Question of the Day

Do we think that if I trained, I could do a marathon? As in 26.2 miles. I did decently in a the half marathon in March without really properly training (2:32, without feeling like dying), but I really think a full would kill me. Like I'd literally die. I most definitely do NOT have the body type of a runner. At all. Thoughts?

Adventures in Plumbing

A few days ago, the mechanism that flushes the toilet in our main bathroom broke. Unlike many plumbing issues, this isn't an urgent one. It's not a big deal to remove the lid on the back and flush it manually. I'm actually well practiced at manual flushing - senior year the toilet in our apartment decided to have frequent flushing issues.

Our landlord is generally pretty good about getting stuff around the house fixed promptly, but it's always a pain seeing as repairmen tend to only work when I'm at work. So just scheduling somebody to come out to the house is a hassle. Since this is well within the realm of what I can fix myself I took a trip to Home Depot yesterday.

To set the scene for my excursion, I was wearing a strapless sundress over a bathing suit. This may or may not have been deliberate, but not because I needed help at the hardware store. Thanks to my father, I am quite at home in a hardware store, and reasonably skilled with basic tools. I had removed the pieces to be replaced from the toilet, put them in a baggie, and taken them with me, so I knew what I needed. While this was the same sundress I'd had on all day, and I was headed to the pool after the hardware store, I'll admit that I wore what I did partly because I was looking forward to an entertaining reaction of some sort and I may or may not have been daring the sales people to even try to not take me seriously. There's no reason for people to assume a young woman in a sundress isn't handy. Call me cruel if you want, but I'll admit I enjoy messing with men's heads on occasion. Just a little bit.

As I'm walking into Home Depot, the greeter-guy says hello, and I respond likewise. I'm still walking, and he's staring (props to him, not at all in a creepy way, and I'm really not particularly attractive, it's just not everyday an unaccompanied female enters Home Depot in a sundress) and looking really confused. I'm guessing confused because I'm not stopping to ask for help. So then he asks how I'm doing, and I respond that I'm good, and ask how he is. Now he's clearly quite confused. He stutters a bit and then asks if I need help. I asked what aisle toilet repair parts were in, he says aisle 7. I headed straight there without asking anything further, leaving him standing there still staring and scratching his head.

When I got home I installed the new lever, which wasn't a big deal, although took a bit of jimmy-rigging. The hook that is normally on the the end of the chain that connects to the end of the lever was missing. The previous lever has a spot where the chain pinched into it. I looked at getting the exact same kind of lever, but they all came shaped to fit a front-toilet flusher, and bending them to fit when connected from the side would make them too short. But the ones that came meaning to be attached to the side of the toilet just had a couple of holes in the lever, meant for a hook.

Before I could decide how to jimmy-rig my way around this problem, E & J came over for dinner (we made a significantly modified version of these stuffed bell peppers - adding ground pork, using fresh basil, and subbing plain goat cheese for the feta - all CSA motivated changes) and a movie (Dead Man Walking). Anyways, J took a look at the toilet, and pointed out that we could just make a hook, either from wire (which we had around if I looked for it) or with a paper clip. Since most of my paper clips are colored, I decided I liked that idea. (Thanks, J!)

I thought the pink paperclip was most appropriate.

I think Dad would be proud. Don't you? :)

Why My Sister Needs to Come Visit

Sarah needs to come out here because of notes like the one she left Dad on a post-it on the fridge this morning:

"dad- wheels on van squeak. thought you should know. i dont want to die. just sayin'. ps i want to go to arizona"

Confession

I'm working late tonight. We're finally tackling this (hopefully little) side project that the Queen has been pestering us about for over 2 years now. It could be interesting, but has just never been deemed important enough when we always have so many other experiments that just seem more urgent. We figured now was as good a time as any to devote a couple of days to it, run experiments like crazy, and hopefully be done with it. This is probably wishful and delusional thinking on our part, but that's the goal.

Anyways, doing these experiments means that we vented this morning to modify the instrument. So the afternoon was spent twiddling my thumbs (I may or may not have watched last week's episode of The Bachelorette on Hulu...Confession #1) while the instrument pumped down and the MCPs conditioned. Eventually I left to hit the gym (can't look like a whale in everybody's wedding photos) and have some supper. My labmate stayed to make sure everything works ok and tune the instrument. Everything checked out, so I'm back running at least one sample, hopefully two tonight. We'd rather get the instrument back to its "normal" configuration sooner rather than later, so it's going to be an intense couple of days of running constantly.

Since I don't have family out here working late isn't all that terrible. Sometimes it sucks - many nights I'd certainly rather being hanging out on the couch with my roommate(s) or doing something with friends, but working late definitely has its advantages. One HUGE plus being that hardly anybody else is here, so people aren't pestering me to fix this, help them with that, proofread this, or just talking at me. Don't get me wrong, the random chatting and nonsense that goes on at school during the day is quite possibly the best/most fun part of grad school, but it certainly doesn't help productivity. I think I enjoy the nobody-else-here-to-pester me more as I become a more "senior" student. (Although I think my grad school career has been somewhat warped in that respect - I swear somehow I became a "senior student" sometime around the beginning/middle of my second year. Definitely before my time.)

I think my favorite part of working late though - is that since I'm alone in the lab, I can blast whatever music I want and sing at the top of my lungs if I want. At the moment I happen to be singing along to the mash up of It's My Life and Confessions from Glee. Don't judge.

Things You Didn't Need to Know

It's that time.

I feel completely irrational, crazy, and out of control. I HATE feeling this way. I hate it SO much more than the actual physical pain. I can mostly function through the pain, but this, I feel like a trainwreck.

Dealing with irresponsible, dumb, and/or clueless people (cough - younger labmates - cough) only makes it worse.

I think it's time for a cup of tea.

Quote of the Day

Ok, more like conversation of the day. I went to college with Brick - we studied abroad together in France, and now he's getting his PhD in French.

My earlier gchat status: A 0-0 tie is really the most disappointing and ridiculous sports result possible.

Brick: IT'S SO FRENCH

Me: hahahahaha

Brick: And Gignac is a HUNK. Probably not your type though.

Me: He's ok. I just googled him.

Brick: See I still know your type.

Me: He's attractive, but not something I'd do a double take for. So what do you think my type is out of curiosity?

Brick: Cute dork -because you like to talk a lot and you want a man who actually can intelligently say "I agree" or "No I don't." You want him to be slightly helpless to the point where he likes it when you cook but won't die if you go out of town for two days. He will be cute. He will be tall too.

Me: Haha yeah, my tall friends have yelled at me for dating tall guys.

Brick: See.

Me: But I gotta look out for any hypothetical children I may or may not have.

Brick: You are your mother's daughter. See! You are a great mom already.

Me: So do you want to see the current crush? See if he fits the mold of what you think I'm looking for?

Brick: YES.


Ok. BRB. Judging.


OMG SO GEEKY CUTE


No comment as to the accuracy of what Brick thinks I'm looking for in a guy...

Conundrum of the Day

If I were independently wealthy and didn't have to work - would I be fatter because I'd have lots of time to cook and eat? Or would I be thinner because I'd have lots of time to work out?

Summer CSA

Summer is totally the best season with the CSA - lots of variety, lots of colorful stuff, some fruit (we get almost entirely vegetables the rest of the year), and almost no greens! This week we got summer squash, sorrel, red onion, yellow onion, more red potatoes (we're practically drowning in potatoes at the moment), grapefruit, wheat berries, green onions, and peaches!! Ok, so what did I/am I doing with my produce this week?

The peaches are just about the best peaches I've ever had. They're super tiny and cute, and absolutely delicious. They've been snacks. And the grapefruit was for breakfast.

The wheat berries were actually also breakfast. I've ground them and used them as flour a couple of times, but I'm not a huge fan. It's essentially like using whole wheat flour, which most recipes (unless they called for it in the first place) need to be tweaked to work right with wheat flour. Sometimes using the wheat berry flour for part of the flour in the recipe works ok. Anyways, I'd been boiling the wheat berries and mixing them into oatmeal, but it's way too hot for that now. So I boiled them, and then mixed them (once they were cool) into yogurt. It's kinda like putting granola in yogurt, and it was actually pretty good.

Earlier this week I used my summer squash and sorrel with penne. While the penne cooked I sauteed the squash and yellow onion in olive oil. When the pasta was done, I dumped it in with a bit more oil and added the chopped sorrel. And then topped all of it with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt, and grated parmesan cheese. It was totally delicious. Sorry for the mediocre picture - the lighting in my kitchen stinks...


Sorrel is kind of a mystery to me still. Not so sure what to do with it. Fresh it tastes a little bit like kiwi of all things. It gave this pasta dish a slight lemony taste. The only other thing I've done with it is mix it in with other salad greens. We don't seem to get it terribly often - this is actually the first season we've gotten it in the 2+ years I've done the CSA.

So the other interesting thing I've made this week are sweet potato sandwiches. I actually had this dish for lunch at a restaurant earlier this week. It's got hummus, spinach, sliced tomatoes, red onion, and sweet potatoes. At the restaurant the sweet potatoes were grilled, but I microwaved them and then pan seared them - just because it was easier than grilling. I like the hummus instead of mayo idea - so much healthier, and does just as good a job at "moisturizing" the sandwich if you will. I'll definitely make this again, there are only a few ways I like sweet potatoes, so another good one is great. The only thing I'd do differently is cut the sweet potato pieces bigger, not thicker, but bigger. I think they'd work better on the sandwich that way. And I'd try to get more spinach in there...


Ok, so the yellow onion, (some of) the red onion, summer squash, last week's sweet potatoes are accounted for. Tonight we're making breakfast for dinner (yay special waffles!), and we're going to make fried potatoes, so there goes the red potatoes and the rest of the yellow onion. And the egg-eaters in attendance will have eggs, and some of the scallions will go into that.

Doing pretty well...always some odds and ends to figure out. I'm sure we won't get through all the red potatoes we've got, and then I'll still have some red onion, more summer squash, and wheat berries left. All stuff that will keep for a bit still.

P.S. What do CSA people in cold climates do? Do CSAs only exist in the summer? Or are they spring through fall? Summer CSA is by far my favorite, but I'm still glad I get fresh, local, organic produce all year-round. Hmm...no year-round CSA might be another con against moving somewhere cold after grad school...

TWIMS - The mostly non-business end of things...

Ok, this is going to be much more convoluted than the other conference post. Sorry!

Travel on both ends was smooth and uneventful, so not much to say on that front. Both Albuquerque and Salt Lake City get big thumbs up for having free wi-fi in their airports though! And Southwest gets props for not charging me an arm and a leg to check a bag. I really hate lugging all my stuff through the airport...

Our hotel was pretty flipping sweet. We had a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom suite for 4 of us, so no hassle over who's showering when. And extra perk, breakfast and dinner (even if we usually didn't make it back for dinner) were included as freebies with the room rate. :)

The first sign of ridiculousness was when I woke up Monday morning and look out the window. What did I see?? SNOW. EFFING SNOW. Unless you live in the southern hemisphere, snow during the last week of May, even if it's not accumulating, is completely unacceptable!! Even if it didn't accumulate on the ground, it accumulated on ME! By time we got to the conference center (a 15 minute walk from our hotel), I had a layer of snow all over my jacket. I realize the below picture of the snow from our window isn't all that convincing, but I promise. It was snow. I may live in the desert, but I remember what it looks like still.

After the morning oral session I ran into my friend Martin - he's finishing up his degree in the lab in Scotland that I visited about a year and a half ago. Since he was at the conference alone I insisted he hang out with our group (while giving him the option not too if we were too scary - an option he declined and may have regretted later in the week!). It took him a second to recognize me at first - probably a combination of having a different haircut, wearing glasses, and being dressed up - all things he definitely never saw while I was working in the lab in Scotland. But as soon as he did he told me I looked "right sharp", which was not only super cute because of it's British-ness, but very nice because I'm pretty sure I really just looked like death on toast at that point in the week. (The use of phrases such as "right sharp" is going on my "pro" list as far as post-doc-ing in England is concerned!)

Monday night we had a group reunion dinner - everybody at the conference who's ever worked for VW or in her lab comes. It was cool to meet people who pre-date my time here - people I've heard about and whose papers I've read. As usual there were shenanigans to be had. :) One of my Chinese labmates doesn't hang out with us socially very much, and he's pretty quiet in general - although way funny when he does converse with us. My other labmate Ashley had told him before the conference that he HAD to drink with us during the conference, and he agreed that he would drink one night. Well before this occasion it seems he'd only had beer, because he received an education in the great tradition of taking shots. He had his first, and second, shot that night. VW was not only present for this "education," but condoned it. We've been seeing a whole new side of the queen lately...and I have to say we like it!

The hospitality suites were an experience unto themselves. All the big instrument companies have suites - free food, free booze (!), lots of random freebies and ridiculousness. Perkin Elmer had a stroke of genius and had a photo booth, with lots of hats and glasses and other silly accessories to use.


Bruker had the best freebies of the conference hands down. The first night we were there we noticed these awesome champagne flutes with blinking LEDs in the base. The awesomeness can not appropriately be put into words. Traditionally in the VW lab, we have champagne to celebrate defenses and successful oral exams, so logically we needed a full set of these glasses for the lab. They only had a set number of them for each night, and they ran out before we actually got there the first night. Egged on by VW herself, we found ourselves scrounging around, swiping abandoned glasses off tables. After three nights of hitting up the hospitality suites, we collected a set of 20 glasses. They're now clean and lined up on the shelf in my office, waiting for the next oral or defense.


Here's two of my labmates and me enjoying the Waters hospitality suite. Waters also had blinking glasses, but pint glasses rather than champagne flutes. (I know my hair's pulled back, but that's my new haircut btw...bangs...Not entirely sold on keeping them yet...)


Martin hung out with us in the hospitality suites a bunch, and introduced us to his friend Ross. Let's just say he's super nice and cute, and that it's really quite tragic that Manchester, England is so freaking far from Tucson, Arizona. (I may have sent one or two less than 100% sober texts the night we all went out without him - hence the alternate definition of TWIMS...)

Tuesday afternoon my former labmate and mentor, Chris, and I escaped the conference for a bit to go check out Temple Square. It's nearly impossible to get out of the square without somebody (likely a pair of girls in ankle length skirts) accosting you asking if they can tell you about the Church of Latter Day Saints. I could never be Mormon, and nothing against them, but man do they have some weird history. We saw the Lion House, where Brigham Young kept most of his wives and children. It looks like a dormitory. They had a free tour of the house he actually lived in with I guess a select wife or two and a few children. The finishings in the house were very nice, but it was just creepy and weird feeling. You could totally tell everybody on the tour really wanted to ask questions along the lines of how many wives?? and how many children??! But nobody dared ask anything at all due to the extremely scary, angry looking woman bringing up the rear of the tour. She seriously looked like she would stab you in your sleep if you so much as made a peep. At the end they have you fill out a little comment card with your contact info, and you can request that a missionary come talk to you about LDS, Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon... Did I put my contact info? Absolutely not. I put E's boyfriend J's contact info. I'm very hopeful he'll be getting a gift from Utah in the mail...

The social highlight of the week was the outing to a dueling piano bar around the corner from the conference center. (Very similar to the Big Bang...) When we got there around 9 we were nearly the only people there, but it was still fun because we were a big enough group to be rowdy and make it fun. Things got plain ridiculous when the hospitality suites closed and a ton of people from the conference came to the bar. A bar completely packed with (mostly drunk) mass spectrometrists is one of the funnier things to experience. :) There were several Bruker top hats floating around the bar (the other excellent freebie they had), and the inventor of DART may or may not have bought some of us several drinks and then been disappointed that we couldn't go play beer pong in his hotel room after closing time because there was no way to get beer at that hour! Martin came out with us, and I think may have been a bit scarred by the experience...dueling piano bars are not known to be the most um, polite, settings! He said it was definitely an "experience" but that he enjoyed himself.

One final little anecdote - my labmate Erin was walking back to the hotel one night, past the bum park across the street (see the snow picture), carrying a carryout box with leftovers from dinner. A woman asks Erin for the food, and she willingly hands it over. She's about to take a step away, when she realized she had left her gum stuck to the inside lid.

Erin: Um, I just remembered I left my gum stuck to the lid.
Bag lady, with look of utter disgust: EW.

The lady held the box open at arm's length while Erin removed her gum from the lid. Apparently beggars can be choosers after all.

Rant

So my roommate, and not that it should matter, but my kind, beautiful, fun, funny, smart, interesting, overall-awesome roommate, just sent me the following text message:

Ok I just had a coworker say, "I can't believe you're not married, what's wrong with you?"

Now before you tell me that you're sure this person meant well, let me tell you that comments like this NEVER, EVER leave you feeling good. Worst case scenario, they leave you wanting to jump off a cliff. Best case scenario, they leave you thinking, "What's wrong with me?! What the hell is wrong with YOU???"

I was at a wedding a couple of months ago when my friend's mom asked me if I had a boyfriend back in Arizona. When I said no, she asked why not. And not even as a rhetorical question, she actually looked at me waiting for an answer. I've never been on the ball enough to actually give a response beyond mumbling "I don't know" and sitting there awkwardly. While I'm fuming afterwards I mull over various inappropriate responses along lines such as, "Well my girlfriend and I..." or "I prefer to sleep with as many men as possible..." Maybe someday I'll come up with a polite response that still effectively puts people in their place.

I really, really wish people would think before saying crap like this. It's just so thoughtless and rude. There's no reason why she (or me, or any of the other 20-something single women who have heard this) should be married! Maybe she just hasn't met the right guy yet, or maybe she doesn't want to get married. There's nothing wrong with being single! Or maybe she was married, and widowed young - wouldn't you feel like schmuck then?? Yes, I would personally like to be in a relationship, and if/when I find the right guy, get married and have a family. But not every woman wants that or should want that. I know I'm not perfect, but just because it hasn't happened yet for me, or maybe won't happen, doesn't mean something is wrong with me.

Ugh. I really wish people would get over the idea that women should be in a relationship, should want to be in a relationship, and must be seriously flawed if they aren't. And if what they're really thinking is, "This girl is really cool, some guy would be really lucky to be with her," then they need to find a better, non-offensive way to say it!! I know I'm really defensive about this, and I probably shouldn't let this bother me so much. But it really irritates me when people say crap like that.

Alternate post titles:

WTF?!
Think Before You Speak!!
What is wrong with people?!
People Suck
Ugh

TWIMS - The business end of things...

TWIMS 1. Traveling Wave Ion Mobility Spectrometry 2. Texting With International Mass Spectrometrists

The conference last week was awesome on lots of fronts, and TWIMS of both sorts were definitely factors. :)

So you might recall me being pretty stressed over this conference, well more specifically my talk, the last time I actually blogged. At that point I had the slightest twinge of a sore throat. Just a slight scratchy feeling every now and then, no big deal. Well come Wednesday afternoon, I find myself with a splitting headache and raging sore throat. The timing could not have been worse - I stayed home Thursday (although I didn't exactly rest...I worked from home and got a new haircut) and went in for as few hours as possible Friday. Come Sunday morning when it was time to fly up to Salt Lake City I had next to no voice and felt like my head was being squeezed in a vice.

My talk was Monday, and go figure my voice/cough/runny nose were by far their worst that day. Murphy's Law right? At some point during the morning oral session I blew my nose, and my friend Chris who was sitting next to me leans over and whispers, "Man, that was HOT." Previously I had only worried about having a voice, but apparently I also had to worry about sniffling and/or coughing. I sounded like some terrible combination of Marge Simpson, a 20-year chain smoker, a phone-sex lady, and a frog. It was awesome.

The talk actually went ok - my voice sounded terrible, but apparently I was comprehensible. Several people came up to me after the session to talk about my data. It was really nice to meet several people whose papers I've read and research I've really admired. It was even nicer to have them talk to me like a peer, and a legitimate contributing research scientist who knows what she's talking about (well as much as anybody does anyways - it's called research for a reason). It was awesome. One really big name professor from Oxford - arguably the biggest name in my relatively narrow field - even came and introduced herself to me and told me I gave a very nice talk. :D

Apparently that's not all though. After my talk she asked my advisor, VW, if I were a grad student or a post-doc. As if that weren't an awesome enough compliment, she told VW again later in the week how impressed she was with my data and presentation!! VW emailed me a couple days later passing along Oxford Prof's comments, and saying she thought she'd welcome me as a post-doc if I were interested when I graduated (which admittedly is still a good 2+ years away). EEE!! Not only would I love to work for this prof, but I'd LOVE to go live in England for 2 years. (Think of all the places I can easily fly to from London!! And crazily enough, it's easier - although not cheaper - to fly home to Boston from London...)

This morning I sent Oxford Prof a brief email thanking her for her kind comments, and mentioned that while I have 2 years left, I'd be very interested in talking to her next year about the possibility of post doc-ing for her. I wasn't exactly expecting a response, but mostly just wanted to make sure I'm on her radar even if peripherally. Well she replied this afternoon saying it would be great to have me in the group!! And that I should contact her a year before I plan to graduate so I can apply for some Royal Society fellowship! (The Royal Society is the British equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences.)

SO excited. The idea of post doc-ing at Oxford is super exciting, but it's a very long way off and a very remote possibility. And I have a LOT of work to do here in the meantime. Especially if I want to be competitive for a post-doc fellowship. So for now I'm just going to be very excited that Oxford prof thinks I'm doing good work. :)

Quote of the Day

The conference was awesome, I'll blog about it eventually. But for now, from a post-doc friend here, quote of the day:

"I always liked the interview process. You get to take a trip somewhere and talk about yourself."