Random Catch Up (numerical style)

One: Eric bought a new car.
A freak hail storm damaged Eric's old car, the faithful and fun Yellow Dart, to the point that it was considered totaled by the insurance company. Eric decided to part with the Dart and acquire a new vehicle. After searching online and putting in due diligence at several dealerships, Eric finally found The One. And on Wednesday, June 22, 2011, he made it his own.


It is a brand spanking new car, straight off the assembly line in the UK and only in the States for a handful of days before meeting Eric. It is a Mini Cooper Clubman S and it's amazing! Dark grey (darker even than the storm cloud grey I love on cars), with black wheels and a black room, this baby is sexy. Inside, there are several of the "mini's idiosyncrasies", which the dealership covered before Eric pulled out of the lot (wow! I was stunned. I don't know what some of the stuff in my car is after 5 years!). There are some very cool interior accent lights, visible at night, which you can change the color and intensity of. The sound system, by Bose, could literally rock your face off. ;) There is a "hidden" compartment that reminds me of James Bond's car. There is a double moonroom. That's right - double! Only the front one opens fully, but the rear one vents too. To add to it all, this car is fast, handles marvelously, and is very fun to drive (sadly, I cannot drive manual, so this is Eric's impression of driving the Mini). While I'm sad to see the Yellow Dart go....I love this new car! In fact, I kinda want a Mini now....






Two: I gave my very first seminar on my work in front of my department.
Since I already blogged about this, I'll spare you the details. But it is a minor accomplishment. I hope for all future seminars or poster presentations, I'll have more and more of my own data to talk about. And eventually I'll have to learn how to create my own figures, probably in Adobe Illustrator or something. Then I'll be so grown up! hehe!
However, I spent almost 2 weeks preparing my presentation and not doing any lab work. I'll still struggling to get back into the groove of doing lab work and getting a lot of work done (aka I haven't stopped being lazy at work yet). Oof. Maybe next week????


Three: I've made a lot (um, too many?) purchases recently.
More clothing, most of which is too nice to wear to work, where I would likely stain or tear it somehow. One of my coworkers shared a website (6pm.com) with me where I found incredible deals on two of my favorite brands, Patagonia and Fossil. I bought 3 dresses, a bracelet and earrings from the website and was thrilled! I also recently acquired: a Fossil KeyPer purse (in a print I've been obsessing over), several more printed sarongs (that I use as scarves), sandals (Target made bright orange and turquoise versions of a Steve Madden sandal I love), slightly longer but still cute Jcrew shorts, flowy Gap tank tops...and some Target tanks and tees that I can wear to work.

More makeup and beauty produces. I probably need to cut myself off in this department for a long time...
I've bought several Bare Escentuals kits, especially since many awesome kits have been on sale recently. I've bought the 3 other Eye Tutorials I didn't have (2 eyeshadows + a brush + step by step instructions showing me how to do a classic Smokey Eye, a silvery Foiled Eye or a glamorous Rocker Chic Eye). A 2 shadow + gloss kit on sale for $10! that has this awesome opalescent sheen I love. A few other shadow kits on sale. Oof. I didn't realize it was quite that much...
I've also dropped some coin in Sephora, like I usually do. Some nailpolishes, a large bottle of Josie Maran Argan Oil, more Ojon hair products, and a few products I haven't even tried yet!!! (those include Urban Decay's All Nighter makeup setting spray - I thought I'd test it out far in advance of Maureen's wedding! - as well as a Tarte lip stain). Yesterday I succumbed to another of their email promotions; I bought an Ojon hair mask online for $30 and received full size bottles of their Damage Reverse shampoo and conditioner for FREE!!!! Considering I wanted to get those anyway (for special occasion uses), I was awfully stoked.
With all these makeup purchases, I've been wearing makeup to work everyday. Something along the lines of being professional....not that my bacteria or proteins care!
I also purchased some new face/skin care products by DermaE. I've been using their Soy & Papaya Enzyme face cleanser for a month or so now and I love it. The fact that the store had the entire DermaE line on sale for 40% off prompted me to pick up some new procuts to try - a Vitamin A pore reducing mask, a fruit enzyme face scrub, a Vitamin A face scrub, a blemish spot treatment and a lip therapy with hyaluronic acid. I'm going to be beautiful!!!!

Other random things I've bought in the last few months....a paella pan, several books, discontinued body spray, huge candles, fluorescent yellow running shorts, a new pair of running shoes, a running tank top and lots of food.

Yikes! Um, enough talking about that. I feel horribly guilty right now!


Four: I've been working out (sorta) consistently!!!
For the past two weeks, I've actually gone to the gym most nights. And I did at least one workout over the weekend. That's a decent improvement from my previous stint of couch-bound laziness. And the thing is I feel awesome when I get done with my workout. So I'm trying to really stick with it and to not fall off the wagon if I miss a single day (which I have done in the past). This week I even went to a yoga class at lunch time! Hopefully I keep this up!

I also ran two races in one day last weekend. A one mile race in the morning (I ran 8:20-something, which is the fastest I can ever recall running a mile! woot!) and a 5k in the early evening (I ran much slower...). The 5k was followed by plenty of beer and yummy food, since it was a fundraiser for the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton. Eric and Manning did this event last year and raved about it, so I made sure to join them this year. I was so proud, too, that they were first and second in the race!


Five: My roommate and I are renewing the lease on our apartment for another year.
Hooray to not moving and cheap rent! Boo to the dogs in the houses/apartments around us that bark non-stop and to the crazy temperature extremes in our place! Hooray to staying with my roomie, who I have much fun with!


Six: I saw X-men: First Class with Eric and thought it was a solidly good movie.

Seven: I signed up to go to the Gibbs conference on thermodynamics in September.
Yup, a nerd convention. But I haven't been to one since before I did my qualifier (so over a year and a half ago). And this will be the first one where I get to present my own poster!!!!! Woohoo! In the grand scheme, it's a small accomplishment, but I'm still excited. It's going to be a very tough conference for me to understand what's being said, though. Thermodynamics is very mathematically based.....and my brain freaks out when it sees numbers.

Eight: There a several events in the near future that promise to be fun and relaxing.
This weekend, a cookout with my mom's side of the family. That means tons of food, good wine, and laughter. Also, my friend Megan will be in town for a few weeks before she moves to Chicago to start her job as a PT!
Next weekend is my birthday, so I'm excited for whatever I do with Eric (I asked to go out to dinner all dressed up) and with my parents. Dad is also having a family reunion, so I'll go to that for a bit and probably recognize a lot of faces I can't put names to.
The following weekend will be a birthday party with friends (well, I'm still planning it, so it's not official yet).
And the weekend after that is slated to be the Summer Beer Olympics, which are hilarious, stressful, and memorable.

I can't wait for the weekend!!!!! Why do I still have to endure Friday!??
(hmm. My boss just called a "mega-meeting" for tomorrow from lunch until whenever. He's buying food and beers, which is awesome. We're going to be talking about what he wants each of us to do in the lab and how to go about it. But the idea of a mega meeting is still intimidating...)

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!!!!!!,

Speech. Cleaning. Drinks. Disney.

This is how my day unfolded yesterday.
1) Give my first departmental seminar on my own lab work.
2) Clean the apartment with my roommate.
3) Dinner (either fondue or Hot Head Burritos) and large, tasty alcoholic beverage(s) with my roommate while we...
4) Watch a Disney movie!

Not a bad day, eh?

I've been working the past two weeks on creating my seminar presentation. It was the first time I'd talked about any of my lab work outside of the comfort and safety of my lab mates and boss. So I had to figure out what background info to present and how to arrange it to make my data make sense and sound important. Plus I felt very self-conscious and a little ashamed that I have so little data of my very own. Because I spent a year doing the qualifier, I did NOT spend a year in the lab; that lost time definitely reduced the amount of data I generated. I've been plugging away at the short-term project my boss gave me in January and I've generated data...just not that much. Honestly, I've performed the experiment about 40 times. But I only have 3 different results to talk about (because I used 3 different combinations of proteins, so the results were distinctly different from each other). The remaining 37 times I performed the experiment are repetitions of those 3 combinations and that's not something I'm going to talk about ("...so I've done the experiment 40 times but I still haven't perfected it and can only show you these non-statistically significant results...")

Thankfully, I have a excellent boss and wonderful coworkers who sat through a rough practice presentation last week (sorry!) and they gave me incredible and detailed feedback that helped so much. Basically, they re-ordered my presentation so that it made more sense when I told "the story" (it's funny, we scientists like to tell a story with our work--here's the background and why it's important, here is what was previously done, and here's what I did plus what it means and what I am going to do in the future, the end). They also gave me an very good idea of what to say when I showed my data. I feel like they essentially made my presentation for me. And I really appreciated it, because my seminar went really well. There were a few questions from professors that I couldn't answer; technical details about the technique I didn't know or a question I thought I'd answered but apparently not clearly enough for the professor. Overall, though, it went well and I was relatively satisfied.

With the seminar out of the way, I putzed around work for a few hours. I think I did one thing in the lab that took about 20 minutes. Not a very productive day's work! I hit the gym (two days in a row! woot!), then headed home to hang out and celebrate with my roommate Kayleigh. She'd also given her seminar in front of the department today and she'd been really stressed about it because despite 2+ years of long hours and work, she doesn't have much data either. Her project just doesn't seem to work with any technique, even if it is a technique used by another lab in a published paper that did work. She's thoroughly frustrated (and I completely understand this, because I feel that way often) and her boss has promised to give her a new project by the end of the summer, since nothing seems to be working despite their best efforts. Kayleigh gave a fantastic seminar and answered her plethora of questions well. Both of us were exhausted and ready to relax!

So what did we do to relax? Well....we, like the crazy, out of control party people we are (ha, not!), cleaned the apartment. Betcha didn't see that one coming! With all the recent heat and humidity, mold has sprung up in the bathroom and kitchen, so we tackled those with bleach and scrubbing. Our vacuum cleaner also decided to sound like it was going to explode or at least burst into flames. There's just something about loud clunking noises followed by the smell of something burning and a high-pitched whirring that makes you vacuum the remaining area very quickly and with an eye on the vacuum for flames. Sigh. Oh well, the place was cleaned and smelled lovely, thanks to some new Bath and Body Works candles (strawberry patch and fresh picked cherries!)

We then debated whether to have our favorite fondue for dinner, with toasted baguette slices and steamed cauliflower, or to splurge on delicious Hot Head Burritos. We chose burritos. I've only been there twice, but both times, the burrito has been so amazingly tasty and succulent and spicy....mmmm!!! I guiltily admit I haven't participated in our standard Chipotle Fridays the last few weeks because a Chipotle burrito just doesn't sound nearly as tasty as a Hot Head burrito. Oh, I feel like such a sleaze for not liking Chipotle the most! It's like I'm cheating on them...

With burritos in hand, we each grabbed a chilled adult beverage. I'd recently made a trip to the liquor store for some creme de menthe to make grasshopper brownies and I'd bought a mini bottle of the St Germain elderflower liquor. The bottle is so beautiful and I'd wanted to test a cocktail I'd seen a recipe for, combining vodka, St Germain, and tonic water. Oh man, it was wonderful! Refreshing, light, fizzy. Perfect!

So now we have our seminars done, a clean apartment, delicious dinner, relaxing drinks...what else could we do to make the night a celebration? We could watch a Disney movie and sing along! So we did. We popped Mulan into Kayleigh's recently acquired VCR (yeah, we can watch all the Disney movies we don't have on DVD because they're all so expensive), chowed down on our burritos, and sipped our drinks. When the song "I'll Make A Man Out Of You" came on, we both sang along loudly.

It was perfect.

Mommy, Look What I Did!!!!!!!

So I felt like that last night.

It wasn't a perfectly colored picture from my Scooby Doo coloring book. Yes, I have a Scooby Doo coloring book and crayons in my apartment. And,yes, I am almost 26 years old. Don't judge. Coloring is fun and relaxing (except for when you don't have the color crayon you want).

I didn't learn how to do a backflip. I didn't make a horrible mess. I didn't paint or color onto the walls (though I'd love to add some fun to the monotonous apartment beige).

Instead, I made dinner. And it was awesome!

The fact that I made food is really unremarkable. I cook. A lot. And I love cooking. I've actually been deeply interested in all things cooking (as long as it doesn't involve fish) since I was 9 years old. That's when I started watching the Food Network, seeing Emeril before he started his catchphrase "BAM!". These fine Food Network chefs introduced me to an entirely new and beautiful world, where I could take simple, individual ingredients and magically combine them together to create a fantastic dish. This food that I made could evoke memories of the past or transport me to another continent. All with food! It was a revelation and quickly became an obsession. I watched Food Network non-stop. I printed out recipes from that new-fangled interweb thingy (seriously, it's when it started becoming an everyday thing in our lives). [Side note: you'd be impressed by how far Food Network's website has come. I stumbled across some of the original recipes I printed out and they're about 3 pages long, in a hard to read format. Now, most recipes are one page and formatted for easy viewing.]

And my love of cooking has continued to this day. If you visited my apartment, you'd find a floor to ceiling cabinet full of dry food and industrial metal shelving holding all types of cookware. My roommate even asked if she could have my extensive spice collection in the event of an accident. :) I'd be okay with that; she'd take excellent care of my precious herbs & spices. My mom and my Aunt Norma and Uncle Rick foster my passion with gifts of cookbooks, interesting ingredients, or new items of cookware. I secretly desire to be the next Alton Brown, combining science and cooking in fun and memorable ways. That's my dream job. Oh, wait, my other dream job is to have my own brewery or winery, complete with cafe. See, both dream jobs revolve around food. I love food.

So why was the dinner I made last night so impressive to myself?
Because it was one of my first few forays into the realm of Indian cooking.
Because I made it WITHOUT following any recipe. (Most of my cooking - not baking - doesn't follow recipes. But I don't think I'd feel confident in trying Indian cooking without a guiding recipe.)
Because it was so incredibly delicious, which is not the way I've felt about the last dozen dishes I've made using beans. Yay!

I know, you're positively bursting with curiousity, right?
I made "Punjab chickpeas" - so chickpeas cooked with spices and onions in a tomato sauce. Here's what I did:

Saute diced onion in olive oil for a few minutes, then add garlic & ginger. Immediately add spices (garam masala, cayenne pepper, curry powder) and stir to coat onions. When you start coughing from the heated capsaicin entering your airways (or maybe just before this happens....I wasn't quick enough!), dump in a can of rinsed chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans) and a can of fire roasted tomatoes. Stir to combine. Make about 2 cups of chicken stock from that fantastic Better than Bullion jar, though I usually make mine a little stronger than they suggest. Add the chicken stock and stir to combine. Reduce until the tomato sauce is thick, but not as thick as a paste. Turn off the heat, add a hefty dash of apple cider vinegar for zing. Serve over leftover basmati rice. (Sorry there isn't a picture of my lovely dish. I didn't have my camera in my apartment.)

I was so darn proud of myself, because it was cooked perfectly. The chickpeas weren't too hard or too crumbly. The tomato sauce was reduced so that it was thick but not dry. The spices were just right, adding flavor and heat without any one element overwhelming the flavor. And it was delicious!

I wrote my roommate a note that she had to try this whenever she had a chance. She has an addiction to hummus and most things chickpea, so I thought this would be right up her alley. Hopefully she is as pleased as I was!

My success here makes me want to test out the dozens of other recipes I have my eye on...right now!