oops. kinda too small to read. it says Charles "Che" Darwin at the newly redone Smithsonian Museum. I bet that would make a lot of folks happy

hahahaha.. ohh man. that is way funny. but kind of scary at the same time.

sweet shwag..

i have to brag real quick about this sweet birthday present my dad got me. How Jean is this??!?!

I can't wait to send away for my very own tadpole that you get to grow in it and then watch my little buddy take to the waves!!

Happy Thanksgiving

My favorite holiday. All the fun of Christmas without the buying anxiety. And it doesn't hurt that I have a fabulous birthday thrown right in the mix. I can't wait to see my famiy and show them my fun city!!

I haven't blogged in a while, not that I haven't had lots of interesting things, but more because I have been a sillyhead. But Emily's blog inspired me and I think I would like to say what I am thankful for..

1. The lady at the cafe in the hospital who knows I love my english breakfast tea, and can always tell when I do need that extra macademian nut/white chocolate cookie.
2. Rosebud salve.. it can fix anything.
3. When science works for me.. and even more importantly, that I can keep going even when it doesn't until it does.
4. Trent's amazing support and cheerfulness during these last few weeks of grad school application ickiness. So many thanks for all his encouragement and taking such good care of me.
5. State and National parks. We live in such a beautiful area, and I am so thankful that we have places like Butano State Park and Pt. Reyes National Park so everyone can enjoy them.
6. Walt Finkbeiner. Seriously. He has made this year more amazing than I could ever have imagined.
7. My lovely family, who remind me of the crazy kid I still am, and believes in me and my crazy goals.
8. Emily, for never ceasing to give up on my complete lack of fashion sense and reminding me it is okay to be fabulous.
9. Good health, good friends, and a great city, and a whole lot of adventuring left to do.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving everyone and take the time to thank those people who are important to you. Go eat lots of cranberry sauce!

happy veteran's day

I have taken advantage of today's freedom from work to get a lot of errands done, such as changing the oil in my car and paying bills. I had it allllll planned out. Until one thing got in my way. The damning efficiency that our nation promotes. I had originally thought to drop my car at the shop and then run over to the lab to change the cell medium, and then head back and have it all finished and nice. oh no no no. Instead, these guys at the shop bragged and bragged about their 10 minute oil change. Which left me with a frustratingly short amount of time. The only thing to do was to head to the Mickey-D's ( I know, the horror!) next door for a cup of coffee. There I was confronted with this silly system that times how long your transaction takes, from ordering to receiving your food. The average time was 44 seconds!

Henceforth: Rant of the day...

Why in the world do we place such an outstanding emphasis on speed in our service industry?? I would rather leave my car with the dudes for an hour and have them take their time and do a good job. And if it takes five more minutes to make my breakfast burrito from scratch.. so be it!! I guess it depends on the place you go, the jiffylube-esque oil change and mc donalds are notorious for their speedy service, so I guess I get what I pay for. But in general, I am not a fan of the quicky service. What is the rush?

So then I went and washed my car at the do it yourself wash, and spent about 3 dollars in quarters, but it was worth it for a job well done. Anyways, enough of that. Time to feel these cells and get out of here. NO one is here in the Pathology department except for the morgue folks. CREEEEEPY! Happy Friday, ciao!

dr. jean

I am realizing that yesterday's elevator incident was really not so cool. Today I have been subconsciously avoiding using that piece of crap. Or I just have nothing to do today, so getting ice from the 5th floor was not a priority. But that sounds bad, so blame the elevator for today's poor scientific showing..

Hero of the Day:

Although I am incredibly happy wth the statement that California sent politicians yesterday, I still have a little liberal ranting left in me. So here it goes.

This morning, while flipping around our 7 channels, waiting for NextBus.com to tell me when the next 22 would be heading my way.. I came across an interesting situation. Some no name (maybe cbs?) morning show was having a debate about intelligent design vs. evolution. Their panel included some female comedian, a hardcore evangelical preacher, and one of my favorite-est people, Bill Nye, the science guy. They were all making fairly harmless comments, until the moderator asked the bible thumper if he thought the earth was really created in a week and what about fossils then? The preacher responded with this awful, "well if you were smart enough to realize the power of God" and "evolution is just some idea thought of by Darwin because he wasn't able to understand Gods' ways." I was pretty shocked, and then it cut to Bill Nye. He has been his normal lovely self, laughing and cracking silly jokes.. but you could tell he was pretty shook up by those statements. And then, he proceeded to tear that guy a new one. He was never outright rude, but he was not going to let this guy off the hook. The moderator got kind of uncomfortable, and kept trying to switch to the comedian, but Bill just kept hammering away.

And I have to say.. amen to that. It is about time we started standing up against the religious right. Liberals have been playing mr. nice guy for too long. And because of this passivity, school kids in Kansas (and who knows where else), are going to be learning that the basic premise of science is just some wacky notion a fella with a long beard came up with. Thanks to you Bill Nye, for being the kick-ass, science rules, science guy!

Adventure of the Day:

Apparently our building has been experiencing several power outages this morning. While most functions like light and electricity work fine, the elevator does not. And who was fortunate enough to be on a harmless ride up to the ice machine when one of these outages occured? OH ya. That was scary.. as hell. Fortunately the building isn't that tall and there was an emergency button (which i gladly pushed) so I wasn't in there too long, but 5-10 minutes seems like an awful long time when trapped in some steel death contraption. Whew.. I love working at the General!

best job ever alert: walt is insisting that I take friday off. Because I am technically employeed both by UC and the hospital, I could either stay or go.. but he is the best boss ever and is gonna do all the cells for me that day. I do have to come in some other time this weekend.. but that will be post insanely hard Bio GRE's.. so that is O-K with me. does anyone else get friday off??

monday's thoughts

1. Science can be way fun. Like my super cool protocol involving pouring liquid nitrogen and crushing up stuff... but it is really lame when THERE JUST ISN'T ANY RNA IN THE SAMPLE. Today's science has pretty much proved that.. which sucks a WHOLE lot.

2. Again regarding science, today I had to make a judgement decision between my personal needs and what my job requires of me. Or, I thought I did and spent an hour agonizing over it. But then it turned out the whole thing was a big waste of an hour.. But I did decide I need to get myself out of this crazy place and into safe grad school.

3. A few minutes ago I had a ridiculous nose bleed. Odd, especially because the relative humidity outside is about 88%. Do you think I should have to follow all the protocols for handling blood, just because we have them? naw...

4. I just want to go home :) But I don't want to study. Damn you GRE's!!

5. Trent's enchiladas were amazing. And even better the second day, and very impressive to eat in the lunch room and brag about my gourmet chef boyfriend while everyone else eats their frozen entrees. Thanks bubs!

random musings...

1. I got an email from my mom today. In it, she exclaimed "You are such a BIG GIRL!!" Exactly as shown. What could have been the cause for this assertion? Because I graduated from university, got a job, and am living with my boyfriend? Oh heavens no, it's because I got car insurance yesterday. But I kind of like the kudos anyways.

2. I have been laser capturing cells all yesterday and today. I finally finished. Hooray. Not that the idea isn't super interesting, it is just pretty mind numbingly boring to do after the first hour. I started seeing what shapes my captured cells looked like (think finding clouds that look like things). My favorites.. the State of California and a cartoon arm complete with five fingers. You'll have to trust me on this one, it was pretty much the most exciting thing that happened.

3. Doing the laser capture, I work in Walt's office. To explain the last post a little bit better, I am just very impressed with how much he does and how he is always ready to help anyone who needs it. I overheard him diagnose causes of death, look up some information for a resident, meet with about half the staff of the Pathology department because they are being audited by hospital "check-er upper's" and are all panicking.. and he never lost his cool. Well one time, this guy was being WAY lame and talking crap about someone who is working really hard down there, and he looked at me and was like, "walt, may we speak privately?" and walt pretty much told him to shove it. Atta boy!

4. I think the weather has changed at least 6 times today. And of course now that I want to go home, it is all gray and icky.

5. Trent comes home today.. and I am very excited about this. I drank too much iced tea studying last night and was up until 12 or later frantically cleaning the house, for no reason. I need to remember this caffine induced cleaning maddness. But I think T-money will be happy about it.

6. I thought I had more to say.. but I can't remember. My brain got lasered along with the cells, probably! Happy Thursday! and get out and see HIGHER GROUND by Warren Miller if you get a chance.. we're going tonight!! And then come skiing in Heavenly! Hooray. Ciao