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that is the question...anyone have any votes?
keep in mind, these aren't the best examples of short vs. what i have now. it's a bit longer now than in the picture shown, and has recently taken to looking like ass. and if i went short, it would probably be a bit shorter than shown in this picture...maybe up to my ears?
is there anything good about nine inch nails? maybe only to make me realize how much i appreciate other music. wait, not "other" music, because nine inch nails doesn't make music, just noise. they really seem to serve no purpose other than to irritate me.
sometimes it just seems like one lifetime isn't enough.
failure. that's what most days are in the lab. it's amazing how all of us here aren't on prozac. or maybe everyone is, and i just don't know it.
someone told me today that they were fed up. that they were no longer the same person they were before, how they'd turned into an unhappy, bitter person. it was almost as though i were talking to an incarnation of myself a year or two ago.
the decision to carry on with this career path has been one i've struggled with since i've come. it seems as though the reason i came to this program have all fizzled away in my mind. i used to love chemistry. i thought it was amazing, awe inspiring and beautiful. and now, when i stop to think about it, i really can't figure out what i found so beautiful about it.
grad school has changed me immensely. in some ways i'm a better person. but while i used to always be a glass is half full kind of person, now i kind of look at the glass from every angle and try to figure out whether it really is half full.
i didn't know what to say to this struggling coworker. do i say "yes, quit. find something that will make you happy everyday. or at least something that won't leave you failing all the time." or do i tell her that she came here for a reason, and while that reason is hard to remember now, she may regret leaving her dream behind.
i would say that i've stayed here for lack of other options. it's the easy route, right? i'm already here after all, and theoretically it won't take longer than 5 years. so the easiest thing is just to ride it out.
who knows? maybe i would have been happier finding something else. but you have to make a choice, i guess. and i've made mine...for now.
best of luck to her in her choice. it's different for everyone. i wish i could have given her advice, but since i don't know what the right choices are i didn't have much to offer her. but at least she knows she's not alone. and at least i also know that i'm not alone.
this past weekend, i attended my first ever shWig! party. in celebration of a friend's birthday, we all dressed up in wigs and partied away!
because i worry about everything, i was recently worried that my martha stewart living magazine was either lost in the mail, or my subscription was randomly cancelled. but before my world shattered around me, the magazine arrived safely in my mailbox yesterday. hallelujah!
in preparation for my reading, i set the stage...turned down the lights, got into my pajamas, and cozied under the covers with visions of decoupage and homemade fruit compote. i carefully flipped open the precious pages of my martha and saw the worst. yes, ladies and gentlemen, it wasn't martha in bed with me last nite, it was..."the editors of martha stewart living". instead of the beloved letter from martha was a letter from the editor. she talked about martha lovingly and about how she would have to take time off for her legal matters, but she said that martha's spirit would live on and continue to breathe through the pages of the magazine. although martha wasn't there, she was confident that she would approve of all the changes. WHAT?!?!?! CHANGES?!?!?! there need not be changes. martha was perfect. as a small example, the section titles at the top of each page were now in black instead of light grey. black is just too in your face. the light grey is soothing and speaks to you the way martha's voice would. on top of the little changes, the magazine just sucked. martha would so not approve. i certainly hope they don't deliver magazines to cell block D. i think she would have a heart attack. of course, being martha, she would make it look like having a heart attack was the easiest thing in the world, and maybe you could squeeze it in between your yearly checking of winter clothes for moth holes and creating your very own straw and laurel wreath.
in a stroke of pure stupidity, a couple of my labmates decided to make me think that i had a stalker after me this past weekend. they got away with it pretty well, until i found out the truth this morning. i was looking over my shoulder all weekend, i didn't stay in my house, i locked myself into the office while i was at work, all for nothing. i suppose you can say i'm thankful it was all for nothing. i mean, would i really want it to be real? no, but i didn't particularly need to think it was real for 48 hours.
pranks are funny. but there is a delicate balance between what can be hurtful and scary, and what will bring on a few laughs.
2 more baby birds died. this time before we found them. looks like they tried to fly and just didn't make it. so sad.
previously i mentioned the family at 2219 as consisting of me and my roommate andrea. but the family is much much bigger than that. now granted, we never asked for and don't appreciate any of our other family members, but they live with us, so they are family.
let us look back about 2 1/2 years... (insert wavy dream sequence)
a small pile of twigs appeared on our back porch in the corner. we thought nothing of it and meant to kick it away until we walked up the stairs a few days later and saw a pigeon (also known as a spawn of satan) with a few eggs layed on the pile of twigs. for weeks we ducked the spawn of satan's attempt to poke out our eyes until the babies were raised and looked as though they were about ready to leave the nest. except low and behold, the spawn of satan decided to be efficient and lay more eggs for her babies to keep warm for her. at that point, we'd had enough pigeon shit and near death experiences from bird attacks that we faced the problem head on. andrea grabbed the broom and waved it around while screaming to ward off the mother, and i put plastic bags on my feet and stomped towards the baby pigeons (the noise of the bags scared them to move), i grabbed the eggs and took them to the dumpster. maybe cruel, but we just couldn't handle it anymore.
overlapping this experience was the appearance of the dive-bombing swallows that also took up residence on our porch. needless to say, we tried to take the front stairs whenever possible.
unfortunately, there is much more to the story. read on.
summer came and went and the birds went south or did whatever then do in the winter, and the mice came in.
it started with the brita filter needing changed. i went to our kitchen closet where we keep things we don't use very often, and had a mouse nearly crawl over my hand. a few hours later we had the guts to open the cabinet, only to find mouse crap everywhere, my bag of persian rice eaten through, and napkins ripped to shreds. the traps were layed the maintenance men had come and put poison around the house. and 14, count 'em, 14 mice later we thought we were in the clear.
so there i was sitting in my living room, enjoying a mouse free household when i see one creep out from behind the ficus tree. it just kind of hung out there sitting, even when i got up close. and then it spasmed. and then it spasmed again. for 4 hours. i didn't want to watch, but at the same time, i couldn't let it out of my sight for fear it would die and rot somewhere in my living room. so finally it was time to go to bed and i just couldn't handle it anymore. i swept it up and took it outside.
since then we've had mice on and off and the swallows come back every summer and it hasn't been too too bad, until last nite.
my mother called to let me know that a baby bird had fallen out of the swallow's nest on the back porch. despite the 15 foot fall, he was still breathing. we left him there for a few hours, but in the evening just felt too sorry for him in the cold so we brought him in. he wouldn't open his beak, but we tried to feed him a cracker paste we had made up. the morning found him still alive, so andrea and i deposited him back into the nest. about 15 minutes later the mom pushed him out again. and once again, he survived the fall. not knowing what to do, i called different vet/wildlife facilities. after talking to the people there, i found out that the mom had probably pushed him out to begin with probably because there was something already wrong with him. the man suggested i place the birdie in a wooded area where he could stay part of nature and just become part of the food chain. so we said goodbye to the baby bird out near the baha'i house of worship. very sad.
i hope that this is the end of my menagerie, but i have a sneaking suspicion this story will get even longer. stay tuned.
so i've been found out. i was planning on revealing anyway, because i am a big fan of my birthday, but yesterday was the big day for me. 25 years ago yesterday, i was born. i had a whole mess of celebration starting last week and it was rounded out last nite with some absolutely fabulous lemon cake that my darling roommate andrea made for me.
i have much to blog about, but since i've gotten back, i've been ridiculously busy doing absolutely nothing. i really wonder where the time goes. and i look around, and it truly seems like i've accomplished nothing. blogging is one of those things that i love doing, but often do when i'm trying to put off working. and i haven't been working, so why haven't i been blogging? i've had things to blog about...for instance here is an entry i planned on saturday but was so busy sitting on the couch watching horrible TLC shows that i really didn't want to watch, that i didn't have time to blog about it...
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meisa hates...
meisa HATES getting phone calls at 8:30 on saturday mornings from telemarketers when she is trying to sleep in.
meisa HATES deleting comments from her blog from annoying drug companies. what the hell is tramadol anyway?!?!?
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so last week i spent a day celebrating the big 2-5 with a trip to the rooftop swimming pool of the radisson hotel downtown, salsa dancing at the adler planetarium, and a fancy dinner. then, the birthday celebrations were put on hold while i sucked myself out of the world around me and had no human contact for 48 hours (except for the checkout lady at beadazzled). i watched the miss teen usa pageant (fell asleep, but woke up in time to see miss lousiana won), confessions of a teenage drama queen (quite bad i thought. i was pretty disappointed in lindsay lohan. but it gave me the opportunity to inspect her boobs closely...more on this later) and about 27,119 episodes of trading spaces and while you were out (why isn't there anything on tv when i want to watch!?!?!). and then on sunday andrea came home and my parents came to town to rescue me from these doldrums. we spent my bday down at millenium park (way, way cool) and lounging about the house.
all in all, it's been good. i will be a better blogger soon. but for now, i must go to spend an hour or two with the dad before my mom and i take him to o'hare.
once again, that age old question is raised...if a pair of shoes is supercute, do you still wear them, even though they kill your feet?
my trip consisted of laying on the beach, exploring barcelona, and checking out a few small towns on the coast. things of note:
1--the mediterranean is gorgeous! the water is so clear and beautiful. i am so envious of the people who get to swim in it regularly
2--the plants in southern spain were quite unexpected. i never would have guessed about all the palm trees! and much of the shrubbery was in the cactus family. i even saw a tree that looked like it came out of dr. seuss. (no pics of that one, it was on the side of the highway)
3--i got to meet up with my college roommate, kirsten, who now lives in germany. it was soooo good to see her. although the one night we had together just wasn't enough.
4--while i don't love salvador dali's art, his museum was pretty damn awesome. i've never seen a museum dedicated to an artist while he was still alive, where he could direct how he wanted everything seen. pretty neat.
5--i LOVE paella. i will learn to make it, and all my chicagoland readers will come over and dine. we will have a spanish nite. i'll dress as a matador. anyone willing to be the bull?
it's been a long time since i've been sucked in by a book. i've had some here and there that i've enjoyed, but not one that i could barely put down, wanting to read it so badly, yet wanting to go slow so it would last longer. i finally stumbled upon this sort of new friend last week. i managed to go slow enough that the 530 pages only took 2 days, but, my friends, it could have just as easily been 2 hours.
everyone, and i mean everyone, reading this entry should stop whatever book they are reading and go buy the time traveler's wife by audrey niffenegger. here is the link to buy it now.
i'm not really into science fiction, but i wouldn't really classify this book as such, although it is about a time traveller. i'd say it is more a really unique interesting love story (this does not equal girly). soooooooo good. chicagolanders especially have no excuse not to purchase this book, as it takes place here, and the author makes such mention of lighthouse beach in evanston, lincoln square, lake shore drive, and tons of other places around here. it makes it all the more real and interesting.
shokufeh and mojan especially, please take this advice to heart. i think you would really enjoy it. i know because, shok you are my cousin, and mojan, checking out your latest books read, i think we like similar books.
so i'm back. there were so many times throughout the course of my trip that i thought to myself "hmph, i should blog about that". and i sat there mentally composing my blog entries. and now i can't really remember what i wanted to say. i want to post some pics but there is an activation energy barrier (read: laziness) that i must overcome to get those up. i wanted to tell you all about the street performer i saw in london playing the recorder, or the billboards in barcelona for "I, Robot" but were written in spanish to read "Yo, Robot", or maybe how both hotels i stayed in had shoe horns (my kind of places!). but alas, the activation energy barrier has gotten the best of me again. more detail will come as i get back into the swing of things. for now, i'm still trying to nestle myself back into the lab and my life here. hope the past two weeks treated all of y'all well!