Wow

Oh my god, can you believe I last published in April? I knew it had been awhile, but I had no idea it was that long ago that I last sat down and gave myself the pleasure of hearing my own e-voice at length.

So, what's new around here?

I finally made it to Europe with Casper, a trip I was looking forward to for years. I enjoyed meeting his grandparents, who were genuinely wonderful people, with a FANTASTIC foliage-filled backyard. I hope someday to cultivate a green thumb like his grandfather's.

I'm still chugging away at school with no publications in sight. It was at this time a year ago that I was in the thick of my first big project, which unfortunately turned up no meaningful results in early 2011, forcing me to approach my data at another angle. That "other angle" is also turning out to be a royal pain. One of my assays is hopelessly unreliable and I've just been testing conditions to get it to work for the last two months. I'm not even actually using my sample set yet, just testing small batches! It's quite frustrating, but I'm closer than ever to having good working conditions, so hopefully in the next few weeks I'll actually be able to begin the real work and start seeing usable results.

I took the written portion of my qualifying exam in the beginning of June, which explains some of my radio silence on here -- I spent a good portion of May studying for this thing, and though I didn't divorce myself from the Internet entirely, I was too drained to devote a lot of brain energy to blogging. Thankfully, I found out a few weeks ago that I passed! So that part is done and over with, but I still have to complete the oral portion at some time in September. This part basically requires that I do a grant-style proposal for my thesis project to my committee of advisors. So that should be interesting. I obviously know my project very well, but I do tend to panic and freeze when I am put on the spot. Public speaking training much?

I'm also finding myself potentially having to move AGAIN. My current roommate has decided to take the plunge and move in with her boyfriend, so while I'm hoping to find someone to move in here and take her spot, I'm not getting a lot of interest yet and may unfortunately have to clear out of here and find myself an affordable one bedroom or studio. GOOD LUCK! And too bad, because I really am quite settled here. I don't want to move too far away from where I am now. I really like my location and have grown very attached to some of my neighborhood spots (Eagle Rock Brewery, I'm looking at you!)

That seems to be as good of a summary as possible of my little life since April. I can't promise anything, but maybe I'll get back into some more interesting commentary when I'm done with qualifying exams round 2.

Day 28 - my year, in great detail

This past year was mostly about:

1) My first year in grad school
2) Moving back in to, and then moving out of, my parents' house
3) Figuring out changing relationships
4) For the first time, feeling uncomfortable with my body

Even though this whole post is supposed to be "in great detail," I've already written ad nauseum about #s 1 and 2, so I'll err on the side of not boring what little audience I have by repeating myself.

As for point 3 - this past year has found me in the familiar position of experiencing that managing "school-based" relationships/friendships once school has ended is just, plain and simple, kind of freaking difficult. Particularly with my not living on the Westside, I've seen very little of most of my closest college friends, and I've felt very much on the outside of a group that I used to be very much a part of due to, at least in part, geographical inconvenience.

I love where I live now, but its distance from, well, pretty much everyone, as well as my growing lethargy (another problem I'll address in #4) kind of result in an atrophied social life.

And, as for #4.

I feel like I need to make a few disclaimers here, because (annoyingly enough) I can't rely on being able to bring this up to people in person without being told, essentially, "Oh shut up, you're so skinny." So. Ahem.

Yes, I know in the past I was very much the ectomorph. I know that I am, overall, slender. I know that a lot of people would love to have my body, and so I'm working on not disparaging it as, generally, a sucky body; sadly this is kind of difficult to do . My complaints are very specific -- and very relative -- to how my body has been in the past, when I was in better shape, and to how I know my body can be if I took better care of myself.

Therefore, what may not be clear to other people, but what is clear to me, is that I dress well enough for my body to give it an overall flattering shape, and to, in fact, hide the weight I have gained. I know that in order to pull this off, I currently cannot wear more than half of the jeans in my closet, because they're giving me a gnarly muffin top. I also know that I've always had high cholesterol, despite being on the low-normal side of BMI. So even though everyone knows I'm a goddamned bacon fanatic, now that I'm starting to try (and lord knows this will take time) to eat fewer fatty and sodium-filled foods, I don't want to hear it about how I don't need to be on a diet. Losing weight would be nice, but my main objective here is to finally treat my cardiovascular system like the delicate flower that it is.

Furthermore - exercise. I've quipped here and there about how boring I find the routine gym trips and how I just generally can't stand it. But one of the things I learned in the last year from working in and with cardiovascular and obesity-related labs is that exercise isn't just about losing weight. It's about improving your overall metabolism, and how the combination of even moderate physical activity and improving metabolic biochemistry can lower your liver fat and improve your sensitivity to insulin, which means less risk of diabetes! And that's great for me since Type II runs in my family. So this exercise thing? I need to just do it.

I'm only looking to lose about 5-10 pounds in fat weight, but I know not to cry if at the end of my body makeover I'll be the same weight I'm at now, since ideally I'll have some more lean muscle going on. I need at least enough to not always be tweaking things or getting injured all the time. I need my body to be more hardy.

So, that's my story. Yay 2010!

Day 27 - My month, in great detail.

I still haven't finished this monkey-fighting "30-day" challenge, so to that end:

Oct 20-26th
In lab, I was finishing up some DNA extractions from saliva samples. Roxy had a hipster themed birthday party, and I was studying for some upcoming midterms. I don't remember much else from this week. Apologies (?)

Oct 27th - Nov 2
I took Thursday and Friday off of lab to study for my midterms, which were on November 1. One went okay, and the other was absolutely the #1 worst job I've ever done on any test. I haven't gotten the grade yet, but if it is anything higher than an F- then the profs were very generous in grading heaping amounts of bullshit. Emily and I had our housewarming party on the 29th, and it went well. There was a lot of food and a lot of booze, which, for me at least, tends to set a party firmly on the side of awesome. It was a low-key costume party, which is perfect for me at this stage in my life. I didn't vote on the 2nd.

Nov 3-9
I drank a lot of beer in the week following my midterms. This was mostly because I hadn't had much beer to drink in the prior weeks while I was both studying and pretending to study. As a consequence of drinking so much beer, I don't remember much about this week, other than Casper and I getting food poisoning at Chipotle. And thusly falls an idol. But I'll probably get back on that horse sooner than I think, since I'm weak when faced with carnitas... just probably not at that location.

Nov 10-17
I was finishing up RNA extractions from blood in lab. Casper and I took a scenic drive through Malibu and parts of Ventura county. We ate Taco Bell, on account of this being a vendor that (dubiously) has not given us food poisoning. I am currently procrastinating while working on a take-home midterm, which involves a lot of asinine copying down of minute details from a paper about pesticides and Parkinson's disease. About 50% time I've typed Parkinson's today, I've unintentionally not capitalized the "P."

Overall notes - I've been working out. I still hate it, it hasn't gotten easier, and I'm too damn impatient to wait however long until my body starts looking like Alessandra Ambrosio's. (Ok, I'm just playing, I know I don't and won't have her body, but damn, she's had a kid, she's really kicking my ass into the ground here.) Anyway, my plan for the time being is just to utilize the gym to get into decent enough shape to try to start P90x again. By that token, I hear that 30+ minutes of cardio 4-5 days a week is what I should be aiming for, so depending on my mood I divide up that time on the elliptical and the bike, or just sit on the bike. (See? I even exercise lazy. But I still break a sweat, and my legs are definitely feeling it, so it can't be all bad.)

Also, I'm getting better at cooking, though my range is still limited to what I know and what I can afford. But I'm trying to branch out within that restriction, particularly by trying to learn about different vegetarian sides that I can pair with the enormous piles of protein that I'll inevitably want to throw on the plate. As always, I make bomb-ass salads.

Only three more posts left before I've done all 30 days! Ha.

Day 21 — A recipe

So, here's a "recipe" for something I make at least once a week. It changes a lot, depending on what's in the fridge. But the idea is the same. So this version is the one I made this week.

Eggs on Toast (this is going to be such a hard recipe, guys.)
1. Bread. I prefer whole wheat
2. Egg
3. Prosciutto, 1 thinly sliced
4. Tomato, sliced in rounds. About 2 rounds per toast.
5. Avocado, about 4 thin slices per toast.
6. Cheese (right now I'm using Havarti) for melting on the toast.
7. Salt and pepper.

K. So fry your egg, I usually do sunny-side-up or overeasy. While that's going, prepare your toast, then throw your sliced cheese on top and zap it in the microwave for about 10-20 seconds to get the cheese shmelty. Then put the tomatoes on the cheese. Then put the prosciutto slice on the tomatoes. Then, the avocado, and then lastly your fried egg. Add salt and pepper to taste. Yum! This has been my dinner several times since I moved into my place because a) I like it and b) it takes less than 10 minutes. But if you're not a breakfast-for-dinner person like I am, then, uh, try it for breakfast.

Life 2.0

So right smack in the middle of the 30-day blogging challenge, I went through a major life transition: I finally moved out of my parents' house! Yay! As I mentioned before, it was that major move where my old room at home was completely emptied and is now transitioning into a full-use office for my parents (my mom did buy a nice sleeper sofa for me to use if and when I need to stay over.)

So, outside of all of the financial preparations I have made - including setting up a very stringent budget and documenting all of the purchases I make on credit - there's a million other adjustments that I've been working on that have kept me away from the computer a bit, and particularly away from blogging because my energy to actually put out thoughts in plain English has been, well, stunted. That thing about preparing and cooking my own food? Sucks. I've kind of been living on eggs and salad, which hasn't been the worst so far, but I do miss chicken and lamb. I've never broiled anything myself before, and I'm scared to try, screw it up, and waste money because what I've made is too gross for me to want to eat it. So I eat things I know I can make, which is eggs and salad.

There's also the problem of getting used to the way things in the apartment work and how they're different from what I expect at home. For instance, the faucet in our kitchen sink sits at such an angle that thus far I've found it impossible to not get water all over the place (including myself) when I wash dishes. Therefore, washing dishes takes twice as long because I have to turn the water pressure way down, and clean up all of the spills afterward. It's annoying.

And then there are the things that, when we move in, we notice are already broken. My screen in my bedroom window was completely busted, so I am still unable to open my window and get fresh air in my room without letting in all manner of whatever wants to crawl through my window space (humans, bugs, stray cats - you are all NOT WELCOME, sorry.) We have a major ant problem. My roommate's toilet has been running constantly ever since we moved in three weeks ago (I think they are fixing it today?) And on. And on.

But! As evidenced by this post, I'm feeling blogging competent again. And I have some stuff to say, so expect me to pick up where I left off with the challenge, and hopefully get some other posts in here too.