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Minions

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.

Well, hello there!

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.

Interns

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.

Finals

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.

Year One

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.

Many Things

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.

This pretty much sums up my weekend

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.

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).

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.