Lately
Isn't this super, an update! Only because it is mid-afternoon on Friday and I am completely unmotivated to be reading journals or doing work. Jen, who is my most favorite post-doc here in the lab (she has her desk(s) in the same nook of the research staff office as I do -- the girls corner) brought me some roma tomatoes from her and Jason's garden. Three huge ones! I will make some pizzas with them today and perhaps some chicken salad with them this weekend. With grapes and bean sprouts and things as well. Oh, and she gave me a box of blueberries too. She and Jason are going out of town this weekend for one of her bridal showers in Philly and then she is presenting twice at the APA meeting in Boston next week, so I benefit via a shower of perishable goods. Maybe a blueberry coffeecake on the way? I am feeling the baking urge, so there may be some fresh goods in the apartment again.
Its been so hot I havent wanted to cook a damn thing lately. Except that I made a Japanese style curry the other day without the storebought roux mix, and it turned out pretty awesome. The techs at work always ask me why I eat so much Japanese food... maybe because its totally cheap to make and easy to make in bulk? Hamburgers don't microwave well, but curry and chicken dumplings do. And the random stuff that doesnt even need to be microwaved like the red bean paste buns and onigiri. In defense of variety, I do alot of pasta, usually with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, and parmesan. And usually a whole Bento of fruit to eat throughout the day at work. I introduced the ladies to Pocky earlier this week. I might order some of the green tea Pocky again so they can all check that out, since that is obviously the best EVER. I miss green tea kitkats!
I think I am going to send in my laptop to get fixed this weekend. I say that all of the time, but I never send it. Perhaps I can't bear to part with it. I'm too afraid that it is going to come back with an empty hard drive, a plain casing, or the RIAA on my ass. Its like an extension of myself, I bring it to work every day. There is a computer here, but its a mac. [MAC HATRED] In fact, its an iMac, released before I graduated high school. It runs OS X 10.2.8, which was released about the same time that I graduated high school. It runs on 96mb of memory, which is too small for me to update past Adobe 5.0. I can't find the external volume controls (do they exist?) and my desk isn't quite wide enough to put the iMac/giant monitor and keyboard in the same depth plane. I can't count the joy it would bring me to not have to lug my laptop back and forth to work everyday, although the iMac is currently as yet unusable. Primarily since it does not support our version of Prism and any remotely recent version of Adobe. Therefore I have some serious compatibility issues when receiving journals in .PDF file from other people. Someday, perhaps, I will have a newer OS on it and will be able to run programs. Mark, the behavioral PI, is looking for more RAM for it. Currently running this iMac is sort of like trying to run with one leg. [/MAC HATRED]
In other news, our side of the office is coming along well. We unearthed this half of the office (more like a third) from under stacks of old monitors and cubicle dividers and shoddy office equipment. We meaning Jen and I while the boys watched and laughed. That is the before picture The after picture involves both Jen and I having large (or in her case gargantuan) corner desks next to a picturesque (if you like parking ramps and the metrodome) window with our own filing cabinets, bookshelves, giant whiteboard calendar, and conference table. The girl side is pretty impressive now. Better than the boy side, I'd say. Team effort! Andy is moving into his own real office, and Marco and Dave will end up sharing the two desks next to the other windows in our room. Eventually we will have bulletin boards hung and easy chairs set into the "library corner" which will thus complete the transformation.
On a side note, we teamed up to do 30 surgeries in about a week. Pretty awesome. It was a relaxes pace, but awesome nonetheless. Next week Christina and I have eight, and the week after we have 18 during the bioassay schedule. There are alot of surgeries to be done here.
If I talk about work alot, its because thats really all I do. Although I am getting a group of walkers together for Minnesota's Light the Night walk for LLS in October, we will represent the U or something. University science grad student type people. And I was thinking of getting together a kickball team to play on a city league. 11-20 people on a team, $240 team registration fee, pretty much any night of the week after like 7 depending on the field we decide to play at. It could totally be awesome....
Speaking of awesome, I would also like to round up some troops to go to the state fair in a few weeks. I think it would be a riot to take our first-years there. Even if not, I'm still going. Christina and I might secretly take a half day and bus up to the U and over to St Paul for the fair once it starts. I'd like to take Mickers if he decides to visit during Labor day weekend. I love fair food. I know theres the Dakota county fair this weekend, I'm considering going to that, although its way down in Farmington, and that seems like a long drive outside the city. But at the same time, since I don't have coursework right now, I'm not really doing anything this weekend anyway. Julianne just left for a few weeks on her vacation, and I'm planning on cleaning everything since our kitchen is a disaster area, but... there is always time for the fair.
I've been very good about accomplishing things this week. I've been catching up on stuff I need to take care of that hasn't been dealt with since before I went home... like a month ago or so. Big things, like getting new car and renters insurance, getting new contacts and glasses, making appointments for the dentist and for a haircut. Mailing out my laptop if I can bear to part with it, and perhaps actually going to the bank to cash the MMRF check. Or going to a Cub or something, in reality. These are all things I'd like to accomplish within the next week. Its like I'm back to writing lists again. Just getting back in the habit before classes start.
Oh, and I need a title for my second year seminar (even though its three months away). I'm totally going home early today. I'm leaving here by 4pm, for sure.
Its been so hot I havent wanted to cook a damn thing lately. Except that I made a Japanese style curry the other day without the storebought roux mix, and it turned out pretty awesome. The techs at work always ask me why I eat so much Japanese food... maybe because its totally cheap to make and easy to make in bulk? Hamburgers don't microwave well, but curry and chicken dumplings do. And the random stuff that doesnt even need to be microwaved like the red bean paste buns and onigiri. In defense of variety, I do alot of pasta, usually with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, and parmesan. And usually a whole Bento of fruit to eat throughout the day at work. I introduced the ladies to Pocky earlier this week. I might order some of the green tea Pocky again so they can all check that out, since that is obviously the best EVER. I miss green tea kitkats!
I think I am going to send in my laptop to get fixed this weekend. I say that all of the time, but I never send it. Perhaps I can't bear to part with it. I'm too afraid that it is going to come back with an empty hard drive, a plain casing, or the RIAA on my ass. Its like an extension of myself, I bring it to work every day. There is a computer here, but its a mac. [MAC HATRED] In fact, its an iMac, released before I graduated high school. It runs OS X 10.2.8, which was released about the same time that I graduated high school. It runs on 96mb of memory, which is too small for me to update past Adobe 5.0. I can't find the external volume controls (do they exist?) and my desk isn't quite wide enough to put the iMac/giant monitor and keyboard in the same depth plane. I can't count the joy it would bring me to not have to lug my laptop back and forth to work everyday, although the iMac is currently as yet unusable. Primarily since it does not support our version of Prism and any remotely recent version of Adobe. Therefore I have some serious compatibility issues when receiving journals in .PDF file from other people. Someday, perhaps, I will have a newer OS on it and will be able to run programs. Mark, the behavioral PI, is looking for more RAM for it. Currently running this iMac is sort of like trying to run with one leg. [/MAC HATRED]
In other news, our side of the office is coming along well. We unearthed this half of the office (more like a third) from under stacks of old monitors and cubicle dividers and shoddy office equipment. We meaning Jen and I while the boys watched and laughed. That is the before picture The after picture involves both Jen and I having large (or in her case gargantuan) corner desks next to a picturesque (if you like parking ramps and the metrodome) window with our own filing cabinets, bookshelves, giant whiteboard calendar, and conference table. The girl side is pretty impressive now. Better than the boy side, I'd say. Team effort! Andy is moving into his own real office, and Marco and Dave will end up sharing the two desks next to the other windows in our room. Eventually we will have bulletin boards hung and easy chairs set into the "library corner" which will thus complete the transformation.
On a side note, we teamed up to do 30 surgeries in about a week. Pretty awesome. It was a relaxes pace, but awesome nonetheless. Next week Christina and I have eight, and the week after we have 18 during the bioassay schedule. There are alot of surgeries to be done here.
If I talk about work alot, its because thats really all I do. Although I am getting a group of walkers together for Minnesota's Light the Night walk for LLS in October, we will represent the U or something. University science grad student type people. And I was thinking of getting together a kickball team to play on a city league. 11-20 people on a team, $240 team registration fee, pretty much any night of the week after like 7 depending on the field we decide to play at. It could totally be awesome....
Speaking of awesome, I would also like to round up some troops to go to the state fair in a few weeks. I think it would be a riot to take our first-years there. Even if not, I'm still going. Christina and I might secretly take a half day and bus up to the U and over to St Paul for the fair once it starts. I'd like to take Mickers if he decides to visit during Labor day weekend. I love fair food. I know theres the Dakota county fair this weekend, I'm considering going to that, although its way down in Farmington, and that seems like a long drive outside the city. But at the same time, since I don't have coursework right now, I'm not really doing anything this weekend anyway. Julianne just left for a few weeks on her vacation, and I'm planning on cleaning everything since our kitchen is a disaster area, but... there is always time for the fair.
I've been very good about accomplishing things this week. I've been catching up on stuff I need to take care of that hasn't been dealt with since before I went home... like a month ago or so. Big things, like getting new car and renters insurance, getting new contacts and glasses, making appointments for the dentist and for a haircut. Mailing out my laptop if I can bear to part with it, and perhaps actually going to the bank to cash the MMRF check. Or going to a Cub or something, in reality. These are all things I'd like to accomplish within the next week. Its like I'm back to writing lists again. Just getting back in the habit before classes start.
Oh, and I need a title for my second year seminar (even though its three months away). I'm totally going home early today. I'm leaving here by 4pm, for sure.