10 days left at the University! Let the countdown begin!
Boy, I have got my work cut out for me for these next 10 workdays. I probably shouldn’t even be blogging, but my brain doesn’t get in work mode until 9am. That leaves me an hour to goof off and guzzle my coffee like it’s going [...]
So. I turned in my formal letter of resignation to my boss this morning. There’s something I’ve never done before. I can tell I’m ready to leave: I feel no emotional ties to this job anymore. I simply handed him the letter, told him I was leaving, and that was that. [...]
Second post in one day? Oh yes. And I have a good reason for it, too: I got the job at the internet! A round of cyberbeers for everyone, courtesy of me!
[Still no word on the job. I'm not surprised, though. I'm starting to wonder exactly what kind of management I'd be under at The Company because the guy who'd be my boss (same guy who interviewed me) is starting to seem like a flake. Did I tell you about how he left me waiting for [...]
So I have to say I was floored by the response I got to that last post. I just figured la, la, la, here are some thoughts, maybe people will read them, maybe not, and I’ll be on my merry way. And even before I got any responses from anyone, I immediately felt about 100 [...]
So I’m going out on a limb by posting this. It kind of makes me nervous to write about this (I am literally shaking now that I’m done editing and about to hit the “publish” button), and I may take it down shortly after posting it. I thought about disabling comments, but that [...]
I keep meaning to post pictures of some of the knitting projects I’ve done in the past couple of months, but I keep forgetting. And now my computer is at home (where the pictures are), and I’m here at work. I do have a few pictures on hand of what I’m working on now. Here [...]
I have done absolutely nothing productive today. Mostly I am sitting around daydreaming about cheese-covered tatertots and pints of Harp (which is how we will be celebrating my friend’s birthday tonight). If you have never had the cheesy tots at The Highlander, you are sorely missing out. They are cheesy and greasy and piled high [...]
Since I seem to be on a random thoughts kick the past few days, here are some more–straight from the ol’ melon:
In the process of buying a car, I found out my credit score. We knew my credit was better than Josh’s, so my name had to go down as purchaser of the car (to [...]
Believe it or not, I actually have lots of things to write about today. I can’t promise that any of those things are interesting, but at least it will give you something to read about for maybe 10 minutes. Depending on how fast you read.
Thursday and Friday were a nice reprieve from the normal I-want-to-stab-my-eyes-out-with-a-pencil [...]
I might die this week. Josh and I have two cars. One is my trusty little Ford Escort, the other is his Jeep Cherokee thing. Josh has some training thing out in the ‘burbs this week, and since he has to leave the city, he gets the more reliable car: the Escort. I get the [...]
I am getting pretty good at channeling my job unhappiness into applying for new jobs. I’ve already applied for one today–a customer support engineer position with some HPLC company I’ve never heard of. I was spurred to it by someone ganking my roto-vap when I wasn’t looking. Grr.
Anyway, I’ve been on a Regina Spektor kick [...]
I believe I mentioned recently that my work email address is very similar to one of the intro biology TA’s address. I keep getting misguided emails from the students, and normally I just say, “I am not your TA. His email address is ____.” Today I felt like being a little more creative:
Subject: Bio 2108 [...]
So my knitting friends are definitely familiar with the Stitch ‘n Bitch books. For the uninitiated, these books are somewhat responsible for the revival of the knitting craze in twenty-somethings. I own one of the books and also the page-a-day calendar. The books have great tips and whatnot, but I’m not a [...]
Last Sunday, I went to a baby shower for my friend Jenna. She’s having a baby in April. I volunteered to cook for the shower. When I volunteered, I thought there were only a few people coming, but in the end I was told to plan for 30. I’ve never cooked for that many people [...]
It’s too bad I didn’t win the lottery last night–one of the winning tickets was even sold in GA. I can think of a lot of useful things I could do with $355 million.
So I left work early yesterday because I was feeling particularly pathetic and lame. I’ve come to realize that my current job [...]
Currently, I am resisting the urge to rant about my job for the 1223576th time. Lucky for you I made the resolution to complain less. I need something to return me to a zen-like state when I discover that a co-worker–hypothetically, of course–has gone through my stuff over the weekend and made off with one [...]
Sometimes my job is bad. Sometimes it is good. And let me tell you, when it is good, it is very, very good.
When I was a grad student, I made a goal in life: to one day find a novel compound and get to name it. In fact, I wanted to establish a whole class [...]
Here’s an interesting website that you can use to waste time. It’s a site that lets you go back in time and see what your favorite websites used to look like. I spent some time perusing the September 11th archived sites from CNN.com and the like. Interesting, but creepy. Really creepy. So creepy, in fact, [...]
[A sad way to start the morning: ordering cheese grits then discovering there is no cheese in the grits when you get to your office. A bland breakfast for what will probably be an equally bland day.]
You see, I have been doing a lot of HPLC lately. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (in case you care) [...]
We upgraded our fish tank yet again. But before I show you what we did with it, here is a summary of the pre-upgrade dynamics in the tank:
We have one big male opaline gourami who has established himself as Boss of the Gouramis. He cannot stand any of his brethren to be near [...]
I was surfing the web tonight and looking at knitting stuff when I came across the most awesome picture in the entire world. This, my friends, is an Angora rabbit.
I can’t stop laughing. Three cheers for Wikipedia. If you would like to see more Angoras, you can go here.
This article–written by a scientist for scientists–may interest some of you. It’s a little on the pessimistic side, but I’d have to say it sums up EXACTLY my feelings/thoughts about why science is not a feasible career for everyone.
A few lines I particularly enjoyed:
“Young Americans have generally woken up to the bad prospects and absence [...]
No time to write, so this one goes out to my crabs. You know, the blue ones who live in tanks that I do experiments on. Maybe you should go read the previous entry if you are confused.
The most exciting thing to happen so far today is that our ceiling here in the lab is leaking. The ceiling tile from where the leak originates is bulging from all the water. I am watching it like a hawk because when it finally gives, it should be a good show. It is awfully close [...]
Mom had her surgery today. Her ovaries were (presumably) unceremoniously plucked from her abdomen and tossed in the garbage (or wherever they put body parts after they take them out). Luckily, the things growing in her insides were not cancerous tumors but rather mucus-producing adenomas. I tried to find some links for [...]
Yeah, so I deleted a post I made here a little while ago because it was me being in a grumpy mood. And if you’re wondering, yes, I sent the undergrad her assignment. Honestly, I did it mostly because I felt guilty, not because I felt like being a “butterfly” or whatever. Say what you [...]
I’ve often wondered if my job will one day cause me health problems. Especially when I do something dumb in the lab, like what I just did 10 minutes ago.
I was drying down a sample that was in solution in deuterated pyridine:1
There’s a pyridine molecule for you, looking all cute and cuddly and ringy, right? [...]
We upgraded our fish tank again:
We bought two Leporinus fish, or “stripeys” as I call them. They like to hang out together, and sometimes they’ll swim vertically (Google tells me this is common for this species). We also bought four opaline gouramis. They like to swim around at the top, and they’re all shimmery and [...]
7:20am: Purchased sausage-egg-cheese croissant and very large coffee from Heavenly Cafe.7:30am: Arrived in the lab, caught up on my daily blog reading.8:00am: My “boss” arrived an hour earlier than usual; I groaned internally at not having the extra hour to slack off.8:30am: Got the FPLC started on cranking out some samples.9:30am: Discovered I needed to [...]
With the anniversary of my trip to the Far Side of the World (that would be New Zealand and Australia) last Friday, I’ve been so terribly nostalgic the past few days. My “1000 Places to See Before You Die” calendar featured Marlborough Sound in NZ yesterday, and even though I didn’t make it to the [...]
Today is looking to be an exciting day. I have been instructed to read and study a 30-page booklet entitled, “Basic Principles of Pulse Fourier Transform NMR.” Seriously. Thirty pages of page-turning formulas and theories regarding nuclear magnetic resonance And then after I study it, I get tested on it. And THEN, if I pass [...]
It’s 7:57am, and I’m at work. Can you believe it? I’m having to be a morning person by proxy: Josh has an 8am class this semester. That means I have to get to work before 8am. I really need a freaking parking pass already. Anyway, I have (loudly) voiced my disgust over being pried out [...]
You know what I like? Linear tetrapyrroles, that’s what.
That’s bilirubin. It’s in your blood, in the hemoglobin. I don’t really know what it does. I just wanted a nice picture of a linear tetrapyrrole. You might be asking yourself at this point why I have this sudden fascination with linear tetrapyrroles. Here is my response:
Saying [...]
So I subscribe to the GSU weekly crime report email because with so many nutcases and druggies in this area, there’s always something amusing/crazy going on. Remember the car accident I told you about yesterday?
1/2/07Decatur St.07-0003 Officer arrests a non-GSU individual for Hit and Run. At 11:40 am the [...]
I swear, coming back to work after a week of being off is about the hardest thing I’ve had to do in awhile. My brain is in a total fog. Yesterday was my first day back after the holidays, and I spent my first hour in the lab trying to figure out just what the [...]
So Christmas was good. Very grown-up this year. Now that I’m married, both of my families have decided to do the joint present thing–meaning any presents Josh and/or I received were really for both of us. Everyone gave us things we needed, which is good because we, well, needed those things. And the gifts we [...]
Reason #34346 why it’s better to be ITP than OTP: Coffee shops in Gwinnett county close at 9pm, as Jenna and I discovered last night when we arrived at 9 at a certain worldwide coffee chain franchise that rhymes with “Car Ducks” and the barista let us purchase what was probably a total of $10 [...]
I borrowed this from All & Sundry’s blog archives (link to the right) who borrowed it from someone else’s blog who probably borrowed it from someone else’s blog. These things spread like viruses. Since I haven’t got much else to write about today, I will indulge my inner teen and, like, tOtalLy dO a qUIzz!!1! [...]
Last week, I went to have dinner with my pseudo-boss from the Oz/NZ trip and several of his co-workers and friends. Our goal was to teach him how to knit. I hopped into my car after work and quickly discovered that I had a flat tire. So Saturday I was lucky enough to purchase two [...]
[Oooh, check it out--third day in a row of posting! I told you I'd keep up with the "posting more often" thing.]
I feel like I need to pass on some things that have made me happy lately so that perhaps they may make you happy, too. So here are some reviews. And links, too, if [...]
I haven’t been so frequent in my posting lately–sorry about that. I’ve been in sort of a morale slump lately, and I knew if I started writing on here, that would all come out. And it would probably make me sound more pathetic and whiny than I actually am. The “morale slump” has come mostly [...]
So last night, on my 25 and 1/2 birthday AND the day which marks Josh’s and my fifth year of togetherness, my sister-in-law gave birth to twin boys: Graysen and Riley. Meaning I’m an aunt twice over! So very exciting. Hopefully we will get to go see them this weekend if they’re [...]
Wish I had time to write a real post, but since I don’t and I have to keep you entertained so you keep coming back here, I have provided a video to keep you occupied until I can write more:
Ok Go – Here It Goes Again
Best. Video. Ever. And their album is pretty good, too.
This entry’s for my knitting friends:
I have discovered the Knitter’s Geek Code. Thus, I give you my knitting identity, in code.
KER++ Exp(+) SPM+ Boye+++ Wood+ Steel– Pl– Syn– !Nov Cot Wool++ Lux Stash++ Scale+ Fin+ Ent– Int? !Felt Tex+High-fives to anyone who can figure it out…and even more high-fives if you post me a [...]
I just got married. AND I just made dinner reservations under my new name.
I am so happy. Heeeeee!
(See you all after the honeymoon!)
[I would first like to say that my new lab is cool. Why? Because at our 9am meeting, my boss brought in a bottle of rum, and we all did shots to celebrate various good things that had happened in the lab (e.g. acceptance of a paper, etc.). Oh, yes: 9am. And do you know [...]
My previous entry is one of probably 3 entries spotlighting the fauna of Decatur Street. I plan on continuing them soon. Stay tuned for upcoming stories on an iguana and some fiesty crabs. But for now, I feel the need to post a few snippets of things that make me happy, excited, or otherwise moved [...]
There is an aquarium in the lab in which I spend most of my time. In this fishtank lives one fish. Its name is Sandy. Sandy is possibly the smallest fish in the world and definitely on the list of the top 50 cutest. Sandy is a dwarf pufferfish.
Up until I started working here, the [...]
In between injecting crap into the HPLC and blowing my nose (I have the mother of all colds), I have spent my day perusing this blog:
blog.tenderbutton.com
Thanks to Tracey for alerting me to this amusing chemophile’s blog. A lot of it is over my head since he’s a synthetic chemist, but I can appreciate entries like [...]
Rest in Peace, Steve.
So some of the habits of my new lab are a little, well, disturbing.
They have a coffee maker (with which they routinely make jet-fuel-tasting coffee)…sitting on the lab bench…next to HPLCs and all other manners of solvent-related equipment. Coffee laced with methanol. Mmm.
EVERYTHING when I got here was broken (or so it seemed). The roto-vap [...]
Day 1: Was handed an empty column, a bottle of chromatography powder, and a beaker of sea hare ink and told to run a column. Hurrah! Something I could do. It made me feel very smart to be able to say, “Sure thing,” and not need someone to hold my hand.
Day 2: The post-doc I’m [...]
One of the things I enjoy about knitting is that it becomes more fun in the company of other people. To celebrate the ending of my freedom (yes, the ending of my freedom) and reentry into the workforce, I went to visit my good friend Jenna in Athens. We met for dinner, then retreated to [...]
Several exciting things happened today. Here they are, in no particular order:
(1) I discovered Lite Cool-Whip tastes just as good as the regular stuff.(2) I pulled off an sizeable healthy meal for myself and my parents.(3) I got a job.
The meal consisted of lemon-rosemary tilapia (a recipe I concocted myself) baked in a little foil [...]
Incident the First: Friday night. I’m taking a shower because I was gross and smelly from helping my friend Tracey move all day. I get done shampooing my hair and glance down at my engagement ring. To my absolute horror, the diamond is completely gone. I immediately have a heart attack, switch off the water, [...]
First: Have any of you seen the new Geico commerical with Charo in it? Holy crap, it cracks me up.
Second (for my knitting friends): I just stumbled across the DiY network’s knitting show. It’s actually quite interesting, and I think it’s useful to actually watch someone DO these techniques (as opposed to scrutinizing drawings in [...]
So I’ve moved back into my parents’ house. I’ve been trying to come up with good things about being 25, broke, and living at home:
(1) No rent to pay.(2) Free food.(3) Access to free exercise equipment (in our basement) so I can work off the 15 lbs I gained in grad school.(4) Free food.(5) Mom [...]
Because of a brief disappearance of my contraband wireless internet (hey, it’s not my fault my neighbors don’t secure their wireless networks), I’ve not posted anything since last week. Now the *ahem* free internet has returned, and I have many recent occurrences that need to be written about. These include a job interview at the [...]
So I recently updated my Blogger profile (over there on the right–you can read the whole version if you click on it), and reupdated my “random question.” The random question is generated–randomly, of course–by Blogger. My previous random question was “That can’t be a fish you’re standing on, can it?” which was pretty relevant, considering [...]
[First, I just have to tell you I had another job interview today down at Georgia State. It went well, I think. The people were nice and the research was interesting. However, it didn't pay much and I'm vastly overqualified for it. But guess what I would be doing if I got the job? Cracking [...]
So I’m going to try to refrain from more whiny, I-don’t-have-a-job posts. Those kinds of posts don’t earn readers. Instead I’ve hit upon a more reader-friendly, entertaining method of posting. I promised you more stories from my trip, right? So instead of just boringly regaling you with tales, I’ll post a picture and then boringly [...]
I didn’t get the job at Emory, and I still haven’t heard back from any of the other jobs I’ve applied for. So in an effort to not become utterly despondant, I’ve started knitting again since that helped me maintain my sanity in NZ/AU.
After I finished my sweater in AU, with my leftover yarn I [...]
“There were so many fewer questions when stars were still just the holes to heaven.” –Jack Johnson, “Holes to Heaven”[Remind me later to write my thoughts on the American coffee shop. I thought of them just now, and I think they're worthy of writing down. But later.]
I do my best work under the influence of [...]
[I am working on getting all of my pictures uploaded somewhere so those of you from out of town can see them. Will post a link here eventually, so check back often.]
After about 24 hours worth of traveling, here I am back in Atlanta. Highlights of the trip back include: TVs in the backs of [...]
[My title came from this poem.]This is my last post from Down Under and my last post of my trip (but never fear–I’m not demolishing this blog…the posts will just be a lot less interesting and frequent from now on). My plane leaves early tomorrow morning. April 1st looks like this for me:
Depart BrisbaneFly to [...]
So I was going to continue my Adventurs in Cairns, but I’m tired of writing such long entries, so I will sum up my last day in Cairns for you:
Rented a car. Drove as far up the coast as I could get before dark. Drove back down the coast because nothing was open because of [...]
First of all, good luck to my friends (who may or may not be reading this) who have defenses this week or are finishing up their theses. I’m sending good luck brainwaves across the Pacific for you.
Second of all, I finally finished the sweater I’ve been working on for most of the trip. Check it [...]
Before I start in on chapter 2 of the Great Cairns Adventure, I would just like to make a general observation. Here it is:
Do you know what I’m finding? I’m finding that the transition between school and job is a lot harder than I expected it to be. The uncertainty of everything is throwing me [...]
So I was offered a job the other day: to do the same thing I’m doing now but in Europe this summer.
I turned it down. It was the grown-up thing to do. No details now, but it was a hard decision to make.
————————————-
I’m going to have to split the stories from last weekend into multiple [...]
After 72 hours on the GBR, 5 days in Cairns, and 1 cyclone later, I’ve made it back to Brisbane in one piece. Too pooped to write now, but suffice to say it was a very strange long weekend. Thanks to those of you who were worried about me and emailed/commented.
(By the way, the link [...]
I’m in Cairns at the moment, having just finished my liveaboard dive trip on the reef. See if you can find Cairns on this map:
Where is Melissa now?
Couldn’t get a flight out, so I’ll be battening down the hatches and riding this out…
Schedule for the day:
7:30am: Depart for the Australia Zoo (the one the Crocodile Hunter runs)Between 9am and 1:30pm: Have picture taken with Harriet, a Galapagos tortoise that Darwin personally collected (in other words, a freaking old turtle)3pm: Arrive back in Brisbane5pm: Depart for Cairns
What’s Cairns, you ask? Only the port for all the liveaboards that [...]
I keep trying to figure out why I think Brisbane is vastly superior to Sydney. Maybe because it’s less cramped. I dunno. And oddly enough, it sort of reminds me of Key Largo (but much bigger, fewer rednecks, and a river instead of the ocean). It’s got a tropical feel to it, much like Florida. [...]
So here I am in Brisbane. Three weeks left. New boss is here. Not sure how he’ll be compared to my other boss.
There’s an awesome BBC show on TV right now about bees and wasps and other eusocial insects. Right now they are showing wood ants that can squirt formic acid out of their abdomens. [...]
1 more day of Sydney left, then it’s off to Brisbane for me. And then 3 weeks, and then I’m home again. Here are the travel phases that I’ve encountered:
1. Euphoria. That “Woooo, I’m in [insert exotic location]!” feeling.2. Homesickness. Wanting your own bed and to see your cat.3. Perpetual nomadism. Feeling like you’ve always [...]
Wanna hear (read) something funny?
The study abroad program has offered me this same job for next year. Apparently my photocopying skillz are bloody brilliant.
I find it hugely ironic that here I am, being offered another expense-paid trip to the South Pacific, and I’ll most likely turn it down (unless I’m dirt-poor and jobless this time [...]
You ever have one of those days where you just feel like a 16th century Chinese empress? I have those days all the time. Take yesterday, for example (see pic at left). It just so happens that you can channel your inner empress or emperor at the Sydney Chinese Garden of Friendship. They loan you [...]
Meet Trevor’s successor, the Creative Zen Microphoto (haven’t come up with a name for him yet).
He’s smaller than Trevor in size and capacity, but he can do photos and other cool tricks Trevor the iPod could never do. He holds 8GB of stuff. The one I got is a white and shimmery (the Aussie who [...]
While in a convenient store this morning, I came across this:
I bet they vastly improve one’s ability to endure extended hours staring at a squiggly line on a computer screen and catching solvent in tiny vials. If only I’d found them six months ago.
A few of my students invited me to go diving with them on Friday. Nice guys, but a little on the Neanderthal-guy side. E.g. communicating in monosyllables, getting pissy when a girl (me) tried to offer better driving directions than the PDA with attached GPS, that sort of thing. We went down to Jervis Bay [...]
Greetings from Oz.
It’s hot here. Really hot. And humid. And smoggy. Hmm, that sounds familiar…
Haven’t seen much of Sydney yet, so I can’t really report on anything cool yet. The hotel is in Chinatown, so I have this feeling I’ll be eating piles and piles of noodles for the next 3 weeks. I now have [...]
For my last post before leaving NZ and heading to Australia, I leave you with these studentisms (and they were sober when they said these things):
Written on a student’s notebook: “Hangovers in class: 4 [tally marks]“
One student’s question to the Maori leader at the welcoming ceremony we went to: “Do the Maori ever, like, go [...]
Guess what? Paper #2 (the rotifer one) got accepted to Marine Biology sometime around Christmas. So even though I’m fairly far down the authors list, I’m thinking that having a paper in Marine Biology makes a person an official marine biologist. I want business cards now. I just need to get off my lazy bum [...]
One of my kids popped his head in my room tonight as I was sitting around knitting on the sweater I’m making.
“Hey Melissa, do you have a stain [remover] stick?”“Hmm. Nope.”“Darn. I figured you were the one person who would definitely have one.”
And then, slowly, a wave of horror passed over me as I realized [...]
Flashback to Saturday of last weekend.
D-day, as in “dive day.” I had joined a local dive shop’s dive club (“The Frog Divers”), and they go diving every Saturday morning. I showed up a little early and was promptly told by the shopowner to stay out of his way until dive time (in more or less [...]
First of all, Alex, you have an identical voice twin who works at an auto parts shop in Wellington. I don’t know if he looks identical to you or not since I only talked to him on the phone. It was weird, dude–I think you may have a good twin.
Second of all, I went snorkeling [...]
3. I have an irrational fear of elevators. (Confused? Clickhere.)
One of my aunts gave me a $15 iTunes gift card for Christmas. Here’s what I bought:
“Jenny Says,” Cowboy Mouth
“Love of My Life,” Cowboy Mouth
“Summertime,” The Sundays
“Your Eyes,” The Sundays
“Wild Horses,” The Sundays
“Time After Time,” Sparklemotion (from the “Napoleon Dynamite” soundtrack)
“In Space,” Royksopp
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” [...]
So I was looking around to see what there is to do in Wellington, since I will probably be required to hang around the city for a lot of my weekends. Turns out there’s a good bit of diving around there. In fact, just last month they sank a big frigate right off the coast. [...]
Important life lesson #4523: Don’t mix liquors. It won’t end well.
Actually, I managed to not vomit, but man, did I ever feel like it. My fiance rounded up my friends and had a graduation party for me. It was an absolute blast. It was good to see friends I haven’t seen in awhile, all in [...]
Hmm. I’ve not been updating this regularly. Sorry–I know you all hang on my every written word about my incredibly exciting life.
So I defended my thesis and passed. Not so surprising. I would’ve known if I wasn’t ready or hadn’t done enough to satisfy the requirements. I spent Thanksgiving with Josh’s family in Augusta, where [...]
Ladies and gentlemen, I have officially earned a Master’s of Science in applied biology.
I now have two options as to how I should spend the rest of the day:
1) Sleeping.2) Drinking.
Maybe I can work it out to do both…
I just looked at my online bank statement.
My net worth is $16.78. At least I paid off my credit card, though.
Ramen noodles, anyone?
…squeeze the juice out of them and then put it in a squirt gun and shoot other people in the eyes.
Two things of interest just happened in the last 5 minutes:
1) I finished the 95% final draft of my thesis and sent it off to my committee. Final page count: 42 (but that includes references [...]
Here’s an update on my thesis writing:
Money spent on copies of obscure scientific articles: ~$20Number of said articles I’ve collected: Roughly 150Hours spent in the GT library: 8 hours a day for the past week and a half plus about 5 hours on Sat. and Sun. Whatever that adds up to.Ounces of coffee consumed: Too [...]
I found out on Monday that my TA boss died over the weekend. I’m completely shocked and also pretty sad about it. He always stuck up for me and tried to help me out with my workload, etc. He was a jerk a lot of the time, but he really cared about the students. No [...]
There’s just one thing I want to know: why is it that I can’t drink coffee without spilling it all over myself? Why?!
