(no subject)
Well, I'm officially terrible at updating this thing. Here's what I've been up to for the past couple months.
I spent a couple weeks in Vancouver, during which time I watched a lot of ultimate frisbee, went to a wedding, ate lots of yummy food (veg South Indian buffet!), and saw many of my favorite people.
I'm now famous. USM made a promotional video and showed up to film at 8am. Since I was pretty much the only one there, they spent AN HOUR filming me (OK, now try to make looking at a computer screen look exciting) waiting for people with more exiting labs to show up. At least this time, unlike on Halloween, I wasn't dressed in a skunk costume. I think those photos got sent to my parents. (One of the drawbacks to working for your uncle.)
Work has been trying and productive in turns. The past few weeks have been trying because I'm teaching one of the grad students how to use the mass spec. Instead of taking 30min to start it up myself, it takes an hour to watch him start it up. Same for preparing samples. So, instead of spending, say, two hours of my day doing mass-spec related stuff, I spend four hours of my day watching him do mass-spec related stuff. It's so dull and all this hand-holding is getting old. This guy has the learning curve of a brain-damaged inbred pigeon. And he's supposed to be getting a PhD? Thankfully--well, my boss doesn't think so--the mass spec has been on the fritz all week, so I got a break from babysitting and got to get a whole bunch of other stuff done. Mostly prep for the cruise our lab is going on in early November. It's nice to have that under control.
I watched the debate last night. I think my favorite part was where McCain tried to sound pro-choice. He was attacking Obama's centralized health care plan and said something like, "the government shouldn't be involved. Important medical decisions should be between you and your doctor." Um, hello? Isn't that exactly what you DON'T stand for? I'm excited for the VP debate next week--can't wait to see Palin trip over every word that falls out of her mouth.
In case any of you who can vote in this election (sorry, Canadians) haven't seen it, go to votesmart.org (thanks, JP). It's a non-partisan site that'll give you info about the candidates. I like the voting records section--you can cut through the all the bluff and bluster and see how they actually voted (and how inaccurately they represent themselves in interviews/speechs).
OK, I've been laying in bed puttering on the web for too long. I ought to get up and start my day. There's a little festival (music, food, crafts) happening down on the coast today, so I'm going to check that out. Should be fun!
I spent a couple weeks in Vancouver, during which time I watched a lot of ultimate frisbee, went to a wedding, ate lots of yummy food (veg South Indian buffet!), and saw many of my favorite people.
I'm now famous. USM made a promotional video and showed up to film at 8am. Since I was pretty much the only one there, they spent AN HOUR filming me (OK, now try to make looking at a computer screen look exciting) waiting for people with more exiting labs to show up. At least this time, unlike on Halloween, I wasn't dressed in a skunk costume. I think those photos got sent to my parents. (One of the drawbacks to working for your uncle.)
Work has been trying and productive in turns. The past few weeks have been trying because I'm teaching one of the grad students how to use the mass spec. Instead of taking 30min to start it up myself, it takes an hour to watch him start it up. Same for preparing samples. So, instead of spending, say, two hours of my day doing mass-spec related stuff, I spend four hours of my day watching him do mass-spec related stuff. It's so dull and all this hand-holding is getting old. This guy has the learning curve of a brain-damaged inbred pigeon. And he's supposed to be getting a PhD? Thankfully--well, my boss doesn't think so--the mass spec has been on the fritz all week, so I got a break from babysitting and got to get a whole bunch of other stuff done. Mostly prep for the cruise our lab is going on in early November. It's nice to have that under control.
I watched the debate last night. I think my favorite part was where McCain tried to sound pro-choice. He was attacking Obama's centralized health care plan and said something like, "the government shouldn't be involved. Important medical decisions should be between you and your doctor." Um, hello? Isn't that exactly what you DON'T stand for? I'm excited for the VP debate next week--can't wait to see Palin trip over every word that falls out of her mouth.
In case any of you who can vote in this election (sorry, Canadians) haven't seen it, go to votesmart.org (thanks, JP). It's a non-partisan site that'll give you info about the candidates. I like the voting records section--you can cut through the all the bluff and bluster and see how they actually voted (and how inaccurately they represent themselves in interviews/speechs).
OK, I've been laying in bed puttering on the web for too long. I ought to get up and start my day. There's a little festival (music, food, crafts) happening down on the coast today, so I'm going to check that out. Should be fun!