A Cake for Celebration and Nerds

The last few weeks have felt rather hectic. Lots of dashing around and frantically trying to get-everything-done, whatever that means.  In the midst of all my self-imposed hustle, though, I was able to help someone celebrate.  And though she said it made her day (probably not as much as receiving her doctoral degree), it made my crazy week better too.

Plus I was able to have some fun in the kitchen.  So it wasn't entirely selfless on my part...but I did enjoy contributing to her festivities.

Our dining room table serves as storage space and cooling counter,
complete with expandable surface.

My roommate and I went on a baking frenzy, making yellow buttermilk cupcakes from scratch (recipe from Martha Stewart Cupcakes) as well as a three layer dark chocolate fudge cake (recipe from Sugar Baby by Gesine Bullock-Prado).  She masterfully produced two icings - whipped vanilla frosting for the cupcakes (recipe also from Martha Stewart Cupcakes) and The Best Chocolate Buttercream frosting (recipe from Joy the Baker Cookbook) - while I played with various candies that would adorn the top of the cake. Have I mentioned my roommate is awesome?

The cake, you see, needed to have a reproduction of the protein structure my friend (the one who was defending her thesis and receiving her doctoral degree) had worked on for many years.  Her lab had a tradition of decorating the cake of the newly-doctor-ified person with their familiar protein structure.  I was following in the tracks of some serious cake decorators, and I feared failure.  Knowing I couldn't pipe frosting with sure skill, I chose candy as my medium.  And even after an hour of cutting and arranging and recutting and rearranging, I still wasn't sure how the structure would emerge.

The next morning, my roommate and I rose early to ice everything.  Then we split transport duties - she the cupcakes, I the cake - and journeyed off to work.  Shortly before the celebration, I arranged my carefully cut candies to form an IgA molecule bound to its receptor at the cell surface.  Yup, I got my nerd on.

A celebration cake for a doctoral degree

My friend loved it.  And so did everyone else.

I thought the cake itself was the star, not it's decoration.  Moist, intensely rich, capable of inducing adult-onset diabetes in less than a slice.  It was the chocoholic's dream my coworkers had requested.

But after my struggles with candy as decorations, I'm definitely enrolling in some cake decorating classes.

Confessions of a Cookbook Nerd

At home, my mother and I share our cookbooks.
Probably the most used books on this shelf are Martha Stewart's
Cookies or Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food. Giada gave them
a run for their money for a few months...but, alas, she did not win it all.

I'll willingly admit I am a dork. A nerd. A geek.  For proof, you just have to come with me to work. In a lab.  Where I become inappropriately excited when colored tubes arrive for me to use. Or when my proteins have fun abbreviations like dANK and mRA and TRX. You can't tell me you don't immediately think T-rex and picture a T-rex stomping around  in your head. I know you are. It's impossible not to!

For all that I am a science nerd--just wait for me to excitedly explain how something works (based on the reactions of my typical audience of Eric and Manning, it induces spontaneous eye-rolling and feet twitching to escape)--I am an even greater geek about kitchen stuffs and cooking.  Alton Brown? He's my hero, combining science and cooking in an easily digestible format you're guaranteed to remember.  Harold McGee? Near idol status. (He's wrote On Food and Cooking, the source of much of Alton's fun facts. I asked for it for Christmas. And it's in my casual reading stack.)

On the bookshelf in my apartment.
The most used of these books are The Food You Crave (Ellie Krieger)
and Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.
The Vodka Cookbook is surprisingly good and always a treat.
It's not nearly as kitschy as you'd expect.

So it should come as no surprise that I read cookbooks like novels. For fun. For education. For expanding the horizons of my culinary knowledge.  And--I won't lie!--for the pictures. Though I didn't miss the pictures in Melissa Clark's two cookbooks (nor in Molly Wisenberg's book or David Lebovitz's book), because they offered a story so well told that I had vivid images from their stories. I want to write like that someday.

I'll admit I haven't read every single cookbook I own...yet. It's a newer habit of mine, pouring over each page while curled up on the couch or lying in bed. Each brings a little something different to the table (pun intended, so there!). Alton organizes the recipes by cooking technique and prefaces each new technique with some scientific explanation.  Melissa Clark sorts her recipes by month in one of her books, which has helped me focus on more seasonal ingredients.  Gesine Bullock-Prado separated recipes by the temperature state of the sugar required in the recipe, so I can progress in skill and confidence as I move forward.  But each one makes me want to dash into the kitchen and try out something new.

Another shelf of cookbooks in my apartment,
of my most recent cookbook purchases.
I already have a list of future purchases, awaiting
the next Amazon order.

In fact, I have a tremendous list of "food things I want to make".  Actually, it's beyond reason now. Oops. It's one major reason why I want more hours in a day--so that I can make more of these recipes.  Thank goodness I have coworkers, family, and friends who are willing to devour the finished products!

Random fact: one of my New Year's Resolutions was to cook at least one new recipe each week.  I've been cooking from the hip the last few years, and making the same handful of things repeatedly.  My cookbooks sat on the shelf, collecting dust and longing to be used.  This is my effort to go beyond the usual and learn new ways to prepare both familiar and unfamiliar ingredients.  It seems to be working so far!

At home, another shelf full of shared cookbooks.
My favorites are in a row -- Power Foods, Martha Stewart's Baking
Handbook, Baked Explorations, and Mario Batali's Molto Gusto.

Another random fact: browsing for cookbooks on Amazon is favorite way to pass time. It's led me to some unanticipated finds. And it's saved me from shelling out full price at Anthropologie (which is a surprising great place to find indie cookbooks...but I always flip through the entire book before purchase to make sure it's worth it!).

Random fact #3:  My wonderful aunt and uncle are tremendous foodies and have endlessly encouraged me in the culinary arena.  They also have a fabulous habit of gifting me or my mother with autographed cookbooks.  I love each one!

Yet another shelf of cookbooks (and other books) at home.
The prize here?  Harold McGee's On Food And Cooking. It's intense
but its awesome. I plan to start it (for bedtime reading) after
I finish Ruhlman's Twenty.
Also check out the three books on perfume on the left...
They're all hilarious and brilliant. 

Look for "By the Book" posts in the future, as I try recipes from my library of cookbooks.  I promise it will be full of adventures!

Time Warp

You know how some people have a theme for the month, like a lot of guys have a month where they don't shave their facial hair -- No Shave November or October Mustache Month.  Well, I apparently had No Blog November.  I wasn't aware of this fact until I looked at the calender, saw it was December (already???), and realized November had flown by.  It didn't feel like it was flying at the time, but it never does.  It only seems like it zipped past when viewed retrospectively.  Still, I think November moved along with a wee bit more speed than a month usually does.

This November, I...
(get ready, it's a list!!! yay!)

• Was bursting with pride when the new store space for Runners Plus & Soccer Plus officially opened on November 1st!!!!  The stores moved into a new space that was bigger and that they remodeled to their specifications. It looks amazing and I know how much hard work was put into this massive project, because Eric had some very late nights during the move. I'm so proud of Eric and the store and I'm so happy for them. If you're in town, you have to check it out. If you're not in town, check out their Facebook page. 

• Attended another science conference, this time in Cleveland and with more of my coworkers. To me, the highlight of the trip were our two dinners.  The first night we went to Michael Symon's B Spot Burgers, and I went bananas over the pickle bar (!) and fell in love with three of the six house sauces. They also had an entire wall covered in retro beer cans--including several brands I'd never heard of--making the logo of the restaurant. The second night, several of us students went to a fancy French restaurant.  While it was obvious we were not the typical clientele, the food was incredible! 

• Took a road trip with my guys to see two of our friends in Indiana.  We've been wanting to make this trip for over a year and it finally became reality. And it was awesome!  I wouldn't expect anything else from a visit with Jac and DB.

• Went on another road trip with Eric to Tennessee, where I attended my very first Tennessee football game! I'd believed it to be my first D-I collegiate football game, but I was wrong. I have a very hazy memory of attending a Notre Dame - Michigan football game in South Bend when I was a wee tyke. I can't recall any of the game, but I clearly remember being enamored and impressed with the incredibly cool football shaped menus at whatever restaurant we went to.  They even wrote the score of the game on the menu! Oooooo, right?  

• Discovered Trader Joe's Apple Cider. It's perfect. Go try some.

• Had two Thanksgiving dinners in one day...and didn't get sick from it. That's an accomplishment if I've ever heard one!  It probably helped that I ran the Turkey Trot race that morning, to make room for all that deliciousness.

• Re-discovered and most likely enhanced my love of drinking champagne. Kayleigh tried a new drink recipe (I believe we're renewing our weekly make-a-drink ritual, which is quite fun) that featured champagne. Now we're hooked. Here's the recipe (from Wegman's):
• Put about a cup or so of washed cranberries on a baking sheet. Sprinkle ground clove on top (about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp) and roll the cranberries around to coat.  Put in a 450 degree F oven for about 10-15 minutes.
• While the cranberries are cooking, make a simple syrup on the stove. In a small saucepan, combine equal amounts of sugar and water (I used 1 cup each).  Over low to medium heat, stir until the sugar dissolves, then turn off heat. Avoid high heat or prolonged cooking, so you don't make caramel!  The end product should still be clear, with no visible sugar granules.
• When the cranberries are done cooking, put them directly into the simple syrup. Let them steep for at least 15 minutes (that's how long we waited) and up to an hour. The syrup will turn a lovely pink color.
• Ladle some of the simple syrup plus a few cranberries into the bottom of a class. Top with chilled champagne. Careful, it fizzes like crazy, so we added champagne in increments and held it over the sink.
• Cheers! 

• Helped host a dinner party in honor of my mom's birthday. We had a scrumptious Italian feast, with an antipasti plate, two pastas, salad, garlic bread, and chianti. And don't forget the desserts! Leftover Thanksgiving pies (I loved the elderberry, from a family friend's bakery in Columbus. My first taste of elderberry and it was glorious!), plus a flourless chocolate cake made with 70% chocolate. It was served with raspberry sauce (a la Ina Garten) and three ice creams (pistachio, vanilla, and Jeni's Queen City Cayenne).  My contributions to the party were a from-scratch marinara (using Mario Batali's Basic Sauce recipe plus some red pepper flakes), compound butter for the garlic bread (hot damn, garlicky!), the flourless chocolate cake and the raspberry sauce. I had so much fun working with my aunt and uncle to prepare this dinner and I believe everyone enjoyed themselves. This underlines the fact that I love dinner parties, especially relaxed ones.

• Finished my crystallography class, woohoo! Let me tell you, there is a lot of math involved in understanding how crystallography works.  Also let me tell you, Wikipedia can be awfully useful in reminding you about math concepts when you haven't taken a math class in over 10 years. Thanks, Wikipedia.

• Also finished my TRX  circuit class. After the first session, the only people who showed up to any (and to all) of the other classes were the instructor, myself, and the only other girl in the class.  Even though it kicked my out of shape butt, I had a blast and plan to sign up for at least one TRX class next quarter.  I have to admit that I'm on a TRX kick right now, so much so that I spent some time perusing their website.  I am even so crazy that I want to buy a TRX setup to use at home and I even want to take their instructional/certification classes. I'm obviously obsessed at the moment!

November, I'm sorry I didn't take the time to savor you, but I certainly had some fun!

December, I'm looking forward to all you have to offer!  Family and friends, getting into the Christmas spirit, binges of baking Christmas treats, dressing up for holiday gatherings (I promise to continue to wear my collection of leather boots at often as humanly possible on the weekends), Christmas ale/Winter ale (try Christain Morlein's Christkindl!), planning Christmas gifts to delight my loved ones (I'm seriously addicted to that), hot cocoa, hot cider, and champagne toasts!  

Happy December!!!

Thermo Summer Camp

It's been a whirlwind of nerdiness and adventure for the the last week or so. Meaning I am exhausted. I even have nice dark bags under my eyes to prove it! For the past few weeks, I've been putting together a giant (bigger than me) poster of my work in the lab. I've made posters like this before, but those were college projects....things I did with other people (so they decorated the hallways of the chemistry department but weren't "real" science, as horrible as it is to say. but that's another tangent to explore later...) or were not actually going to print out (hello, transition metals info poster!).

Instead of these amateur collegiate posters, I was putting up all of my own work. Okay, not all of my own work; my lab mate ZY actually generated (ie performed) half of the data that was on my poster. But I helped purify the proteins he used in the ITC experiments and I did the EMSAs on the poster first - he just re-did them to look nicer. I needed his info, though. to help set up the story of my work. And, to be quite honest, take up space on my poster because I only have a small portion of data. Sigh. So sad. Months of work and I really can only claim 2 figures. Damn, damn, damn.

Anyway, I spent awhile making a very professional-student-looking poster. I actually like it and am proud of it, if you don't notice 1 grammatical error (thanks, mom), 1 forgotten edit (I forgot to remove a d!), and 1 incorrect value in a table (unfortunately, it's in a very noticeable spot). Oh well. Still, I'm proud of it. And while it's only a baby step forward in my graduate student career, I was relieved to finally be able to take it.

I took this poster to a conference of biothermodynamics in Illinois, which is a 2.5 day scientific conference held on a nature preserve (that has conference and overnight guest capabilities). While it is a national conference, it is intentionally kept to a relatively small number of professors (aka Primary Investigators, or PIs) and post-docs and grad students, to facilitate interactions between people. I liked that. It was much better for me to identify people and approach total strangers than a behemoth national conference like The Protein Society (thousands of people. no joke). Keep in mind that the professors there are the leading researchers and thinkers in the field of biothermodynamics. Big time, incredibly smart people.

Wait, I suppose I should attempt an explanation of biothermodynamics....  
 Bio = biological. Meaning it is stuff that relates to living organisms. In our case, it means studies involving proteins or nucleic acids from animals. Sorry, we don't intentionally ignore plants, but most animal scientists don't seem to know much about plants and vice versa because they're such very different systems. Personally, I think learning about how plants work is cool....but I don't know nearly as much about it as I do animal systems because that's what the majority of research focuses on.  
Thermodynamics. Hmm....how to explain this... Okay, our trusted friend wikipedia breaks it down perfectly: Thermodynamics describes how systems change when they interact with one another or with their surroundings. Specifically, it looks at the transfer of heat (a form of energy) or of work done on or by bodies (for me, this means proteins) in a system. If you take a Lion King/Circle of Life view, every living thing changes when it interacts with something else...and thermodynamics looks at how it changes in terms of energy and other parameters (factors). It can also tell you how likely an interaction is to occur, based upon the changes that occur from the interaction. So here's an example: when 2 proteins interact and bind to each other, there is heat energy that is either absorbed or released into the fluid around them. When we measure that change in heat, we can insert those values (for heat change) into various equations...do a little algebraic manipulation....and acquire values for other factors that can be involved, like the amount of protein surface area that is buried in the interaction or how favorable it is for the reaction to occur (like humans, proteins are more likely/favorable to do an easy task, like sitting on the couch watching tv, instead of a harder/unfavorable task, like running a marathon). So I hope that helps clarify, even a little bit.....but thermo (short for thermodynamics) is complicated and not something easily understood. Trust me on this.

The conference is an entire meeting of scientists who study biothermodynamics. There are various techniques and various model systems in which to do this....but ultimately, everyone there looked at how interactions and energy were related. In biological sciences, thermo is often considered to be a highly specialized area of study, meaning most people don't look at thermo in their research because:
1. They don't care. Which is, in my opinion, silly, because thermo can give you some cool and useful insight into interactions.
2. They don't know how to measure and interpret thermo. Okay, this I understand because some techniques to measure thermo are specialized. But I don't think they're so hard you couldn't learn them. And at the very least, you could collaborate with someone who does specialize in thermo.
3. They're afraid of thermo or they don't understand it. I'm not comfortable with advanced math and I think my brain legitimately freaks out every time I see a number (sigh), but thermo can be kept at a "simple" level, where you plug a measurement into one equation, and you get all kinds of useful data about binding. Even I understand it. Regardless, there are people who hate thermo or don't respect people who do thermo research. Those people would probably say "Thermo research doesn't advance medicine, it can't help people". FALSE! Thermo can be essential in drug development or in understanding aspects of certain disorders. So silly. Sure there are some thermo researchers who are likewise firmly entrenched in their belief that thermo should be done to learn about thermo, not to have medical relevance. But more and more people are fusing thermo and medically-driven research.

So I went to this conference and I was terrified. Lots of incredibly smart people talking non-stop about a topic I barely understand the basics of. It turns out...I actually liked most of the talks that were given, even when I wasn't able to fully comprehend (okay, even when I didn't have much more than a basic understanding of) what techniques they used or what their data meant. Actually, thermo was kinda...cool. I started to feel like a Supporter of Thermo, ready to defend this misunderstood field and champion its usage in research everywhere!!! Alright, I didn't feel totally like that, but I felt like my eyes were opened to the fact that thermo is useful, thermo is versatile, thermo shouldn't be kept in the corner but should be out dirty dancing with Patrick Swayze. I want to learn more about thermo - what it is, what it means, techniques to study it... Whether I actually do all that on my own is another story; I've been attempting to read large amounts of science and of non-science, hobby-related books for several years now and haven't made much progress. Oops.

So I had fun at this conference and learned quite a bit and developed an interest and excitement for something new. I am, however, terribly sleep-deprived. Not only did I consume inhumanly large amounts of caffeine, but I also couldn't sleep each night because of rain hammering the tin roof of our cabin. It was the rain irregularly pounding down from the overhanging tree branches that really prevented my sleep. Sigh.... With a lot of sleep, a hot shower, a home-cooked meal, and lots of laundry-doing, I'll be returned to my average state of nerdiness and chaos before you know it.

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.

An Overly Dramatic Tale

Captain's Log.
1 December 2010

Yet another day trapped in this room. All the views are familiar. The long window out of which I can see a tiny slice of grass, some steps, the corner of a road and the front of another building. The high windows, where I can only see the very top of a radio or cell phone tower and sometimes the white smoke billowing out of some plant near main campus. The white board inside the room, with its two drawings. I can't figure out what one of them is, but the other seems to be a sketch of a cholesterol molecule. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see people coming and going all day long. Occasionally I hear the ding of the elevator arriving or the boom of a door closing.

I'm stuck here until I finish writing this paper. I've spent over 60 hours on it to date, and it's close to halfway done. But I'm behind where I need to be. If I have any hope of having people proofread it and me correcting it, I have to finish the paper tonight. Considering how slowly I've been writing, it just doesn't seem possible. But I desperately need others to read it and to fix it. I just don't know what I'm doing and I don't trust my abilities in this arena. I've been wrong too many times in the past.

I. Must. Get. Out. Of. Here.


Es--cop--ehhh?
That's funny, it's spelled a lot like the word Escape.


Dammit, back to writing.



(please note, I know this was overly dramatic, I wrote it in persona, if you will. I am, however, sick of writing. That fact is true.)

wait, what am I doing?

This is a question I ask myself about a dozen times a day, most while I'm at work. Bouncing between three or more projects every day is a little crazy, but I like the challenge, even though it's exhausting. Well, maybe I'm not always thrilled about doing it, but it's way better than having a mindless, repetitive job. I like the constant change and challenge, even if it frustrates me.

I know it's been awhile since I last wrote...sorry! As seems to always happen, I plan to do something (you should see my "to-do" lists!) and never get around to it. I don't know what keeps me from getting to things (okay, I strongly suspect TV, exhaustion, and trying to juggling way too many things at the same time), but I really have meant to write.

What have I been up to the last month or so?

~Searching for a new qualifier topic, with increasing desperation.
Okay, it's downright panic right now. I have to submit the first part of my qualifier (a two page document with a rough outline of what I propose to do) on Wednesday. That's 6 days from now. And I still haven't decided on a topic. Considering I spent over a month the previous two times doing what I need to do in 6 days...yeah, I'd say I'm seriously screwed. The stress levels and emotional tumult are increasing exponentially. As is my desire to do any task that does NOT involve my qualifier (This is a often discussed theory held by me and one of my former co-workers, Andy. The theory is that if you have a task you don't want to do, you will do any other task before it. In order to do this undesirable task, you must be presented with an even more odious task. Sadly, I don't have a more distasteful task than a qualifier. I even WANT to clean and organize my closet!).

~Cleaned my closet out.
Please see above for reasoning. I'm not done yet, but it is better!

~Helping my mom prepare food for my Aunt Norma and Uncle Charlie's birthday fiestas.
We had a friendly cook-off (okay, it wasn't a competition at all) where each guest made a Bobby Flay recipe to share. It was like Thanksgiving--soooo much food, all of which was delicious! I ate so much (just like Thanksgiving) I was in pain for the rest of the night and very nearly entered a food-induced coma.




~Made grand plans to get back on the exercise train...and not (yet) follow through on them.
Okay, this is starting to sound like a record. My most recent idea was to go to the gym at work in the morning, then do a workout video (either the Brazil butt lift or creepy yoga) at night. The rationale for this plan is that I am incredibly good at finding reasons not to go the gym at the end of the day...so if I do it first thing, I will not have time to find an excuse. One snag in my brilliant plan-I have to wake up early. I strongly dislike getting out of bed, particularly to perform physical activity. I think I have some work to do!!!!! I really want to get in shape!

~Hung out with my two best friends, Megan and Moe.
Megan was in D-town for a week and the three of us went out to dinner to one of the most delicious restaurants, Thai9. Then we wandered around Target, which is another of our favorite past times. I miss spending time with them!!!!

~Done some baking. And cooking.
I tried out a few new dishes - tart with figs and almond filling, iced brownies (I'd never iced brownies before!), salad of celery root + fennel + apple (didn't get to try any before it went bad, though), and some more stuff I don't remember. :)

~Organized school events.
As the new president of our department's grad school organization (which means next to nothing), I am in charge of running our bi-monthly meetings. And I am co-in-charge of organizing and setting up our monthly happy hours. I did both! Call me the department social director!


I'm going to bury myself in the qualifier for the next week, but once I turn it in, I will hopefully be able to talk about something more fun! I do have a lot of amazing things to look forward to (and write about!) -- hopefully going to a Tennessee football game, seeing Eric's band play at the Air Force Marathon (I love this outside morning show!), running a 5k, trying some recipes from my new cookbook, playing with fall activities (octoberfest, saurkraut festival, pumpkins, apple cider, football watching, earlham homecoming risotto!), some awesome new movies and tv shows coming out, and hopefully getting through the qualifier without losing my mind! So here's to fun...starting in one week :)