things that are not so hot: polar vortex, science

The Olympic fanfare has forever confused me about the Canadian national anthem.  I hear the first four notes and all I can think is “OH CAN-A-DA”, probably because the pitches and lengths are the same.  I was thinking about this because I have a John Williams station on Spotify and the Olympic fanfare comes on, but not because the winter olympics are approaching.  “OH CAN-A-DA … da… da… da?”

So last night it was so cold in my apartment that I huddled in my snuggie over my sweatshirt and some blankets to watch the SU game.  After we ripped apart Virginia Tech (it wasn’t particularly exciting, although the boys in orange looked really good most of the time), I showered and headed to bed.

And then my feet turned into ice blocks.  With little toesicles.  And I thought to myself, there’s no way I am going to be able to fall asleep if I can’t feel my feet.  And my body heat was unable to create a cocoon of warm blankets and mattress.  Finally I gave up on chasing sleep because I was actually shivering.

I got up and found an empty Poland Springs water bottle, the kind that holds a gallon, not the kind you carry around and drink from.  Before my fish died, I used to use the Poland Springs water to change the tank or top it off if the water level was getting low.  So that’s why I had it.

I trekked into the bathroom and cranked on the faucet in the tub.  I held my hand under the water until I was blisteringly hot.  See, I can usually draw a bath of scalding water that I could boil myself like a lobster in, which is probably why I haven’t complained about cold showers yet.  I filled that bottle up and screwed the top on as tightly as possible.

Then I and my makeshift hot water bottle climbed under the covers.  I shoved it down to my icy feet and thawed them until they felt sweaty, and then I laid on my side and positioned it at my back, holding Old Bear at my front.  And finally, I drifted off to sleep.

Wow.  I am a really boring person.  I meant to write about something else today, also, but I might write about it tomorrow.  I’m a little too close to 500 words to have adequate space.  Plus I just have a lot of feelings.

This morning I sat down and basically transcribed some of my notes from a meeting with Andy in late December into a ChemDraw document.  We are supposed to have a meeting on Friday.  When he mentioned that it would be a long meeting and that because it would be long, it would have to wait until Friday, I don’t mind admitting that I felt a bit panicky, and my heart started to pick the pace up a little bit inside my chest.

Today, however, Lauren had a meeting with him and she also has one on Friday, and it sounds like we are going to have a (sorely needed) meeting about theses and direction and things to put in theses, etc.  A lot of my feelings on this are what I was considering writing about, and may yet get around to putting down on electronic paper.  In any case, this put my mind at rest.  If he wants to talk about my thesis, he’s probably not going to fire me!

I’m almost totally kidding.  Ha.  Ha.  Ha…