Sick Cycle Carousel

Imagine one of those big, grey trash cans, half filled with used tissues, rotten food, condom boxes, feminine products and food containers. Can you imagine that sickly trash smell? The brown banana peels, white to-go containers, dirty paper towels and who the fuck knows what else. The roomie and I just spent the past hour sifting through the trash located outside of our dorm, receiving curious looks by sketchy boys as we searched for her missing retainer. One little pink retainer in a sea of pure revolting, vile, disgusting, nauseating, foul and just plain nasty rubbish. Despite our efforts, multiple pairs of latex gloves, copious amounts of Glade air freshener, and use of numerous trash cans, we could not find it. The roomie was a real trooper throughout the entire ordeal, literally looking through each paper towel and even turning the trash out onto the pavement for a thorough examination. I'm the squeamish type and lacked gloves, so I mostly was there for moral support and was on Glade duty. The suite was already swept various times; every possible place was explored and re-examined. Sadly, we end the night with little success. The retainer still evades us, but I'm confident that we will find it sooner or later. Tomorrow is a new day! But for now, fuck you retainer.

Ready? OK.

So, it turns out I have a lot more work than I thought. A couple of prelabs and questionable readings turned into large, confusing and time consuming projects. Thus, for the past hour I have been reading about euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Not how I pictured spending my sunny Saturday. How is it that I've had only two days of classes, and I'm behind on the work already? Gah, what a great start to the year. The three straight nights of partying add to that start. In other news, as I was procrastinating and contemplating the nutritional value of honeydew, I discovered a website that has the nutritional facts for virtually every food out there, fast food included. So I paroozed that a bit, and was able to enter in everything I ate today to see what my intake of certain vitamins and such was. And of course, I had way too much sat fat and sodium, and not enough of basically all the vitamins except for C. It's a pretty awesome website, and a very good way of keeping track what I'm putting in my body. In any case, I have got to stop procrastinating and return to my reading before I go out with B tonight. Work work work, then party!

The Way I Feel

To whom it may concern:

You occupied my thoughts for a good month, dominating every daydream and fantasy. I think I really did like you, but now I'm done. It's obvious that you don't really give a damn about me, so I don't have to give a damn about you. There is so much more I could say, but it's really not worth it anymore. That's all I have to say. I'm just letting you know that I'm done with you, and I'm letting you go.

Much love,
Emily

It's Raining Men

Well...not raining men per say, but it's certainly raining something. What a dreary day to return to 'Deis. It's an odd feeling to be thrusted back into the throes of college life. After unpacking for what seemed like forever, there was finally a feeling of settlement. My suitemates and I did ridiculous, typical college things until 2am, after which I was completely exhausted and slept until 11am. So much for the pancake breakfast. Now I have a list of errands to run in the pouring rain, none of which I'm looking forward to. I'm pretty apprehensive about my schedule for the semester, because it is a beast in every sense of the word. I don't know if I'll make it to the end alive. Plus, I want to do all of these other extracurriculars on top of it all, along with socializing with friends and the occasional party. I don't know how I'm going to juggle it all! This is going to be a short post, as the rain is making me lethargic and I don't have much else to say.

Sweet Banana

You know how relationship experts say love in a relationship progresses from wild passionate love to a more relaxed compassionate love? I feel like I just experienced that with my favorite band of all time, Great Caesar. Some may not know them because they're in the local scene, but the majority of them went to my high school and I think I can safely say that I consider some of them to be my friends. Their music is amazing and they're cute to boot. When I first discovered them, it was immediate, intense infatuation. I HAD to go to every show, buy every shirt and CD, make presents for the band members every Christmas, and learn every lyric to every song. I idolized each and every one of them, and every encounter and memory was carefully documented. But as time went on, my love for them changed. It didn't fade, exactly, but transformed into a different type of appreciation. I am no longer the fan girl who obsesses constantly and takes about a million pictures each show, shoving my way up to the very front. Instead, I'm more excited to see the guys again and listen to the lovely music they produce.

This phenomenon of compassionate love vs. passionate love was best exemplified by my little brother's girlfriend, M. Her crazed love obsession with the band and with the guys reminds me a lot of myself when I was her age in her position. At the end of their set, the guitar player threw a guitar pick into the crowd, landing right next to my feet. I bent down to pick it up, and handed it over to M. She was super excited and as giddy as a schoolgirl, while I gave it little regard. Passionate love me would have clung onto that pick for dear life, maybe giving it its own little box in my large box of memories. But compassionate love me recognizes the pick for what it is, and gives it to someone who would appreciate it. I still love the band wholeheartedly, it's just a different kind of love now. I was their #1 fan, and maybe I still am because of our history (four years of history!), but I pass that title onto M, who embodies true #1 fan qualities.

Lisztomania

Today has a weight to it... 


...because it is my last day of work for the summer. But honestly, I'm rejoicing. The lab was completely new and awe-inspiring in the beginning of summer, and I was eager to learn every single last detail I could. But now I find myself in a position where I know the routine and actual lab work is sparse, making my days long and dull. I'll still be working here during the school year, so nothing is really ending except for my paychecks (working in a lab during the school year is "considered part of my education"). 


...because it is my last Massachusetts summer day. I'm heading home in a mere 5 hours, and even though there are technically still five more days of summer until school officially starts, it feels like the end. There have been some pretty great highs, and some pretty shitty lows the past three months. This summer exposed me to an entire new world I'm not quite ready to give up. The thought of schoolwork makes me shiver.


...because of my lack of sleep these past two days, making me a bit loopy and overemotional. I need coffee, stat.


...because I woke up to an empty house. There was no one except movers hauling furniture into the newly occupied apartment downstairs. It's an odd feeling to be the only one in the house when there are four of us sharing the space. My room is also depressingly bare and empty, all of my belongings neatly packed away in the corner, prepped and ready for the move. 


...because I think that my friend is mad at me and I don't know why. Never a good feeling.


Everything comes to an end. So it goes.


"Those were vile people in both those cities, as is well known. The world was better off without them. And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes." - Vonnegut

A Dustland Fairytale

Boredom has taken over my life. Things that I have accomplished with my boredom:

- watched seasons 2 and 3 of Bones
- watched season 1 of Archer
- baked a brown sugar berry cobbler
- organized the shit out of the lab
- learned how to play Captain Falcon on Super Smash Bros 64
- scouted out the sketchiest place to eat lunch in the SCC
- attempted to learn how to play the guitar
- made my own capo
- played every mini game on Mario Party 3
- even attempted Tony Hawk Pro Skater (it didn't go so well)
- began packing for home
- watched videos of kid prodigies on YouTube
- completed all of the interesting quizzes on Sporcle
- read the majority of articles on Digg
- installed ChemBioDraw on my computer
- put all my classes into my calendar for the school year
- called my mother multiple times
- did all of my laundry, including towels, sheets and rug

All pretty much in the span of the last 3 days. SAVE ME.

Mouth Erratic

My weekend in 100 words or less:

walking. biking. busing. canoeing. automatic ketchup dispenser. inside, outside, inside outside - playing with a 3 year old. waking up too early. cream cheese-ing my bagel. sleeping. lack of sleep. storytelling at Boloco. I can't tell stories. attached. whore doubts. party invitation planning. learning at Urban Outfitters. shopping. eating. finding the elusive Steve's. exhaustion. hacking. dome crawling. meeting new faces. making new faces familiar faces. bonding with a Canadian. fretting with B. frustrating breech of trust. awkward meetings. standing on the street corner. not under a red light. so goddamn attached. Facebook stalking. drinking copious amounts. of water. confusion. contemplation.

Kryptonite

Today is the kind of day where I let nothing stand in my way. The recipe that I found for dinner - Chinese Lemon Chicken was no exception. Yes, so I may have almost burned down the house from decimating the frying oil and yes, I almost cooked my chicken in the microwave at a last ditch attempt to defrost it, and yes, I mistakenly drowned my Basmati brown rice in copious amounts of water, but in the end I had a super scrumptious dinner! Let's go through the highlights. The recipe calls for deep-frying the chicken cubes in corn oil. Since I had barely any corn oil left, I used canola oil and put the stove on high. Bad idea. After a couple of minutes heating the oil I decided to do a test piece, dredging the cube in some cornstarch before plopping in the pot. The chicken came out a nice crusty golden brown, so I plopped four more pieces into the pot and waited. Unfortunately, the oil kept getting hotter and hotter so soon I was burning the bejeezus off my poor unsuspecting chicken cubes. Smoke filling the kitchen quickly followed. I quickly opened every single window and fanned the smoke away from the....smoke detector? Oh wait, there wasn't one. Such a safe house, right? So then I said, well fuck it, and proceeded to stir fry my cubes of joy, making a nice pan sauce from the leftover oil. And it came out amazing. Granted the sauce is a bit funky, but I'm not complaining. So to every unwanted thought, difficult pain in the ass chemical reaction, sketchy unseen lunchmate, and early morning roof bangers today I say, fuck you. Not in a mean, go to hell kind of way, but in a hah you are not going to get the best of this girl, kind of way.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

There is something ominous about an empty lab in the morning. The low hum of the hoods accompanied by the still air is paradoxical. The sound of doors opening and closing can be heard, but no one is to be seen. What's even worse is that I'm stuck here in this unsettling place eating my breakfast so goddamn early in the morning because there are contractors working on the apartment. I even had to bring my tooth brush and everything since they are redoing the bathroom, just my luck. But if you have ever experienced the feeling of being the only one in a dark lab, I'm warning you there are worse things. Like living on the top floor of an apartment while workers bang on the roof literally directly over your head. Nothing like the unlocatable sounds of hammers to make a person paranoid. At one point, I was certain there was someone walking around in my room and I had to force my eyes open to check. Luckily for me, the contractors were late so instead of starting the work at 6:30, they started at 8:00. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if they came that early - usually I'm a pretty deep sleeper so I thought I would be able to sleep through it, but it's literally like they are banging on your head. Not a fan. Well, I'm off to go brush my teeth and what not and start my day - it feels like I'm living at the lab.

Maybe

Oh how sucky my life is. I'm currently sitting at work with stuff to do, but really just not doing it. In my defense, it's not completely because of my lack of motivation. There are questions that I need to ask my postdoc, but she's not here. I could go track her down, but that requires too much work and I'm sitting here feeling shittastic, so I think I'll just revel in my self pity for just a while longer.

The ex and I had another long drawn out conversation last night that made me want to go drown myself in a sea of alcohol. The conversation involved bringing up old memories and old arguments. I don't even remember what we were originally talking about but one thing lead to another and lo and behold, I'm bawling my eyes out. Whoopdeedoo. Because of this whole debacle and other things that happened this past weekend, I've begun to question my character. Hence the self-pity. I just read a book recently that has a good quote about situations like this:

"The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously."

Whenever I'm feeling especially down, I like to treat myself to a self-indulgence day where I just mope around the house, eat junk food and watch bad TV. Maybe blog about all the woes in my life. But I make sure that I confine it to just that day, and the next day I have to stop thinking about all the oh so terrible things in my life and go on with my life. That way, I can get all of the depressed thoughts out of my head and just move on. Throughout this summer I've learned a lot about letting things go and moving on. And now hopefully, I can do just that.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Today was quite a lazy Sunday. Woke up late, ate some leftover Thai food, and zoned out to some Super Smash Bros. 64. The highlight was definitely making some awesome strawberry oatmeal scones. I found the recipe online, and besides substituting buttermilk with skim milk (not a nutritional choice, just a budgetary one) spilling more than "just a pinch" of salt into the mixing bowl, and using some questionable flour found in the cabinet, the process went rather smoothly. I cut the butter into the dry ingredients (an intense arm workout, let me tell you) and added the eggs, milk and strawberries to make a sticky, sweet biscuit smelling dough that I shaped into a disc and cut into wedges. My beautiful creations made their way onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets and into a blazing hot oven where they puffed up to perfection. The recipe suggests letting them cool for 10 minutes before serving, but obviously I couldn't wait that long and snagged one off the sheet for a taste. They're not half bad. They're light and tender on the inside, though to me they tasted like biscuits with bits of strawberry in it. Too much salt. Sigh. But I do have to say, between baking these scones and my recent cookie baking bonanza (100+ cookies, 3 different types, 4 hours of baking) my baking skills have improved! Next on the list - blueberry and marscapone turnovers!

Frank

Urgh, so my mother called me at work today and we gossiped about the Bachelorette and So You Think You Can Dance. It's honestly the majority of what we talk about these days. And of couse we talked about Ali's final decision - Roberto! I'm really happy that Ali found love on the show, it was suspenful to the very end and I really want sure if she would find someone. But I couldn't help bit wonder what would hve happened if Frank went to go see Nicole and decided that he didn't love her and stayed on the show. I don't know what they are like in real life, so I'm not one to judge but I kind of hate Nicole for Frank leaving. I thought he and Ali had so much chemistry and they were really cute together, minus Frank's growing jealousy halfway through the season. And I think that he was a good guy for what he did. There were some unresolved feelings and he didn't want to commit to Ali before he sorted everything out an I think that's really brave and admiral. My mother on the other hand likened him to Justin - mr. Rated R - and claimed there were all these signs of Frank's infidelity and she doesn't think he is a good guy or a good match for Ali.

While absentmindedly reading tabloid headlines at the supermarket, I learned about Frank's betrayal and I was appalled. Frank was definitely one of my favorites on the show since the very beginning and I wanted him to go all the way. My diagreement on this issue with my mother really highlights the differences in our view of oter people. I still Frank is a good guy and did what he needed to do, no matter how heartbreaking while mother paints him as a bad guy and is glad he didn't advance further.

It was this Frank Debate that mad me realize how different we really are, and it also helped me understand why she was so adverse to my ex. We had huge fights over his character and my relationship with him - she was dead set against it and thought he was a bad influence and not good enough for me. I acknowledged his flaws bit saw all the good qualities and thought my mother was being extremely unreasonable. The question is, who's right? I tend to see the good in people and downplay the bad and believe that most people are inherently good while my mom tends to rake a more pessimistic view of people and it takes a lot for someone to win her trust. Is she being too severe on people or am I being too idealistic and naive?

What a Wonderful Day for Daydream

Despite the heavy heat, today was a glorious day. Everything made me smile, and I was as giddy as a schoolgirl. From talking to old friends to stealing a boxed lunch from some Jewish camp event at the campus center, I could not wipe the silly grin off my face. After such a hectic weekend, today was just what I needed. I spaced out at work, daydreaming about concerts and cute faces. And even though I was so utterly exhausted, I did some serious working out at the strangely empty gym before hiking to Hannaford's for some much needed food. Dinner was deliciously simple - chicken and cheese ravioli in alfredo sauce. And now I've created this blog! It's the little things in life that I've forgotten to appreciate. This past weekend was such a blur of faces, places and events I barely had time to think. Every night someone was sleeping on my futon - I started to feel like a cheap motel - and work was actually piling up on me at the lab, threatening to drown me in a sea of toxic chemicals. But today reminded me of those small pleasures in life, and how enjoyable they can be. One email, a stolen turkey wrap and easy dinner was all it took to take this day from drab to fabulous.