I really can't keep silent any longer. What the fuck is the deal with this:
Is that a backpack you're wearing? It looks like you may have been able to fit a book in there. And is that yarn or maybe twine that you have wrapped around your shoulders?
Are you going on a canoe trip or something? I guess you've been wearing that to class every day, so probably not. Did you lose a bet, or did one of the bigger kids steal your real backpack...was it that Johnson kid?
I notice there's a face screen printed on the back, there. I've seen a lot of these horrible things around campus, but they've mostly been solid colors. I guess you bought this...no, I can't accept that you paid money for it. So you chose this one to make you stand out? I guess having a menacing face staring out of your emasculating little nylon bag is fairly striking.
Did you see this on the MTV? Do you kids even watch MTV? Was it on the myspace or the facebook, or that wii? I'm just trying to understand here. Help me understand why I see these everywhere.
Posted at: 02:05
[path: /school] permanent link
A Day in the Life of a Wedding Officiant
1/19/08
1:00 PM: Sat down with the intention of putting the finishing touches on the wedding script. I'd put off writing the closing for nearly two months because every time I put pen to paper, I ended up with trite, sappy bullshit. I know this is a wedding, and so some sap is expected, but I'm too fucking embarrassed to even show other people this pap, let alone read it to a roomful of strangers.
2:30 PM: Put down Guitar Hero and really, for really reals, attempt to write the closing for the wedding. I sketched out a general framework for what I wanted to say the night before, but again: pap. This is where having some kind of religious tradition would be useful, since I could just read a couple obtuse selections from the Bible and be done with it. But since this is a secular operation, I'm on my own.
3:50 PM: I got nothin'. Spent over an hour trolling the internet for some meaningful, schmaltz-free quote about weddings, or even just ceremonies or rituals in general. I call Justin in desperation and we talk about Jung and Frazer for a while, but the only quotes we come up with all involve some variant of the phrase "primitive man," which we both agree might not be appropriate in this context. Justin hands the phone to Amy, and she tells me a bit about medieval wedding ceremonies, before she utters the golden phrase, "weddings are really just a public acknowledgement of a relationship, anyway." I don't know why, but this phrase was the catalyst for exactly what I wanted to express. I thank Amy and then, almost at once, end the call, the wedding script, and my two months of writer's block.
6:00 PM Arrived at the, what, wedding hall? It's the Lawrence Visitor's Center by day, and as I arrived I found that it was still essentially serving this purpose. Everything related to the wedding was on the periphery of the room, waiting to be unpacked. The building was essentially two large rooms connected by a very narrow hallway, one room for the ceremony and the other for the reception. There seemed to be a flurry of activity, but considering the state of things an hour before the ceremony, it might be best to refer to this phenomenon as just a "flurry."
6:10 PM The room was showing the beginnings of transformation now. There were an awful lot of people doing...things, though not much was getting done. I approached the groom and mentioned that I'd still really like to at least discuss the ceremony with him and the bride. He took me to the women's restroom where the bride, still in pajamas, was getting made up by three or four women simultaneously. Shocked looks from all of the women as I entered their space. At first this gave me pause, but then I remembered that I'm a fucking holy man now and continued in unabated. I ran through everything, as close to a rehearsal as we got, and left the ladies room.
6:15 PM Things were starting to come together, in as much as there were now rows of tables with associated chairs. All of the hundred-odd people seemed to be helping set up in some capacity. I wondered whether it's expected for the officiant to help decorate. I realized that since no one knew that I'm the officiant I just looked like the one asshole friend not pitching in, so I decorated some tables.
6:40 PM I found the world's largest container of potato salad in the hallway. A giant box, originally destined to hold hanging files judging by its shape, contained no less than twenty-five gallons of potato salad.
6:50 PM I entered the ceremony room in time to see a woman hang a giant Jesus-bearing crucifix on the wall directly above my designated spot. She caught my eye and recommended that I, sans microphone, face the wall away from the audience to conduct the ceremony (speaking really really loudly, I guess?) so the bride and groom could face their friends and family. She had the nerve to suggest that no one came to the wedding to see my face. I said in bad faith that I would take it under consideration.
6:58 PM The groom and I stand at the ready. I was facing the crowd, with him standing in front of me sort of sideways. I resisted the temptation to smirk at the crucifix woman. There was some music playing at the back of the room. The groom had instructed one of the ushers on which track to play when, but it didn't seem to be going well since the groom was repeatedly yelling "No, TRACK 4!"
7:00 PM I saw the wedding party lined up in the hallway. The entire audience was standing and turned around to face the wedding party as they march down the aisle. It's only now that I remembered that I was supposed to make a few announcements, and did so just in time to interrupt the beginning of the procession. Announcements concluded, a song that was distinctly not the wedding march played for a few seconds, followed by the more familiar tune. There were tea candles along the aisle on the floor, and as dresses passed over them I envisioned concluding the evening in the burn ward. As I began my introduction, all five babies in the room started crying simultaneously.
7:05 PM As I hit my stride, I noticed that everyone was still standing. I paused to consider how best to tell people it's cool to sit down, but as soon as I stopped talking everyone sat down at once. Crisis averted! Oh, also: my voice totally cracked when I say the word "maturing." Classic.
7:15 PM I officially exercised my ability to marry two people.
7:30 - 11:30 PM The reception was nice. As a part of her toast, the maid of honor referenced a (hilarious) porn clip that we all watched the night before, after the "rehearsal dinner." A number of people let me know how awesome I was. The women running the food line were pushing the potato salad really, really hard. As the night began to wind down, I wondered whether it was expected that the officiant help clean up after the wedding.
Posted at: 22:04
[path: /yt] permanent link
If you can read this, then your ISP's DNS has updated to reflect my hosting changes. Congratulations! You have probably read about Dreamhost's gigantic fuck-up at the top of the year, through which they accidentally billed their customers for $7.5 million in erroneous charges. Thankfully I had my credit card on file and not my debit card, or I would have gone through overdraft hell. So while this didn't really affect me that much financially, I have to say that I found their official response to this situation to be rather unprofessional. Next time, guys, it might be a good idea to leave out the picture of Homer Simpson and the screengrab from Office Space...
So I decided to shop around a bit. At first, it seemed like I actually had a pretty good deal at Dreamhost, paying $9.95 monthly. Most other hosts that had been recommended to me have yearly billing cycles, which didn't really appeal to me. Also, my needs are rather meager, so I don't need 300 gigs of (oversold) bandwidth.
This is where my new host comes in. There's no monthly fee, they just bill based on usage. Sort of like the prepaid phone of web hosting world? Except actually a value, and maybe not a scam? It came highly recommended by anonymous goons, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Based on my usage records at Dreamhost I should expect to pay less than $2.00 monthly, which suits my needs just fine.
Thus concludes this scintillating coverage of the current status of my web hosting. I now return you to wall-to-wall coverage of Heath Ledger's death, already in progress.
Posted at: 14:18
[path: /meta] permanent link
Nothing says "good start to the semester" like 8 inches of snow and 25 mile-per-hour traffic on the highway between Kansas City and Lawrence. I freely admit that I have a bit of a short temper at times, but even I was shocked by the vitriol issuing from my mouth on the 45 minute turned 2 hour commute this morning.
Did I mention that I'm officiating a wedding this weekend? Shawn and Liz are getting married on Saturday and asked me to officiate. I like to think that this is a reflection of their respect of my oratory prowess, but I know that it's because I was the cheap option. I'm getting fairly nervous, actually. I haven't had to "perform" like this in some time, and I'd really prefer not to ruin their wedding. But, you get what you pay for I guess.
I just got the new Blonde Redhead album, and I'm totally smitten. Misery is a Butterfly is one of my top favorites, and I was pretty disappointed to discover that it was a major departure from their earlier work. 23 is excellent, and like Misery is likely an album I will listen to non-stop for months. I keep hearing people refer to Blonde Redhead as "shoegaze?" I've never heard that before.
Posted at: 19:01
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