2010 feels old and worn in. Comfortable.

I can remember New Years where I have moved around slowly, getting used to the feel and the taste of the new year, because it actually is different. There's something palpable about the new year - the fresh slate, the filed past, and the vast expanse of 365 days between now and the next benchmark.

New Year's Eve is easily my least favorite holiday. I believe I was saying something to that effect this morning. I don't mind hanging out with some people on New Year's Eve. I really don't. It's nice to be with people you love. But at the end of the day (literally), when that giant disco ball comes to rest on the four numbers that will define the next year, I don't want to be with anyone but family.

I like the way my family does New Year's Eve. We never have parties and rarely go to parties and at the parties we do attend, we leave before midnight. We usually make something up - dip for chips, occasionally those mini hot dogs (which, ick?), maybe leftover Christmas cookies.

We sit on the couch around 11:55 and flip between the channels covering Times Square, because Ryan Seacrest is lame and the performers are less than stellar, and we watch, without much excitement, the demise of that ball. We watch the confetti, we watch all of the people wildly kissing, and we look at each other and confirm that we are all thankful that we are not, in fact, at Times Square, and we reaffirm that we do not, in fact, ever want to be at Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Then we have some sparkling grape juice or whatever Wegmans had, we have it in the crystal goblets - is goblet quite the right term? They're not wineglasses, they're not the right shape, but they have stems and everything - and everyone clinks glasses with everyone else and drinks.

Then we go to bed. There is no real celebration, just an acknowledgment that yes, more time has passed, and yes, we're aware of it. It sort of makes me feel for all those other midnights that we don't pay any attention to... Christmas night, for instance, when the holiday is officially over but no one bothers to notice. Or Christmas Eve and its seamless transition into Christmas.

Most of all, though, imminent change, which comes with passing time, is not my favorite and I have never loved the holiday dedicated to passing time. Why wish it away? I'm 21 years old. I'm not in a hurry to be any older.

I have now made hummus twice. It's not really bona fide hummus, but it tastes like summer to me (I know, I know, why make it in the winter then? Well, I'll tell you - hummus always appeals to me), probably because of the copious lemon we use. The first time, I was zesting the lemon and managed to zest my left pinky.

I think of it every time I brush a finger over the divot in my fingernail. I yelped and took a look at it immediately, while Mom said, "don't get any blood in the hummus" quite calmly. There wasn't much blood, and I did make sure that none of my skin was in the hummus either, but I suppose I can't make that promise about my fingernail. A little keratin never hurt anyone, I guess.

Been catching up on television. Sports Night is excellent - it's so good! - but I am tired of Dana's heart being constantly broken. I just don't understand! I thought I might try to finish up Lost before the end of break, just to have those loose ends tied up. Even though I'm not really that invested, for some reason I cannot bring myself to read about the completion of the series (and Wikipedia has tempted. It tempts! It tempts!).

Watched Inception last night - Jon wanted it, and Laura bought it for him for Christmas. Just watched Despicable Me, and it was just as adorable as I'd heard. Plus the giggling of the minions was certainly contagious.

Mmm-mmm. I feel like I had more to say, but it turns out I don't, so I guess I'm out.

Okay okay okay I cannot resist.

Soundtrack of the next couple of days:

+ the song from the last entry (somewhat colloquially known as We Are Young)
+ Start Me Up
+ Be Good to Yourself

I am officially done with the semester!! I am going in on Monday to hand in my take-home exam and probably to start organizing Dave's life for him, or at least to fill out the paperwork so that I can be paid for organizing Dave's life for him. And the rest of the time?

SPORTS NIGHT. I AM SO EXCITED YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I love Felicity Huffman.

The end.

WE ARE FREE

WE COULD RULE THE WORLD
ON A SILVER PLATTER
FROM THE WRONG TO THE RED LIGHT
TO THE OPEN STREAM
WE COULD CRASH AND BURN
WE COULD MAKE IT BETTER
TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN
JUST YOU AND ME
WE ARE THE DREAM
NO OTHER WAY TO BE

I COULD CHANGE THE WORLD
I COULD MAKE IT BETTER
KICK IT UP AND DOWN
TAKE A CHANCE ON ME
WHEN YOU FAKE A SMILE
AND YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER
GONNA PUT IT DOWN
WHIP IT AT YOUR FEET
NO BRIDGE TO BURN
NOWHERE TO TURN FOR ME

WHAT DO THEY KNOW ABOUT US?
ARE THEY THINKING OF SOMEBODY ELSE?
ARE THEY WONDERING WHAT WE MIGHT BE?
ARE THEY THINKING OF YOU OR OF ME?

Yep. That's about all I got today.

Sara's my girl.

there'll be girls across the nation that'll eat this up
babe, I know that it's your soul but could you bottle it up?

I am aiming to be somebody that somebody trusts
with a delicate soul I don't claim to know much
except soon as you start to make room for the parts
that aren't you it gets harder to bloom
in a garden of love

started as a flicker
meant to be a flame
skin has gotten thicker
but it burns the same
still a baby in the cradle
gotta take my first fall
baby's gettin' next to nowhere
with her back against the wall
meant to make me happy
made me sad
wanna make it better
better so bad
save your resolutions
for your never new year
there is only one solution
I could see here

head under water
and you tell me
to breathe easy for a while

made room for me
but it's too soon to see
if I'm happy in your hands
I'm unusually hard to hold onto
blank stares at blank pages
no easy way to say this
you mean well but
you make this hard on me

I like snow.

Progress. It is at a snail's pace, but it is progress nonetheless.

I am really regretting taking that book about the Viscoelasticity of Polymers back to the library. I could really use it right about now for this take-home exam. Maybe if DJ has to go in tomorrow, I could have him pick it up for me.

I need something diverting to do. The problem is that I can't really afford to be diverted right now! I should divert myself with the things that I cannot be diverted from -- that would be killing two birds with one stone.

It's a shame that things don't always conform to the way I think they ought to be.

one foot boy

Miami 2017. I don’t know why I like that song so much. I like the intro. I like the melody. I’m pretty sure it’s basically about the end of the world (or maybe it’s the fall of the United States), or something. But I like it, and right now I’m in the mood.

I feel very burned out. I have a lot of work that I really do need to do, and I just need to take a break. I just need a break. I just need some time off with some mindless tv, or some time to surf facebook aimlessly, or some time to sleep all day and not feel guilty about it.

I am going to finish this week. I am going to finish this week. I AM GOING TO FINISH THIS WEEK.

I’m exhausted.

highway run
until the midnight sun
wheels go 'round and 'round
in my mind

Maybe I should find my handouts to work on some labs. Or maybe I should work on my take-home exam from polymer. I have to do something, but I just want to go to bed.

Maybe I’ll go to bed. I might not be very productive if I stay up anyway, and I heard that you can count any sleep you get before midnight as four times as much as the sleep you get after midnight. That would mean I could get... well, actually, technically I do not have to get up at all tomorrow, so I guess there’s no endpoint. But anyway, I could get plenty of sleep. Maybe I’ll do that.

There is always tomorrow to work on this.

Only there’s not always tomorrow, you know? Sometimes you can’t do it tomorrow. But I can do it tomorrow, as long as I really do it tomorrow, when tomorrow’s here. As long as I don’t keep waiting for tomorrow, batting away the nagging of my to-do list.

Heck, if I don’t get my work done, when will I ever do my Christmas shopping?

circus life
under the big top world
we all need the clowns
to make us smile

My fingernails are painted silver. I would take the polish off, but I feel like it’s insulating my fingers and keeping them warmer, so I guess I’ll leave it until I start chipping at it. Then I have to take it off or risk the destruction (again) of my fingernails.

I’m glad I don’t have to leave the house tomorrow.

I don’t know what I feel like doing. I feel like being done. That means I need to do! I can’t be done without doing, you see. And there’s so much to have after I’m done! Books and television and running around the mall with all of the crazy Christmas shoppers and yelling good-naturedly about the traffic (except when it stretches across the intersection – that’s not so good-natured).

my oh my
think my mind is gone
I’m left here wondering
was I crazy all along?
what do I do?

Bed, I think.

Miscellaneous Lyrics

Listened to these today... sometimes some lyrics stick out, you know?

I don't wanna talk
about the things we've gone through
though it's hurting me
now it's history
I played all my cards
and that's what you've done, too
nothing more to say
no more ace to play --
the winner takes it all
the loser standing small
beside the victory
that's her destiny


the things that scare us today
what if they happen someday?


I tried to need someone
like they needed me
well, I opened up my heart
but all I did was bleed


I never loved nobody fully
always one foot on the ground
and by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind

Occasionally I write a word and I don't like the way it looks, so I erase it and rewrite it. And then it's still not good, so I erase it again and rewrite it again. And I continue writing it out - at this point, it's a given that I am not going to be happy with the way I write the word - until eventually I am forced to give up on it because I don't want to fall behind in my notes for the class.

I have a lot of work to do and I am finally starting to make some progress.

I like the snow, even if it means I kick Emma into neutral when sliding down a hill to help with the braking.

My knees are really achy today, in the backs, almost like they're swollen. But I can't really tell if they are swollen or not, because I don't usually touch the backs of my knees. Anyway, I want them to stop aching.

Lalalalala band gaps and polymers and polymers and time/temperature properties and Silly Putty!

I wish I'd been able to get to bed earlier last night.


Lookit me, all TAing a lab practical. Huzzah.

Oh, Billy Joel.

sometimes I'm tired
sometimes I'm shot
sometimes I don't know how much more I got
maybe I'm headed over the hill
maybe I've set myself up for the kill
tell me, how much do you think you can take
until the heart in you's starting to break?
sometimes it feels like it will.



It's snowing. I am sad that my camera is no good and therefore it cannot be seen that the snow has not stopped, but is still falling slowly and quietly. Snow always seems to mute the world.

I guess it's supposed to last until Thursday. DJ and I will have to leave for school earlier than usual tomorrow.




Dear heart,

Please stop trying to rip your way through my chest (and also my tear ducts).

Yours,
Shannon



Schubaby sans cone. Aw, Schubaby.



The scene in the kitchen. Jman attempting to not be a silhouette, Mom pulling an apple pie from the oven.



Aw. Laura. I just discovered this on my camera.


So in conclusion, I don't think I could care any less about polymer at this point and it's a little bit worrying to me.

I finally had my emotional breakdown today. I've been waiting on it for quite some time. I've had a whole host of negative emotions and haven't been able to cry in about a month, maybe more, and at this point it was going to be fairly cataclysmic no matter when it happened.

So, yes.

I babysat tonight. It was good. The kids were perfectly manageable. I made more money sitting around working on homework while they were in bed than I usually do when I tutor. That reminds me. I need to get on the ball and get all of those TAing timesheets in so that the resultant check is nice and fat. And so that I actually get money for TAing.

Hm. My eyes are all sort of swollen still. It feels funny. I don't know whether I feel better because I cried or because I made some visible progress. I think it's a little of both.

I have three umbrellas and an ice scraper in the back seat of my car. Love Syracuse weather.

I feel more efficient when I am walking on a diagonal, because the shortest distance between two points is a line. I often think of it as walking on the hypotenuse (my life is defined in right angles?)

I keep track of my life on the back of my hand. I think people find this funny because this is something that we often grow out of in about eighth grade when we abruptly stop drawing on our hands. I never grew out of drawing on my hands, but at least I don't color in my fingernails with pencil anymore.

I think I have a bit of an obsessive-compulsive problem.

I can't step on the cracks in sidewalks. This is not necessarily due to me not wanting to break my mother's back. I mean, of course I don't want to break my mother's back, but I never believed that there was one iota of truth to that childhood sing-song "don't step on a crack -- you'll break your mother's back!"

It just kind of always hangs out in the back of my mind, even now that I'm 21 years old, and as I'm walking along, I'm thinking of the rhyme -- not of my mother, of the rhyme -- and trying to adjust my steps to be perfectly placed so that I don't have to think about not stepping on the cracks.

This, of course, never works, because either I would have to take really long steps (yes, even for me and my really long legs) or I would have to take comically short steps. So usually I sort of trip-hop along. Sometimes I count cement slabs as I walk. There are 53 of them going across the quad from Illick to Marshall (and, I expect, vice versa).

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. You see, I get distracted by these cracks. I am constantly looking at my feet to try to avoid them... so I see the breaks in the neighboring slabs, or in the curb bordering the sidewalk, and if they don't line up, even though I am not walking directly on them, I cannot step where the extrapolation of the line would fall.

So the other day I was doing this, and I started to think about how ridiculous it was. And as I laughed at myself, I raised my chin so that I couldn't see the cracks in the sidewalk and kept walking, only to find that it bothered me so much that I might be stepping on those cracks that I cannot stand it, and had to look back at the ground.

When I'm walking on bricks, I can't avoid stepping on cracks. Obviously. So instead I try to walk with the "grain" of the bricks. I place my feet either perpendicular or parallel to the longest side of the bricks, or, in the case of a sort of crosshatching pattern, I walk with my toes pointed towards the point of the bricks. If the bricks change color, when I place my foot, it cannot touch more than one color.

The takehome message: please please please just use asphalt.

I'm also weird about stepping on parking lot lines.

Today I cleaved the coupling reaction, which looked very pitiful by GC (I only used 0.1 eq extra of the THP ether, after all, so having so much remaining didn't make sense!), and then I quenched it, went to teach my freshmen about the gas law, which they haven't touched in lecture but which is very easy (side note: the lab should probably not be referred to as 'Determination of R' if R is never actually determined), came back, took off the solvent, added new solvent, dried it, took off the solvent, added recrystallization solvent, and BOOM!

I'm telling you, this baby just does not want to be in solution. And that would be okay with me if it didn't mean I had to do all of these gymnastics to separate my lovely crystal babies from the oily brown gunk at the bottom. Oh well... I took a pipette and sucked out the oil while the diol was still dissolved (the whole thing was still in the rotavap at 60*C or so), and then set that aside in a mini Erlenmeyer (note to self: go get that out of Adam's freezer -- you forgot to move it), and put the 'supernatant' (ugh, biochemistry) into the freezer.

Voila! The loveliest crystals I've made yet!

Says Adam: "well, gee, it's almost like you know what you're doing!"

Thank you, Adam.

Sometimes I just want to sleep but there is so much work to be done that I can't even let myself sleep. I'd wish for the weekend, but that would bring me THIS MUCH CLOSER to the end of the semester.

At least Christina helped me get my dress for soiree ;-) I think I shall have to get black tights to wear with it, for it is certainly a short little thing.

Hi. My name is Shannon, and I was legitimately productive today. It only took me 13 weeks.

It feels good.

Parallel Conversations

[Christina Hudson]
well go beat them all at balderdash
!
[You]
I suck at balderdash
[Christina Hudson]
oh
hahaha
I shouldn't laugh
I'm laughing really hard at that
I can't imagine you sucking at anything
not possible bb
[You]
hahahahahahahahaha
it's okay
I really am terrible at balderdash so I usually just write something totally ridiculous and then laugh until I cry at myself
I always lose


[Adam Stringer]
so then in the molarity is a little less tehn I should still be able to use the BuLi to make the LDa and not have any BuLi in solution for when I ass the lactone
[You]
bahaha that's a hilarious typo
but yes
[Adam Stringer]
yeah I noticed that but I thought I should leave it in
kay sweet
now go win at balderdash
I prefer monopoly myself which I played last night and kicked some ass
[You]
hahahaha I suck at balderdash, but that's funny
you and Christina told me the same thing
[Adam Stringer]
well I've never played balderdash but I bet you are good at it
[You]
hahaha no I'm really, really not

It would be nice if people stopped handing me work to do.

I wish that was a realistic thing to have.

Hm. Life is pretty weird right now. I still can't seem to get to bed on time. I think tonight I will go to bed early no matter what, because I am so tired of waking up in the morning and feeling miserable. I would like to wake up and feel like smiling.

I feel like I have a lot to say and I can't say any of it, which is frustrating. Come on. Blah.

I would like to eat something but rather than eating, I am getting work done in the library. Except for right now. Right now I am not getting work done, I am sitting around listening to Sara Bareilles and pretending that I do not have to go to class in 13 minutes.

This song is brutal.

here's a simplification
of everything we're going through
you plus me is bad news
you're a lovely creation
I'd like to think that I am too
my friends say I look better without you

you love the chase
but hate me for the runaround
we're both just tired of the whole thing
oh, and you tell me what you want
you need and oh, you have to have
and I just pretend I'm listening

Laura texted me a few days ago... because I didn't have time to transfer the tracks to her mp3 player or whatever, I made her a copy of Kaleidoscope Heart. I told her later that my favorite song is Machine Gun, but since she's got no titles, she didn't know which it was.

She texted me later and said "I was listening to the CD and I got to a song that was really vicious and I thought, hey, Shanny probably likes this one... then Sara sang MACHINE GUN and my world fell into place!"

I guess I like brutal music.

Sara is a good lyric-writer.

Gotta get ready to go to class, I guess.

I feel like I'm falling apart at the seams.

My days are too long. My semester is flying by and refusing to take me with it.

I've been sick for almost two weeks now. I thought it was going away last weekend, and it was back yesterday morning with a vengeance, closing up my throat until I could barely swallow at all. Closing up my throat until I wondered if it would close further and I wouldn't be able to breathe. And yet this is not something that I can complain about. This is not something that I have the right to be upset about, because my brother has been sick for an entire year.

I have an exam in advanced organic tomorrow. It's on stereochemistry and tacticity and conformational analysis and potential energy diagrams. Oh, the potential energy diagrams, where R, P, and I are all energy minima, and the TS is a maximum in one of the 3N-6 dimensions (is it 3N-5 for linear molecules? I can't remember) and a minimum in all of the rest in order for it to be the lowest energy path from R to P possible.

Stereochemistry frightens me because somehow I often miss the subtleties of the molecules. Oh, there are the unique atoms; are they contained by the symmetry element? Are these hydrogens interconverted by a proper axis of rotation, or are they just interconverted by a mirror plane? Is it chiral? Where are the tetrahedral stereocenters?

And my mind is fuzzy because despite my best intentions and my babysitting of my lab group, I ended up staying up until 2am last night editing and splicing together the lab report. Then today I was very possibly the angriest I have ever been in my entire life, and I was angry from 8am to 5pm, with little aftershocks that are still goosing me when I least expect it.

Being enraged for that long is really exhausting. Really takes it out of you. And so I spent a day and a half that would ordinarily have been devoted to studying for this exam writing up a lab report that should not have taken as long as it did. Sometimes I just wonder about people.

I miss my sister. I want my brother to get better.

What made me smile today...

- getting my brand-new physical organic book in the mail - it's beautiful
- Dr. S telling me he would sign off on me murdering Bob
- FX asking me if I needed a gun, having been informed of the situation

Yeah... no, I think that's pretty much it. It was an exhausting, unrewarding day.

Then when Bob finally communicated with me and all but begged forgiveness, I withheld it from him. Because you know what? I am not going to be typical me and back up and say "oh, no, you know what, haha, it's okay. it's just fine."

It is NOT fine. He took ADVANTAGE of the fact that I was going to pick up the slack because I am the one who has the most to lose when our grades are on the line. He was IRRESPONSIBLE and SELFISH and STUPID. And it is NOT OKAY. I DID pick up the slack, but this does NOT mean that I am going to be walked all over.

I just feel so stupid for even entertaining the possibility that he might do the work. For entertaining the possibility that maybe he actually meant it when he leaned over and reassured me that because I was in his lab group, he was going to make sure that he actually did his part and pulled his own weight and didn't take advantage of me.

Well. GUESS which member of my lab group did EXACTLY that.

I'm still angry, it turns out. Still so angry I could spit. Still unable to concentrate. Still praying that somehow this lack of concentration and adequate sleep does not play out badly at 10:35 tomorrow morning.

I'm so tired of everything lately. I'm frustrated that I paid $260 for that exam last weekend. I'm angry about having had to clean up after Bob, who ended up doing zero of the lab report (ZERO. NONE OF THE REPORT. NONE OF IT.) and would not even send me the raw data because he was GOLFING in PHILADELPHIA.

WELL IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO TAKE CARE OF THE WORK THAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DEPENDING ON YOUR TO TAKE CARE OF BEFORE YOU GO GALLIVANTING OFF TO GO GOLFING BECAUSE LAST I CHECKED, GOLFING HAS NO BEARING ON ACADEMICS. This is ESF. THIS IS NOT A DIVISION I SCHOOL. YOU ARE NOT HERE FOR SPORTS. I don't know what you ARE here for, but it is your RESPONSIBILITY to get your work done early if you know you are not going to be around when it needs to be handed in.

And what I am the most angry about is that last night I heard from him and he didn't have it done (I'm sick I'm sick I'm sick I don't have a computer it died but never I'm in PA golfing) but said he'd have it to me in the morning. Then he didn't have it to me in the morning. THEN HE DID NOT COMMUNICATE WITH ME ALL DAY UNTIL 4:30PM, AT WHICH POINT I HAD WORKED IT OUT FOR MYSELF WITH LOTS OF YELLING AND GENERALLY FRIGHTENING EVERYONE BECAUSE I DO NOT EXPRESS MY ANGER.

Now why would you not communicate with me when you KNOW I am STRESSING THE HECK OUT about this report? Why would you not be checking your phone? WHY WOULD YOU NOT BE COMMUNICATING WITH ME?

So in conclusion, I AM STILL ANGRY. And hopefully I will do okay on this exam tomorrow. Back to PE diagrams, I guess.

One more keysmash, for posterity.


SKDGHLSIFH AS,KHAJKT HGAK,F H,ASG LAKG F,DJGT ,ASGHDk,gasj,hfg ajshf,safh H.KWJAHFKJSGHF ,JAHGFD J,SAH GJSHFG A,SHG AHJSF

IT IS STILL NOT OKAY AND I AM STILL MAD AND I WILL CERTAINLY STILL BE MAD WHEN I SEE HIM AGAIN.

enter senior year

It's been two days. I don't know what I'm feeling.

I'm finally tired. I think my nervous energy has worn off. Now I'm just dreading my mile-long to-do list.

Schubert seems to think my feet are tasty tonight and he is just going for it. It tickles.

I guess I should try to be productive for a while tonight. I just... I dunno. Life moves fast. Usually I hate posting short entries. I figure if I am going to write something, I might as well have something to say. Well, I guess I'll say a bit of something, then.

Things are okay. I had food with Justine today. It was nice to talk to her. I hung out with Christina, too. I think I'm trying not to think lately. I'm feeling really overwhelmed.

Oops - Schubert just heard something and went padding off. I wish he'd come back.

I need to update my to-do list.

Saturday mornings are nice. They are nearly as nice as Friday nights. They are ripe with promises, and they mean that I can let myself slowly drift upwards out of a thoroughly satisfying sleep. When I look in the mirror, my eyes look contentedly sleepy instead of miserably exhausted, even though both options come with puffiness.

Schu was still sleeping when I woke up, which is sort of a rarity for him; he hadn't been downstairs because my door was still closed. I got a little too hot as I came out of it, because I sleep under a comforter, a down duvet, a blanket and a sheet, so I tossed the lot over by the corner by my shoulder, and they came crashing down on Schu. A few moments later I heard some wriggling and when I looked over, he'd angled himself so that his chin was resting on the overlapped blankets and he was looking right back at me.

I'm hungry. I'm really quite hungry, but I'm loathe to begin the day because Saturdays just fly. Christina and I are going to Sweet Treats for ice cream tonight, and then we're going to walk the park a little and talk. I guess this Saturday is going to fly whether or not I go and eat breakfast. What do I want to do today? Distract myself and be somewhat productive in the process: this means, of course, that I will end up cleaning my room. Not such a bad thing, especially as my clothes are not at all organized right now and there is no room for my jeans.

I actually think that mid 60s to low 70s is about the perfect temperature, because I don't like to wear shorts. I like to get away with jeans and tank tops, or hoodies and flip flops. And the sleeping temperatures have been perfect lately -- cold enough that with the windows open I can just snuggle into my covers and I don't have to try to escape from Schu, who nestles into my legs and radiates heat.

My room is quite far from put-back-together.

There are a lot of things banging around in my head right now, but maybe now is not the time to try and corral them to get them out. They'll just come back anyway. Things are just not the same anymore now that I'm a senior and Justine is a grad student and suddenly there's this huge chasm between us that we're both hesitant about and it's so stupid! SO STUPID. I hate it, hahaha.

Had lunch with Hemler on Thursday. Discovered a number of things that I thought were true and then thought were not true and now they've been confirmed true. Maybe it's bad that I feel vindicated over the whole thing, but I do. Anyway, it was nice. I rode along with her to see her in-progress house in Pompey. It was fun. The sky was pretty - dappled with clouds, white on blue... we rarely see the blue, really, especially since I was away for the summer - and it was nice to just ride.

Riding is sort of calming, weirdly enough. I never thought I'd be someone who could say she clears her head in the car, but I did. It was good. It was nice to catch up.

I dunno... this isn't going anywhere anymore. I should go eat some breakfast and let Saturday fly.

nothing's gonna change my world

I forgot to take that picture of the skyline.

I went to dinner and dessert with my parents, and then accompanied Dessi to her dinner (I was stuffed, so I didn’t eat anything, just sat). Things felt weird, that last night. Things felt really weird.

The dorm had essentially emptied out, its inhabitants having caught flights out after 5pm on Friday, as Margaret had insisted. That deadline ended up being very odd, because by noon on Friday everything was due. This left us with lots of time and nothing to do.

I woke up and felt thoroughly contrary, because I hate change. I went to breakfast with my parents, headed back to get my paper burned to my data CD and my paperwork in order. I took it all upstairs to 4028 and slipped my timesheet into the tray and my CD to Rebecca. Margaret said goodbye to me, which was nice, you know?

Margaret somehow managed to learn my name very quickly over the course of the program. I think it’s a compound thing: she probably wanted to put a face to the name that had been badgering her all summer about this and that via email, and I’m also kind of tall. Not that my height helps anyone remember my name, in any case, but I’m sort of built to stand out. If you see what I did there.

The days feel hazy here. Hazy and misty.

After I turned my papers in, I headed back to the dorm and sat on Paola’s bed as she packed. We watched the first segment of Tin Man (a sort of modern retelling of The Wizard of Oz which has Alan Cumming and Zooey Deschanel in it and is, therefore, compelling), went to lunch at Panera with Dessi, and then Dessi left to go shopping downtown and Paola and I headed back to get her things in order and then watch a little more of Tin Man before she had to catch her taxi.

I hugged her and eventually skipped off to my parents as she caught her taxi; my parents and I packed up most of my room and then drove back to the bed and breakfast where they were staying. We walked back to “downtown Evanston” and had dinner and dessert, and then they headed out and I walked back to the dorm...

... where I tried to update here, but was distracted by a text from Dessi that said she’d be back shortly and did I want to meet her for dinner? So I met her for dinner and we headed back to the dorm to watch about five hours of House, essentially knocking out the highlights of the fifth season.

Finally, after showering and killing time for no real reason except to avoid change – but I should know better than that, because morning comes whether or not I go to bed! – I went to bed around 4, and got up around 8 to have some cereal and pack up my comforter/blanket/sheets/mattress pad. Then Mom and Dad arrived, we bundled the last few things into the van and headed out.

Dad asked me at one point what was the matter, because I didn’t seem myself. I don’t like leaving, and I don’t like change, and I hadn’t had nearly enough sleep. The iced mocha that Dad bought me at the next place we stopped helped a little to brighten my mood, but I spent a long time lying across the back seat in a sort of haze, praying for sleep and having my mind race in circles. Beethoven helped a little!

The new Maroon 5 song is stupidly catchy, just like all of their other stuff. It’s too bad he has such a whiny voice. Lots of whine.

I like looking over and seeing Schubert on the bed. He naps like it’s his job, as usual.

I’m getting my hair trimmed sometime this week. Optimally, tomorrow, but who knows? This is throwing my hair-washing schedule all off... I don’t want to wash it if it’s going to be cut tomorrow, but if it’s going to be cut on Wednesday, can I wait that long? Maybe I should just do Thursday if I can’t do tomorrow. To maintain the schedule, you understand. My hair is getting long and the ends are getting sort of ragged. I have to make sure she doesn’t trim the layers, though, because I need ALL of my hair to grow out to the length where it doesn’t fall out of the clip or hair tie.

My room is still messy because I haven’t yet managed to put everything away. I don’t know where it all goes. It’s not fitting correctly. Sometime this week I have to reconfigure where all of my clothes are kept, because my current system is spectacularly failing.

I feel sad tonight. Things are changing.

Ends and Beginnings

Mom and Dad arrived in Evanston tonight. I haven't seen them yet. I'm going to have breakfast with them tomorrow morning.

I finally clipped my fingernails. It's very liberating. I can't exactly explain why it's liberating, but everything feels so much more functional. The biggest difference is the necessary change in orientation of my thumbs when I text on my tiny little QWERTY keyboard. Not such a big difference.

When I get home, I'm going to sleep in my bed with my puppy. On Sunday morning, I'm going to make crepes for Laura and for Christina and for whoever else wants crepes.

But tomorrow, I don't know what I'm going to do. Tomorrow, I am going to turn in my paper, my signed approval form, my final timesheet, and my office key. Tomorrow I'm going to put Mike's movies and Mike's tupperware on Mike's desk. Tomorrow I'm going to do a little more packing. Tomorrow I am going to have breakfast with my parents and lunch with Paola.

Tomorrow everything is going to feel final.

I don't know why I always feel sad when things change. There came a point during this program when I was ready to come home. There came a time when I was frustrated and confused and felt terribly, terribly alone. And now I'm starting to feel all nostalgic, pointing out to myself that this is the last time I'm going to do that, and this is the last time I'm going to see this.

I still want a picture of the Chicago skyline at night across the lake. Since I have one more night here, I might get it tomorrow night. I hope I remember.

The room looks progressively barer as I pick things up and pack them away. It's weird for me to leave. Things feel familiar here now; does that mean that for a disorienting one or two days, things will feel alien at ESF? Will I not fit back the way I used to?

One always wonders about these things.

So here I am, tired and needing to go to sleep to wake up in order to see my parents over breakfast in the morning, and I'm trying to somehow make this bizarre pent-up emotion in me spill out into writing. The fact that it isn't exactly working makes me think that maybe the emotion I'm feeling isn't something I want to face right now.

It's all wrapped up with my future.

I think maybe I'll sign off now, because I'm tired and getting to where I feel like I could just drop off, and the later it gets, the more likely I am to get emotional over something stupid, like leaving this place after having been here for a summer.

I need to figure out how to make these feelings come out to play.

Today's Update the Second

Well, I should be officially finishing up my paper. I am not so enthusiastic about officially finishing up my paper.

Today when I was filtering some last ligand, Chaiya and I had a little conversation.

Chaiya: So, Shannon, you’re almost done, huh?
Me: Yep, it’s getting close!
Chaiya: When’s your last day?
Me: Friday!
Chaiya: Oh, that’s sad. We’ll miss you.
Me: Aw. I’ll miss you guys too. Do we hug now?
Chaiya: NO. It’s not Friday.

Hahahaha I think there are some things I will miss about not having a real lab group like this one.

I talked to Laura on the phone for a while tonight. It was nice. We are clearly both getting impatient about me being here on the cusp of coming home and her there on the cusp of leaving. At least we get three days of overlap. It’s better than zero days of overlap.

I ran through my presentation again. It took me 11 minutes with some stalling at the beginning... but I am talking at the speed of light. This worries me, because if I know that I have to talk fast, I’m afraid I’ll talk way way way too fast when I actually have to give the real presentation.

I need to clip my nails. I think I said that before, but they are really starting to impede my typing skills. I need my typing skills to remain good, because they help my failing self-esteem when texting goes awry. I really should have thought about how tiny my phone’s QWERTY keys were before I bought it. But I really love this phone, despite the fact that it’s open-face instead of flip.

They don’t make nice flip phones anymore. I also think I was a faster texter when I had T9. Oh well. Every once in a while I think about pulling out my old phone and sticking the SIM card into it just to try T9 again, but I think at this point I probably can’t do it at all anymore. Shame.

Anyway, that’s hardly the point. The point is Hemler. Hey, weird, I’ve never talked about her here. I mean, not for real, anyway. I’m supposed to be moving past that part of my life, you know? I’m supposed to be growing up. And she is so confusing.

She caught Laura in the parking lot at Walmart (random!) and told her to tell me to call her so I can catch up with her before my classes start. I’m supposed to text her, or call her, or something, so we can go eat food that she can stubbornly pay for as always. I can practically predict her justification: “it’s to celebrate that you had a really awesome job this summer!”

Which is, of course, exactly why I should pay for once. But she is one stubborn lady. And I miss talking to her, which is weird, because I feel like I never have anything to say. But I feel like that most of the time. I think I do more listening than I do talking, most of the time, and then I go to talk about something and feel like it pales in comparison to whatever has been being talked about. I think I’m better at being interesting in writing than I am in purpose.

You, loyal readers, are probably reading that and wondering how boring it is possible for one person to be, but just remember that sometimes I have crises about dropping my earbuds in a public toilet. Yes, yes I do.

So anyway, I’m wondering what to do about it. I do want to meet up with her and eat food and heck, maybe even see a movie because we did that once and it was pretty fun in a totally bizarre way. I think because I still love her more than I should, I’m going to call or text when I get home, but I might not even have the patience for that. She’s always been good to talk to, and now that I’ve been away all summer, I’ll have stuff to talk to her about.

I don’t know. She tends to do things like this, though, get my hopes all up about everything, and then ditches me. And even though I know it’s coming, it’s difficult. It kinda bums me out for a few days. So maybe this will work, but it’ll have to wait until after Laura leaves (I hate to type that, ugh).

Laura’s life and my life are oddly symmetrical right now.

Things to do:
+ Christina
- WEGMANS + overnight!!
- Boom Boom Mex Mex
- Everything on Marshall Street
- I forget the rest but I think she has it under control
+ Justine
- Supernaturalapalooza
+ Laura
- SYTYCD
- Mika!
- FlashForward
- EVERYTHING PERIOD

Okay so it looks like... I am going to be watching a lot of television. Well that’s okay. Television is good.

The lab floor is cleaned and waxed.

I forgot that it was going to happen. It’s really quite striking. I walked into lab today after sitting through four hours of presentations (that’s half of them) from the program. It was actually visually stunning – for some reason, the lack of chemical buildup and gunk on the floor makes the lab look brand new. I am impressed.

Presentations were boring. I wish I’d been scheduled for today, because now I have one more night to sit around and think about what I’m going to say. It might end up being a good thing, though, because I think I need to make sure that I’m close to 12 minutes... I think I’m closer to 13. Talk fast and enunciate.

I’d prefer to be able to take my time but unfortunately I just have too much stuff to cram into 12 minutes.

So the program is coming to a close, and I’d be much better equipped to know whether or not I’m sorry about that if there wasn’t all this STUFF due. Frankly, it’s a little overwhelming in a familiar way. And yet again, I come to the end of the summer somehow expecting the coming school year to be a break.

A break from what? A break from summer?

I’m so dumb sometimes, hahaha. I wish I could just not expect it. I know that next week I will probably be barraged by emails about tutoring and TAing and whatever else I’m supposed to be organizing. I have to get on top of my life.

A break from no-strings-attached research? A break from working 9:30 – 5:30 and then saying “hey, what the heck, I think I’ll go do something fun!”

Seriously. It’s kind of depressing to think about. Tonight I have to rewrite my abstract and touch up the results and approach a bit, since I’ve finally managed to make myself put the images into the paper. Once I do that, I’ll be free. Well, sort of free. Brad should probably read my paper at some point.

It’s sort of depressing to realize that it’s not over when I give my presentation.

My fingernails are too long.

I miss Christina, Justine, and my family. Too much of the unfamiliar is addling my brain, and I need to go jump back into the open arms of my people in good old boring Syracuse, New York, where the sun doesn’t shine but boy does it snow and there’s not much to do but at least I can shave in the shower.

One Pathetic Story

I need to start remembering to bring one of my other notebooks – my non-lab-official notebooks – so that I can actually sit around and write on something without staring at the computer screen. And to make sure my handwriting is still a-okay. This was easier at ESF because I live out of that lab nowadays; it’s more convenient than the locker downstairs in Moon, which is still pretty convenient.

So I’ve murdered another pair of earbuds. I mean, it was bound to happen: earbuds and I unfortunately do not mix. These were on the way out for a while, and I’m not too horribly broken up about it. I mean, something about a $6 pair from Big Lots doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, but I was desperate to use my mp3 player OUTSIDE of the car as well.

Plus I think at that point I was running column after column after column… that’ll make you crazy if you don’t take the proper precautions!

So last Friday was the REU/RET picnic, which started at 11:00am. So around 10:50 I poured some more of this chromic acid oxidation mixture into the filter (I have had enough of fine frits for the rest of my life), changed into capris and flipflops (not wearing jeans and sneakers to the beach, thank-you-very-much), found Paola and Brad, and headed down (well, up, I guess) to North Beach.

We got there and there was no food, which we were only slightly put out about. We stood around and talked to each other. We hiked back in to where the food was supposed to be – apparently they’re not allowed to serve food on the actual beach – and Margaret was not happy at all about the wait on the food.

When the food came, it was boxed lunches, and the sandwiches were pretty gross. I ate probably 85% of mine before giving up, and I had the fruit cups (I picked around the grapes) and passed on the chips. They had rice krispy treats, which was nice in a third grade sort of way. But hey, I have nothing against third grade.

Then we tossed around a frisbee, some people played volleyball, they took some pictures… and eventually I headed back to lab, because after all, there are only two more weeks of research left, then one of clean up and presentations, and then it’s over. Which is crazy. But I digress.

As I was changing back into my jeans, I had then upside-down at one point, and I was quite fixated on being sure that my debit card did not fall out of my pocket (I was, of course, changing in a bathroom stall). I heard a plink, and immediately my hand flew to the back pocket that had had my debit card in it. I have no idea why I didn’t just invert my jeans so that they would be the right way up.

My debit card was still in my pocket, so naturally that begs the question: what fell? I looked around a bit, and didn’t see anything on the floor. And then I saw something perched happily on the floor of the toilet.

Now the thing you have to understand about my earbuds is that they were seriously dying. They were the kind that has the doughnut-shaped rubbed inserts for your ears, so that the sound is funneled in and they tend to be more comfortable because the rubber is flexible. So the earbuds – both of them – had broken in half along the poorly made seam, where I had half-speaker and half-insert. The speakers are, of course, connected to the headphones’ cord. The inserts are not, so I keep them in my pocket.

By this point, the speakers had also come undone from their hemispherical docks, and were dangling from the ends of the exposed wire. Earlier in the week, I had managed to somehow rip one of the speakers (just a flat, dull silver disk of a thing) from its mooring, so the right earbud is useless. Therefore I had started carrying around only one insert, for the left side.

For whatever reason, it really, really bothers me to have an earbud in and no sound coming from it. It makes me feel all lopsided, and just taking the earbud out makes it better. Maybe it’s a control thing. I don’t know.

But anyway, I had just one insert with me. It had been in my right pocket, and it was now sitting on the floor of the toilet, grinning up at me with its doughnut face. I was quite perturbed, and tried to figure out what to do.

Should I save it? Should I put my pants on first? Do I really want to stick my hand and wrist and possibly part of my forearm into a public toilet (flushed, of course, I’m not THAT gross) just to save an insert when I already have one more and I don’t use more than one at a time anymore? If I do happen to save it, do I want to put that in my ear? Will I get some sort of terrible coliform-carried inner ear infection which will destroy my ability to walk?

Eventually I decided to put my pants on. Clearly, with pants on, I could make a sound decision. I would be the one wearing the pants in this relationship.

As I put them on, I turned to the side. These are little stalls, you understand. And as I did, I heard the tell-tale pre-whooshing noise that is the harbinger of you’ve-presumably-left-now-so-I’m-going-to-flush watery doom in these automatic toilets. I turned around and watched helplessly as the insert, no longer grinning but certainly silently screaming, was sent down to some wastewater treatment plant where the coliforms are killed off by chlorination and the like.

For a moment, I was frustrated. And then I started to laugh – and to desperately hope that I would never have tried to retrieve that insert anyway, even if the automatic flush had not saved me from a potentially poor decision. So then I finished putting my pants on, and my shoes on, and resigned myself to a Mika-less afternoon in lab.

Good times. I’m ridiculous.

My left knee really hurts today, and my lower back is threatening to ache and I really have no idea why my body is upset with me, but whatever. There’s not much to be done in lab today. I wish I could find Brad, though, because with only two weeks of real research left, I’d like to go out with a bang.

Of course, first I had to relate the story. I have one insert left. That’s all I need.

And by the way, that chromic acid oxidation... oh well, a story for another day.

Two Frustrating Days

I decided, partially at the behest of my mother, to copy-and-paste these two lovely anecdotes here for my own remembrance. They were both written to Justine, so either I really love telling her stories and she brings out the writer in me, or she's a great sounding board for complaining. Either/or, I suppose, and probably both.

The first is my retelling of my trip back to Evanston after my trip home for the weekend.

Oh man. The trip back was a nightmare. Let me see if I can describe it and do it justice.

On the way to the airport, I realize that I have left my cell phone charger at home. This is the prerequisite to the building hysteria.

So I get to the airport, and I've figured out that I'm going to take the bus back to Evanston, and the flight gets in at 7:55pm Evanston time, and I'll wait around for a while and then catch the 9:11 shuttle, because it runs fairly irregularly on Sunday nights. And I make it through security - the guy there, not too bad looking either, hands my my license back and goes "6'1"? Nice." - and find my gate and sit down to find that my flight is leaving at 7:45, not 6:55 as advertised. (I still don't know why there were so many delays. As far as I can tell, the weather was not that bad.)

So I figure, hey, this is okay, I can roll with this because it just puts me at O'Hare closer to when my bus is scheduled to leave. Fair enough. I get on the plane, we all settle in, and the flight attendant (sort of older but not old, and quite bitter and jaded, which ordinarily would have amused and fascinated me but I found it grating because I was getting stressed) informs us that we can't leave for another 15 or 20 minutes because of weather and traffic into O'Hare.

Okay, so I'm going to miss the 9:11 bus. That's okay, there's one at 9:41. I'll just take that one, I'll be back in Evanston by 10:45, I can shower and go to bed and be ready to face research on Monday morning.

So we land at O'Hare, and the flight attendant informs us that it's going to be another 20 minutes before we can get off of the plane, because there's no open gate for us. At this point, I'm getting really antsy; my legs are starting to hurt and I'm getting that sort of tight contained feeling where I just want to punch the window out and jump onto the tarmac. But I don't, because I have exceptional self-control. Or maybe I just don't want to get arrested.

Finally she informs us that there is a gate open for us; G12. Now the thing you have to understand about O'Hare is that it's huge, so all domestic American Airlines flights go to this one terminal. We start taxi-ing to our gate and I realize we are at a completely different terminal. Now, maybe I'm unreasonable, but I'd just like to know why we couldn't have moved into position before this, so we could quickly maneuver into position at our gate, since obviously we couldn't possibly be at a different terminal.

So she starts apologizing for people who are missing their connections because by the time we get to our gate it's 9:35pm and we were supposed to be there at 7:55pm. Only she sounds pretty insincere and starts droning on about how you should go talk to the people at the gate blah blah blah, which everyone knows and no one is appreciating her "helpful hints". And yes, it's not her fault, but sometimes you just ought to keep your head down.

I get off the plane and it's 9:38pm and by this point I'm frustrated and angry and sort of near tears, so I keep closing my eyes and telling myself to stop being a baby about it, and I have to pee so bad I'm about ready to burst and I'm not going to make the bus anyway because I have to take the shuttle to the bus stop, which will take five minutes or so. So I take care of business and try to figure out what to do.

Well, I can take the bus, but the next bus doesn't come until 10:56, and I don't want to wait around for another hour. I'd rather be moving, so I decide to take CTA (the train) because even though it will take just as long, at least I won't have the dead time. This is a Very Bad Decision.

So I hop on the blue line, having paid my fare, and I ride it down to transfer to the red line, and once on the red line I can take the purple line right up to Evanston, walk a block and a half and be back at my dorm room. At this point I am feeling a little on edge because I have never taken the blue line before, but I figure I have a map and there are lots of helpful posters on the trains, so I'll be just fine. Right? So I figure out that I can go from the blue line to the red line at Jackson; I hop off at Jackson and walk across to the red line, where I set my stuff down and get ready to hop on the first red line that comes through. By this point, it's about 10:35 or 10:40, and I'm feeling okay.

Some random guy - a black man in a uniform that says UHAUL Spokesperson on it - starts talking to me, and I'm pretty relaxed, pretty calm, because I've done red to purple before and it's a piece of cake. So I'm carrying on a bizarre conversation with him because he just won't stop talking, but I figure, hey, I'll just ditch him when I get on the train and it'll be fine. Ya get some crazies. He was pretty harmless I guess.

So we're standing there, and standing there, and it gets to be about 11:00pm, which is just too long to have to wait for the red line, which is supposed to run every 8-10 minutes. It's a 24 hour line. This voice comes on the loudspeaker and informs us that the red line is not running underground right now, and we will have to go up to Wabash and Adams to catch it (a station that does not usually have the red line running through it). So my new BFF informs me (quite needlessly) that we have to go up to Wabash, so I follow the people to this stop.

We get up there, and the CTA attendant lets us in for free because the transfer should have been free, and we head up to catch the red line. At this point, I'm feeling pretty tired and incredibly annoyed, but things are going to be fine, right? So we stand up there and watch as not one, not two, but THREE red lines go south (the wrong direction) while we see three or four brown lines and three green lines, but no red lines. And by this time I'm really frustrated and I don't know what's going on, and I'm texting my mother, having given up on saving my phone's battery because maybe this is an emergency. I also texted Dessi, because I was going to stop in and say hi to her when I got back to the dorm.

My mother calls the customer service line for CTA; Dessi texts me the number of a cab service. I have no cash. My mother calls me and informs me that red line service has been restored to Jackson, of which no one saw fit to inform us. It is midnight. The last purple line train leaves Howard for Evanston at 1:20am and at this point, I am really starting to panic. I'm taking deep breaths and closing my eyes and trying my very hardest not to start crying because if I cry, it's all over. But I don't even know where in Chicago I am, although I do have a map, and it's midnight and I'm downtown and I might get stranded and I have no idea what to do.

I tell my traveling companions (which include my BFF) of this development, and we head down to talk to the CTA assistant. My BFF starts yelling at her, and she looks at us like we're idiots and tells us no, it hasn't even been close to an hour since they rerouted the red line (not true) and that two northbound red lines have come through the station (also VERY not true). So she tells us to go back up and catch the brown line and take it to the red line.

Now I'm seriously starting to panic because the brown line isn't coming and I don't know if I should go back to Jackson and try to just catch the red line and besides, I'm not even sure I know how to get back to Jackson and heck if I'm going my myself but I don't want to go with my BFF either so this is awkward. And all the while, I'm texting my mother and I'm texing Dessi, and I'm panicking and my BFF is creepily looking over and going "you textin' your people to let 'em know? you textin' your friends?" and I keep saying "yes, yes" because I want him to know that if ANYTHING happens people will know where I was last.

So we hop on the next brown line that FINALLY comes through, and hop off to transfer to the red line. At this point, I look at this sort of grad student looking kid who was waiting with us before, and he looks at me and then gets up and off the train, saying "You want the red line? Yeah, we can get it here. You from out of town?" but he was safe, unlike my crazy, insane BFF who is dancing around going "come on! over here!" Finally my new acquaintance goes "we can get on HERE too," yelling across the street to him, and we headed down, underground, to wait for the red line.

So it's about 12:15 and it takes 45 minutes to get from the red line to the purple line, and there's no red line and I'm freaking out, like massively freaking out, wringing my hands and everything. The new kid looks at me and goes "don't worry, I think you'll be fine. worst case scenario, if you miss the purple line, just find someone at the CTA and make them pay for a cab. as long as it comes in the next 10 minutes or so, though, you'll be fine." My BFF goes, "I'll show her, I'm riding that way anyway, I'm going to Wilson" and I looked at the new kid and he goes "I'm going to Morse. it's fine. she's going to Howard, that's two stops away.

When the red line finally comes, I have been texting Dessi about where I am, and she's got Paola with her and they're trying to figure out where in Chicago I am. She calls right when it arrives, because she's arranging for Kelsey to come and pick me up if I'm totally lost, and I just get on the red line and turn my phone off, letting her and my mother know that I'm on the red line now so at least I'll know where I am shortly.

Now I'm totally cut off from everyone. My phone has a dying battery; my traveling companions are pretty sketchy, and the train is full of odd characters. I slip into a seat and fall back into the pattern of closing my eyes to try not to cry, biting my lip, praying, the whole nine yards. Finally, the train starts to clear out and we're getting close. Just as we get to Morse, I turn my phone on and it's 1:03am; I'm going to make it. I'm going to be okay.

My buddy gets up, looks at me, informs me that I'm going to make it with time to spare, and I thanked God that I had found someone who was sane and intelligent and nice. I get off at Howard, have to walk under and up onto the other side of the station... and the last purple line of the night pulls in. I hop into a car, hoping it's empty, and it's not - there's one other person - but I just sit where I can be alone and sort of huddle in my hoodie with my backpack and my laptop, my credit cards and driver's license and everything I didn't want to lose around me. I text my parents and I text Dessi to let them know that I'm going to make it back okay.

And that is when I pull my hood over my head and finally, even though I know everything is fine, I let myself cry. And I sobbed basically until I got to my stop. I was quiet about it, but I'm pretty sure that the girl in the car knew I was crying. Whatever, she probably assumed I was nuts which is fine by me. I got off at my stop, wiping my eyes on my sleeve, and headed down to the road.

And now it's dark. It's 1:30am. I have no idea which way to walk, but I can't give up now, so I decide to turn right and I watch the signs. Foster and Sherman... okay, familiar names... Foster and Orrington. Bingo. My dorm is on this intersection. So I walk further, totally drained, totally exhausted, and run into a couple of girls from the other REU (the materials science one). One actually recognizes me, so I talk to her for just long enough to not seem rude begging off (after all, it IS 1:30am) and then run upstairs.

I can't even tell you how relieved I was to stick my key into my lock and open up my dorm room. It was incredible. I grabbed a bottle of water out of my fridge and started to guzzle it down, and then headed over to let Dessi know I was back. I knocked on her door, she opened it and looked really startled for a minute, and then gave me a huge hug. Then, of course, I had to be polite again so I went into her room and sat on her bed, barely conscious, as she gave me her weekend in blow-by-blow detail. Finally, at 2:00am, I told her I was going to go shower and go to bed. Which I did.

And waking up this morning was the hardest thing I've ever done.

The end!



And the second, slightly less epic retelling of my trip to Argonne National Laboratory, with special emphasis on the bus ride. For posterity!

OH MAN. so we had to take this field trip type thing to Argonne National Lab (which is a Very Big Deal, I guess, and having that around for grad school would be pretty sweet). we had to be there at 8am, which ended up being really stupid because we didn't even leave until 8:30 because someone was late. grrr >:(

so we're there, and it's 8:30, and this bus with reclining seats is pulling onto the road and I'm all optimistic like "this won't be so bad and a nice bus like this has got to have air conditioning! it'll cool off!" okay. no, actually, it won't. so the day was like 99 with a heat index of 103, and horrendously sunny and the sun is pouring in through the huge windows and we can only open thin windows at the top, not the huge main windows, and Dessi looks at me and says "hey, is this blowing HOT air at our feet?"

why yes, yes it was. so we attempted to sleep while sweat is dripping down EVERYTHING and we're all miserable and sort of half-comatose because it's the only way to survive and we finally get there and step out into the 99 degree day, and it FEELS COOL. thank goodness cutting edge government funded research labs are air conditioned.

the lab itself is HUGE, like fifty buildings, and we of course walked into the Nanoscale Materials Center or whatever it was because, you know, nano, and had some tour guide who knew nothing at all about science.

tour guide: "and in this room, we have a U-V-V-I-S machine. that stands for ultraviolet ... um ..."

VISIBLE. the Vis is NOT an acronym. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

although we got to see their particle accelerator which generates x-rays, which is pretty cool and apparently one of three in the world (there's one in Germany or France or something, and one in Japan). well, not really see it so much as see the structures that house it.

and then they fed us. and we got back onto the bus, which still had no air-conditioning, and we wilted and melted all the way back and I played hangman with Vic and this kid stood up at one point and the ENTIRE BACK of his shirt was soaked with sweat, I kid you not. TERRIBLE.

(shorter because of its nature: a facebook post rather than an email. still, not too shabby if I do say so myself, but I have an unfortunate habit on facebook: I don't capitalize anything but proper nouns.)

I don't remember when I wrote this. Sometime last week, possibly. In any case, I want to close the document on my computer, so here we are:

Things I can’t wait to be able to do again:
+ drive
+ sing
+ make cookies
+ eat at home

So I am just sitting around, checking on my oxidation every once in a while. It has now been 90 minutes, which means that I am halfway there IF the purple color remains until the end. Needless to say I’m pretty terrified that I’ll go check on it and it will be brown, and I’ll have to add more permanganate and start the whole three hour incubationary period thing again. At least the temperature’s been controlled.

I have found that I am not a huge fan of peer review. I think part of this is that I do not trust my peers to do an adequate job of reviewing my work. Maybe this is a bad attitude, but I can't help but think that these people have never written scientific papers before. I'll admit, though, that since I did only take about three hours to write my lit review, it is not perfect. It's satisfactory.

The problem is that my research focus is primarily the synthesis of the MOF, but the end game is the MOF is to be used for xenon-krypton separation. So I essentially have two separate but intertwined goals, and it makes the lit review a bit difficult. I outlined it and wrote it in, bring together the aspects of MOFs, narrowing to gas separations and then breaking off for a page and a half or so on noble gas separations, then back to my specific focus.

I’m trying to figure out how to retool the very beginning of the paper to give it a better feel for the entire point without collapsing the structure of my paper, which stands up quite well on its own. It has direction; I just didn’t explicitly state the direction in my first paragraph. I should probably try to do that, but instead I am going to print out my paper and take it to the workshop this afternoon.

Hooray, I figured out how to print! Here in lab! Fo’ free! I love free printing. I love free anything. One becomes hypersensitive about free stuff when one’s money is flowing out from one’s bank account like water. Too bad I am SERIOUSLY craving pizza tonight. Mmmm. Pizza. Hopefully after this seminar I have in 25 minutes I can get an NMR, finish some stuff up and go get some food.

This is the problem with spending money. I only spend it on food, but I love food too much to give it up.

Hahahaha you know what’s bad? When you come back to your computer because you have a couple of minutes to kill while something or other is going on, and your browser consists of two pages of Bejeweled Blitz. It’s an addiction. And the funny thing is that it’s really what I do when I have to kill time, because there’s only so many times I can check my email when I’m not getting any new mail.

Currently I am filtering some of my oxidation product(s). It is actually pretty funny. For some reason, the crystals are sort of gloopy and I can build little towers out of them on the sintered glass, and then I have to wait for some of the water to be sucked out (the tower shrinks) and then I add some more and make the little hill into a mountain. It’s way more fun than yesterday, when I accidentally covered the entire surface of the funnel and had to wait half an hour for two milliliters to drain through the now clogged frit.

My stuff is drying. Ugh, the days are so long when I have nothing to do. I don’t even know what I hope the NMR says. Well, I hope the NMR says COMPLETE OXIDATION but as I know that that won’t be the case, I should prep myself for disappointment and lots more permanganate.

Tonight I really feel like going to Flat Top Grill. We went there the very first night that we went out to eat. It’s build-it-yourself stir fry and I am so excited, but it might rain in which case I am not quite so excited, but I still want stir fry. I am planning on getting the unlimited option, not because I plan to eat five bowls of stir fry but because I will probably be able to eat at least two and if I can eat two, it’s only an additional two or three dollars for the unlimited option. It would be a really good place for David. He could eat a lot, and being able to make it himself would make him one happy camper.

Seriously, I need to stop thinking about food when I’m at work. It’s not a good habit, because then I start to get hungry and then I get miserable. Although let’s face it: I only have three hours left today and I am pretty psyched to… well, to do nothing, I guess.

The good news? My Suzuki coupling, even with deadish (orange rather than yellow) catalyst, was 91.4% yield. I can’t remember the last time I did something with a yield that high. It makes me feel vaguely competent. NMR confirms that I did a good thing.

The bad news? We have no idea which oxidation conditions to use. Do you know how tedious it is to search the literature for methods of oxidizing aromatic methyls to carboxylic acids? Pretty darn tedious. And there are a lot of ridiculous methods out there.

So I have a long oxidation prep to look forward to. Ordinarily I really would be looking forward to the prospect of having something simmering away for hours, affording m the excuse of passive productivity. However, life does not always work that way, and this program insists on pulling me out of my research to go to a number of seminars: writing, communication, field trips to Argonne…

I dunno. I need an attitude check about things in the program that are not straight research.

I have actually finished my literature review. It is not as long or as complete as I might like it to be, but it is eight pages of MOF-y goodness and I am slowly picking my way through the rest of the articles that I downloaded to my “potentials for lit review” folder. I am developing an extensive folder system in the Northwestern sector of my documents.

If only real-life organization was as simple as digital organization. I would be set.

Last night we went out for coffee and dessert. Because we were a party of five and neglected to ask for separate checks, we were assigned a gratuity, which was actually pretty annoying. Serves me right for forgetting. Also, that was some EXPENSIVE coffee and dessert. Forget this, from now on it is ONE or the OTHER. That will teach me to be indulgent.

I have this fear, not that I’m gaining weight, exactly, but that I’m gaining pudge underneath my chin. Bahahaha it’s pretty ridiculous actually because I have always feared that particular portion of my body for no real discernable reason. I think I will skip going out for dinner tonight. I will have almonds and carrots and broccoli and milk and orange juice, and maybe a granola bar, and I will embrace my hunger pains and also the joy of not spending money.

I can’t wait for more catalyst to come in. It’s always very heartening to have a reaction that works as beautifully as this one did. Let’s do it again! AND PUMP IT UP. TWICE THE SCALE, BB. 20 TIMES THE SCALE OF THE ORIGINAL.

I could get used to bucket chemistry. The chemistry itself is less frustrating. The workup is an enormous pain, but you can’t win ‘em all. The REALLY wonderful news is that I can actually watch tv tonight because I finished my lit review. Gotta reward myself, and I’ve had altogether too much dessert lately, so I think I’mma cut back a little.

Anyway we’re having a mini peer review session tonight, coordinated by Vic. I think it’s a good idea. I also think it’s a LITTLE silly because if we have any control over who reviews our papers in the seminar tomorrow, we’re gonna be handing them to each other rather than to people we don’t know.

I’m ready to see some familiar faces this coming weekend. I mean, the faces here are familiar now, but every once in a while I just want to be by myself because this kind of intense enthusiasm for EVERYTHING (often faux, I’m afraid) is getting to me and sometimes I want to be alone but I don’t want to alienate myself. I just have to make it another five and a half weeks. It would be nice to make some MOFs before I leave. That’s all I really want; to complete the synthesis and leave behind a nice pile of that baby.

I need to repaint my toenails. And I need to do that BEFORE leaving because there is no way I’m getting my nail polish stuff home on the plane. I guess they’re not a big fan of acetone. Something about flammable and also bombs, I hear.

I’ll tell you what’s frustrating: what’s frustrating is that the internet connection in the dorm is perfect for everything I need except Skype, and for some reason when I’m on Skype the internet just does not want my Skype connection to be successful. Whateva.

Plans? Plans for what? The rest of my life? Tonight? This weekend?

I know what I’m doing tonight and what I’m doing this weekend, not so much what I’m doing with the rest of my life. And now I’m sitting here, taking careful notes so that my lit review becomes a matter of piecing together facts that I’ve already written down instead of a whole entire project of a paper. I’ve learned to write in steps.

I keep moving my product in and out of the freezer. It’s fascinating me, because I move it in and it crystallizes, out and it melts. The freezing point of toluene is something ridiculous like -97°C, and I know the freezer is not that cold because I can touch the vials that I am pulling out of it with my bare hands, so it’s not toluene. Hexanes don’t freeze either, so it’s not hexanes. My product shows up beautifully by TLC… so why won’t it stay crystallized?

When I see Brad again, I’ll pose the question. $10 says we just go get an NMR and see what’s up.

Earlier, I sneezed quite violently. It felt sort of good when the aftershocks had worn off. Right now I am eating my granola bar. I have learned a trick to eating. If I let myself get as hungry as I can stand while knowing I have food with me, when I finally eat the food it will taste exceptionally delicious. Hence I am eating the BEST GRANOLA BAR OF MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE.

I just ate a chunk of MK’s sourdough bread. It was very nice, and appropriately sour. I had sourdough at the Cheesecake Factory on Saturday night (free bread, hooray!) and also rye-with-oats. Both were delicious, but the sourdough was not particularly sour.

I’m thirsty.

Currently I’m rotavapping as much DCM as possible off of my product. Then we’ll put it on a Schlenk line overnight, which means that at some point I will be totally free to sit down and concentrate on my paper. And, of course, when I have that freedom I will certainly not be eager to make use of it. I’m contrary (how does my garden grow?).

Sometimes when I’m writing, I look back at what I wrote and it doesn’t really feel like me who wrote it. I like to say that I write the way I speak but I don’t. I think I write the way I think, so to a lesser extent I write the way I speak. If that makes sense. It feels so weird to think that the summer is halfway over (at least). I feel like I’m in stasis, living here in a dormitory in Evanston, doing my own laundry, spending my own money, occasionally keeping my room clean and getting huge monthly checks (thanks, NSF!).

I have a lot to say, but when I go to say it, it’s just not there. I finally got warm after bundling up in my green ESF hoodie and sitting in my office with my hands resting on my warm laptop. It is freezing in here, and way colder in actual lab. I should go check on my rotavapping material. I have a bit of rotavapping phobia: I’m afraid it’s going to bump or evaporate while I’m gone, even though Omar has informed me that he would be very surprised if the product boiled over about 230°C.

I don’t recall that I was this cautious about boiling points when I worked for FX. I’m beginning to think that I wasn’t, because as an organic chemist I had a fairly good idea of how much I could heat something. I didn’t have this sort of mystical fear of all things organic (they blow away like dust in the wind!).

Oh man oh man oh man! It is 5:17. That means that I can leave now, if I want to. I want to. I should make sure that my product is supposed to stay on the Schlenk line tonight, and then I’m out of here. To write my paper. I’ll probably actually write most of it tonight, unlike the times I said I’d do it over the weekend and didn’t. Deadlines are the best motivation, but they must be looming to be effective.

Out!

You Are an ISTJ (Introvert, Sensor, Thinker, Judger)

ISTJs represent between 11 and 14% of the U.S. population

Meticulous and thorough, ISTJs are known for their exceptional ability to notice and remember details and facts with extreme accuracy. With ISTJs, their word is their bond and they are often described as serious, focused, down-to-earth and supremely reliable people who offer a consistently realistic and practical perspective. Characteristically quiet and hardworking, ISTJs have great practical judgment and can cite accurate evidence to support their views and apply their past experience to their present decisions.

ISTJs typically communicate in a style that is clear, direct, and businesslike. They highly value common sense and knowledge from first-hand experience, and find comfort in their daily routine and familiar ways of doing things.

Interesting. It's kind of odd that the questions I answered for this result were very difficult for me. Instead of trying to analyze my personality, the quiz (or whatever it was) actually presented me with each category, gave me some attributes of each, and said "pick one." I wasn't particularly confident for any of them, because I saw my characteristics spread across both columns. I tried to pick the column that outweighed the other.

It's interesting, I guess. I actually wonder more than a little bit about whether or not I'm an introvert. One of the things that always sways me to the introvert side is a statement something like this: "If you've spent two or three hours socializing with people, you like to be able to be alone for a while and recharge your batteries." I think this kind of defines me. I like people. I like to be around people I'm familiar with. I like to develop comfortable relationships and I like to talk to people.

At the end of the day, though, I'm all exhausted and I just want to sit around and do nothing. Sometimes sitting around and doing nothing is actually all it's cracked up to be (or possibly more than that, depending on what it's all cracked up to be).

We have apple-scented hand soap in the bathroom right now. I like that we just reuse the old hand soap dispensers; it's labeled lavender or milk-and-honey or something, and currently the dispenser is filled with lime green soap. It's very pretty - and obviously not lavender or milk-and-honey. I like the way it smells.

Schubert sleeps like it's his job, I'm telling you. He's passed out on the ground just outside my room, but if I called his name he'd whip his little head up, look at me, somehow convey his immense distaste for my disruption of his nap, and put his head back down with a little sigh. Every time I see him as I'm walking around the house, I say hi to him. "Hey, boo," usually.

So I finished my synthesis. I should feel relieved, but I'm mostly freaking out about it. I mailed the sample yesterday like FX told me to and I'm very nervous about that tiny little vial making it all the way to North Carolina. I brought him the tracking number - the guy at the Physical Plant printed out the label for me - and he looked at it and said, "It didn't ship overnight? Why not?" and looked at me over the top of his glasses.

I fear disappointing other people like it's my job, and that look was like a fist to my stomach. Sucking in a breath, I looked at him and asked, "You wanted it sent overnight?"

"It doesn't matter now. It's already been shipped," he said, and turned away - into his office - with the label in his hand. I'm sure by this point I had gone through the full range of shades between white and bright red and I'm not sure which end I started on and which I ended on, but by the time I re-entered the lab, Adam looked at me and said, "What, the boss wasn't in his office?"

"Yeah," I said faintly, "He was."

"Oh," said Adam, "You looked like you hadn't been able to find him."

Actually, I'm sure I still looked rather shell-shocked at this point and I was beating myself up for not having told the guy to ship it overnight. I looked at Adam and wound up telling him what had just transpired. "But he never TOLD me to ship it overnight," I said, "I didn't know!" Which was true. I spent a summer working at Sonnet, and I took care of all of the shipping there - we never shipped overnight/express unless we had to because it was so much more expensive.

"Well," said Adam, "It's just North Carolina, right?"

"Yeah," I said, miserably.

"It'll be there in two days. Maybe it'll get there tomorrow. It's not like you were shipping it overseas."

This made me feel mildly better, and I headed over to the other side of the lab to attack the cleaning again, fueled by my red-hot desire to make FX see that I was competent. In retrospect, this was, of course, wholly unnecessary, but there's no reasoning with me when I think I've messed up.

FX came back through the lab later; I think he actually knew that I was upset with myself. He looked at the lab, with its electrical devices all put into cupboards, its chemicals squirreled away into drawers and refrigerators, its naked benchtops and its fume hoods still damp where I had scrubbed away eighteen years of gunk with a 10"x4" scrubbie and glass cleaner, and he said, "Well. It looks fantastic."

Later, I was able to laugh at this ("fantastic like Pad Thai!") but at the moment I was suffused with this incredible, glowing relief that was screaming "HE DOESN'T HATE ME!"

I'm so insecure sometimes.

As I was packing up to leave (there's nothing more for me to do in that lab, really, so I was cleaning up my desk and things), Adam had come over and was perched on the desk opposite, watching. We had some conversation about what he was going to do without me, and then I made some throwaway comment about how it felt really sad to be taking my spec book home.

"Just leave it, then," said Adam. "It's YOUR desk."

"But I can't," I said, "Because what about Kun?" (That's pronounced "Quinn", apparently... this led to a great deal of confusion between first Adam and me and then between Justine and me.)

Adam wrinkled up his whole face and then laughed. "Kun is NOT going to have this desk. He's gonna be with me. SOMEBODY'S gonna have to babysit him."

This was another of those things that I felt great relief after hearing. I guess you could say it was a weird day.

Yesterday I wore my red flats. I wore them for a sort of stupid reason, and I regretted it enormously at about 2:30, when my feet were really hurting. I also managed to hook one (the left one) on a garbage can WHILE talking to FX, which is why I can't walk and talk at the same time.

I trip-hopped, managing both to stay upright AND to extract the bar from the garbage can from my shoe while on one foot. Then I looked at FX, there was an awkward silence that maybe spanned two seconds, and I said, "Well, darn." And laughed. It diffused the situation (although he wouldn't have said anything anyway - it's sort of an unwritten code between us, because I didn't say anything when he whacked the back of his head on the hood a few months ago).

Anyway, my feet are still sore. Not because of the trash can. Because of the shoes.

It's weird that finally today I feel like I can write. I feel like I've had terrible writer's block for ages, and I've wanted to get this stuff down for a while.

On Tuesday, when we got the OFFICIAL-official final NMR, FX had Dave pull up the extracted spectrum against the synthetic (mine). "Well, look at that, Shannon!" he sort of trumpeted. I've been trying to figure out why this was so jarring to me. I think it's because he doesn't use my name unless we're introducing ourselves.

You know, like "Hi, Shannon, how are you?"

Anyway, yeah.

I filtered out my P-2-nickel catalyst by running that solution through filter-aid in a pipette... later on, I looked at it and the black nickel-boride-whatever it is (I should know! I should know! I wrote a paper on it for Dr. D!) looked like it had actually sort of melted itself to the filter-aid.

After a few moments of fascination, I threw it away. I threw away a lot of stuff yesterday. A LOT OF STUFF. I also cleaned up the shelves above the sink, because something that had been chock-full of some salt had exploded and there were little salt-sculptures of chalk-white crystals all over the shelf. There was also a salt-cicle, which I pointed out before dropping it in the sink, where it dissolved in the running water and disappeared down the drain.

There was broken glass in that drain. I think that broken glass is what caused the little cuts in my fingers. They almost look like paper cuts, or like I slipped with a razor blade while stripping labels off bottles. Nevertheless, they don't hurt, they're just annoying and I probably jabbed my fingers into the glass while I was trying to get something or other to go down the sink. I cleaned it out, though, eventually.

My life is so weird, I swear. Actually, it's not that weird and it's even a little bit comfortable - except that my fingernails are getting way too long. But since they aren't actually flaking or chipping (a miracle!) and I haven't played piano in three years,I kind of like to let them grow. I'll let them go until my hands look alien to me and then I'll shop them down to a comfortable length, where I can type with the pads of my fingers and not worry about the clicking of my fingernails on the keys.

Real fingernails should NEVER feel like fake fingernails.

I feel that this entry has been particularly apropos, because I actually talked about things that happened in the lab (even if they didn't happen to actually be CHEMISTRY-chemistry, if you know what I mean).

Tonight I feel sad. I'm not sure why, exactly, I feel sad. I could understand if I was just stressed (I'm that, too), but I'm sad.

Tonight we had roasted chicken and tabouleh and hummus and sweet potatoes and brown rice for dinner. I made the tabouleh. It wasn't difficult: it comes with directions on the box, and Mom was in the kitchen the whole time making other portions of the meal. And I was sitting there at dinner, thinking to myself about how tabouleh tastes like summer (it's the cucumbers, I think, and the lemon), and then I just thought about how healthy the meal was and I felt quite satisfied with myself.

I could live off of tabouleh. For a while, anyway, until I got sick of it and wondered what on earth I was thinking when I decided I could live off of it.

I think I'm sad because I'm seeing the end and suddenly I'm thinking about all of the things that I have to do before the end gets here, and I'm totally overwhelmed. And when I get overwhelmed like this, I kind of just want to curl up into a ball and cry and maybe cease to exist, just a little bit.

I'm terrified of my own future.

Okay so I need to shower and clean my room and study for biochem and pick a topic for inorganic and do all of my grading (ugh, lots of it this week).

However, it is KILLING me that I can't buy Mika's new single until May 3. MAY 3?! I mean by May 3, the semester is OVER! Man, this is kind of lame. At least I'll be able to get it before finals.

I mean, I guess I could find somewhere to download it but I'm so scared to just download it. I feel like I'll get a virus or something. I downloaded itunes to see if I could get it through itunes but I can't; I can only buy the whole soundtrack and I definitely don't want the whole soundtrack OR to pay $12 for one song.

What I really need to do it get it and then play it on repeat for three hours until I'm ready to move on. I can't do that here because I get so distracted because I love the music video and I know it's playing in the background, and I want to go watch him strut his stuff on the roof. Awesome.

Mmmm it is already 11:30 and I need to shower but at least I've cleaned my room a bit (made my bed, folded my clothes). Then I got distracted, as usual, and I really need to eliminate these distractions. Maybe I need to convince myself I'm going to fail biochem if I don't start studying.

I AM GOING TO FAIL BIOCHEM IF I DON'T START STUDYING.

Well, lame, it's not working at all. I guess I'd better head out and get some things done, though, so... biochem, here I come? Or maybe I'll grade quizzes. Yay.

Mmmm. The dogs are making much too much noise tonight, so I have placed the bowl that I warmed up my sloppy joe innards in on the kitchen floor. Now, except for the scraping of the bowl against the floor, they are quiet.

I'm home alone for a few hours tonight and I didn't think it would feel good... but it does. It's quiet and dark outside, but not really cold. I'm wearing my "the doctor is in" House t-shirt that Steph got me for Christmas, I believe it was, last year.

I'm going to feel terrible if she got it for me for my birthday.

The organic kids are taking their second exam tonight, and they were pretty nervous. I was kind of exhausted, though, and wound up taking today to run a column to get the fraction of the products from the last reaction that I actually want. Unfortunately, I still have about seven times as much material as can be put on the column, and overloading would be very bad... so I get to run seven more columns. Oh well, it shouldn't take me more than a week. Blah!

Today was a weird kind of day, with lots of visitors and some productivity in between. Adam was in, and he's a bit of a social creature. Ed was there all day, and he ran my TLC plates for me as I column-chromatographed. Kyle came up to talk about Tuesday's gen chem lab, and Bob was also up, I think for lack of anything else to do as his analytical lab was canceled. FX visited as Ed, Adam, and Kyle were all in the lab and it was a bit of a party. I'm starting to feel like I have a research group, which is kind of funny because I don't, not really, but there's a sort of camaraderie.

We graffiti-ed up the glass panels of the unused fume hoods with mechanisms - actually quite apropos - and just were generally pretty pleased with things. I ran David from Setnor to LHS in record time to get him to the show he's playing, and then came home, where I proceeded to eat more carbs than anyone should ever be allowed to eat: two sloppy joes and a generous slice of that "Hershey's special dark" chocolate cake and frosting. Mmmmm, cake from scratch.

And now I'm sitting here and looking at the milk container and thinking that I ought probably to put it away, only I'm moderately comfortable and anyway, the spark of productivity is a dangerous thing.

The other day we (oh, I think it was me, Bob, Donaghy and Katie) were looking at the posters along the wall of the first floor of Baker and we started cracking up about the banana bag. It's very difficult to explain the banana bag, because I'm not altogether sure WHAT it DOES, but it's supposed to be a sleeping bag derivative? It's all yellow and peely. Innovative. Anyway, as we walked away, still laughing uproariously, we ran into Dr. Driscoll... who proceeded to say, "What, ya laughing at the banana bag?"

Yeah, he knows what's up! Haha, hilarious, seriously!

The really excellent news is that Mika has a new single that somehow goes with a new movie...? I'm not really sure how that works, but maybe it will be over the end credits or something. Anyway, when it comes out (May 2, I believe?) I am TOTALLY GOING TO BUY IT.



Here's the deal with Mika. He has not become any more commercial than when he started. His sound has evolved a bit, sure, but he is still lovely and off-beat and just odd.

This song makes me feel sort of empowered. Because, really, it's not a happy song. It's a chip-on-your-shoulder song. It says something about the choice or lack thereof of... anything? And it's just sort of intense. We don't have to conform, which is something that he has always refused to do.

It doesn't hurt that Mika is beautiful. I mean, beautiful. His jawline is to die for (I would die for that jawline. well, maybe not literally). Also, the heartbreaking way he picks himself up off of the ground in that video and the way he just spits out "better" on the end of "we could make it better" - it's so bitter and wrenching and sort of desperate.

We believe we could make it better? We could make it better in a perfect world? I don't know, but there's something about the entire feel of the song. It's all in-your-face and we're-just-fine and then the bit right around 2:25 when he's standing on the roof all cleaned up and confident and suddenly the whole song changes and he's someone else.

He's not letting anyone else define him? Take back your identity!

And then it's full of campy poses but you know what? I don't care because he's just full of energy and life and it's like the song is just bursting out of him because he can't bear to act anymore because he's just himself! And that's something I have always loved about him is that he seems to throw off reserve to just say HERE I AM AND I LOVE WHAT I DO AND I BELIEVE WHAT I SAY and I just hope someday I'm as happy with myself as he seems to be.

The chorus is so bitter, too, especially the way he sort of manages to just slather the phrase "we're not cool" with a ridiculous amount of disdain. WHO NEEDS IT? We're the young, the strong, and the resilient. We don't need you to accept us, because we're free, we're not bound by what you think we are. And our knees are bloody because you shove us down into the grit, but we can run with it because WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT AND WE CAN TURN THE WORLD UPSIDE-DOWN.

I think it might be a matter of self-confidence. Like I believe in myself but not in a STAND ON THE ROOF AND SHOUT IT kind of way. It's just inspiring.

And yes, I know it's just a music video but it sort of says something to me? At least the bits that are Mika and not the lame movie trailer bits. I wish the whole thing was Mika. I liked "Rain" too, for the same reason: it's not a happy song, but any means, but it's a song that says "I'm unhappy and I admit it but it is not going to ruin my life in fact it is going to push me towards being bigger than that BUT FIRST I AM GOING TO PITY PARTY IT UP BB".

Okay maybe not. But still. There's something refreshing about Mika. Something that DJ hates, but something refreshing still.

I think I have a love-hate relationship with Regina Spektor. In some ways she reminds me of Mika because she is off-the-walls, a bit. She has a lovely voice. It's just that sometimes I think that some of her songs - not all of them, mind you, I love several - are cryptic just for the sake of cultivating the pseudo-intellectualism of many of her fans. And I'm all for pseudo-intellectualism, believe you me, but there's a juxtaposition between Regina's riddles and Mika's candor (is that the word I want? I'm looking for the "candid" noun) that throws everything into sharp relief.

I'M IN A MIKA MOOD.

I have way too much homework for this. Oh, what the heck, we'll give it one more go.