Green Chemistry

TNT

2011-07-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

I used to have this awesome class in middle school called TNT, which stood for "Think New Thoughts, Try New Things." I just feel like that's a good title for this entry, which is mostly about all the new thoughts and new things that seem to be exploding into my life right now.

1. I shot a gun for the first time last weekend. Actually, I shot three of them. I was terrified at first, but after a few tries I started to really like it. Turns out I'm a pretty decent shot, so keep that in mind next time you decide to challenge me to a western-style shoot-out.

2. I rode a horse for the first time on Thursday. Also, terrified at first, but liked it by the end. It was kind of comedic that after about five minutes on the trail the guide told me I wasn't kicking my horse hard enough because he wasn't keeping up, and so I kicked him a little harder. It must have startled him, because he reared back and started galloping up the trail. I thought I would die. Don't worry, though; I still had a death grip on the saddle horn, so there was no way in heck he was getting me out of the saddle. Hearing the commotion, the guide turned back and asked what was wrong, and when I told her, she said, "He's never done that before..." I believe her, too, because the rest of the trail I kicked him just as hard and he mostly just ignored me, and sometimes shook his head and snorted when I tried to get him to go. I was sore for three days afterwards from kicking him for a solid hour. (The horse in the picture was not the horse I rode. The one I rode was about twice that size haha)

3. I spent Thursday through Saturday this last week in Park City. It was the perfect blend of alone time and social time. It was the perfect blend of quiet time and excitement. In short, it was the best vacation I could have possibly taken right now. I really needed to be away from Provo and get a break from my routine, and the slow pace up there really did the trick.

4. I got my hair cut. There is something about a major change in appearance that makes you feel like a brand new person.

5. I don't know if it was being outside of the desolation of Provo or my new coif, but I got several compliments from strangers on how I looked during my mini-vacation. One of the best ones was the guy taking my order for breakfast on Saturday calling one of his friends from the back to come to the counter and look at how beautiful I was. Pretty sure I blushed all morning after that.

6. I am overhauling the way I treat my body, as of yesterday. Today marked Day 2 of South Beach Diet, Phase I. Twelve more days to go, and I'll get to move on to Phase II. I just decided that since my mom has had a lot of success with it, and I am on my way to having the same health problems she had (type 2 diabetes and high risk for heart disease), I needed to do it too. It seems like just the plan I needed to finally teach myself how to eat in a way that benefits my health. Hopefully I will be as successful as my mom has been!

Those seem like the major things right now. I just feel like I'm finally on my way to the life I want for myself. It's a good feeling.

Why I Relay

2011-06-12T23:17:00.000-07:00

This picture is of my Granny and I not too long after I returned from my mission. It’s not such a great picture of either one of us, but it’s the only one I have. It looks like she’s asleep but she’s actually about to say something smart to my dad or whoever was taking the picture.

I still miss her, and thought about her a lot today. I know that she didn’t technically die of cancer, but it took away one of the things that she valued the most: her independence. She is one of the many reasons that I participate in Relay for Life.

I had participated in it a little bit when I lived at home because my parents are Survivor Co-Chairs for Relay for Life in Mason County, but this is the first year I have signed up for my own team and have participated personally on the Team Development committee. In case you’re curious, here’s some of the stuff that Relay is:

It is a place for the community to rally together in support of those among us who have been touched by cancer. Relay for Life is not a race. Each team member on teams of 8-15 people take turns walking and/or running around a track all night, symbolic of the fact that cancer doesn’t sleep or take a break.

It is a place for cancer survivors (those who have been diagnosed with cancer, whether they are undergoing treatment or are in remission) to be CELEBRATEd, support one another, and feel the love and support of their communities. Survivors are guests of honor who receive a medal during the opening ceremonies, and start the relay by walking the first lap, all in matching purple t-shirts.

It is a place to REMEMBER those who have passed on. For a small donation, luminaries are dedicated to those who have died of cancer. As the sun sets over a Relay for Life event, the luminaries are lit up around the track and in the stands to light the way for the participants.

It is a vehicle to FIGHT BACK. These events happen through donated time, material, and services so the funds raised through Relay for Life go directly to the American Cancer Society. The money is used to fund cancer research so that we can improve the prevention and treatment of cancer, to buy wigs for the less fortunate who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments, to provide transportation to treatments for patients who need it, and to support outreach programs educating the public on ways to reduce their risk for cancer. The goal is a world where no one has to hear those terrifying words, “You have cancer,” ever again. It’s a long way off, but I believe we can get there.

I have seen a lot of facebook status messages going around that say something about how cancer patients don’t wish for money and fame but to be well and see another day, and that 97% of people won’t post it. Posting a status is better than nothing, but it isn’t a very active way to really show that you are serious about fighting back. If you have been touched in any way by cancer, please participate in Relay for Life. If you haven’t been touched by cancer, participate in Relay to celebrate THAT. Attend your local event and buy food and drink from the vendors, get your face painted, buy raffle tickets, and cheer for the survivors when they make their lap.

I am currently in the fund-raising stages for my Relay participation. So far I have raised $55 of my $100 goal. If everyone who reads this post contributed $5, I would more that surpass that goal. I know that money is tight for a lot of people, but $5 is less than a fast food meal, less than an MP3 album, and much much less than a concert ticket. You probably won’t even notice it was gone. I would really appreciate if you would each think about making a small contribution through my personal fund-raising site. Money does talk, and it is another one of the ways that you can take an active role in supporting and fighting back with people battling cancer in our community. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible, plus, I will send a personal message to everyone who donates, mention you on twitter, and sing your praises publicly.

Thank you to:

Mom and Dad: In addition to all of their physical labor for Relay in their own community and donating to their local event, they contributed $25 to my fundraising efforts.

Aunt Lucy and Christopher: They lived with my grandmother as she was battling cancer, volunteered with Relay for Life in Mason County, and donated $20.

Selena Christensen: (read her blog) This girl is seriously hilarious. I look forward to reading her blog whenever she posts because I always giggle at least once. She was my roommate when I first moved to Provo, and I have very much enjoyed staying on contact with her after she moved. She just graduated last semester and just started a new internship. Her $5 donation shows that she is committed to supporting those with cancer through their illness.

Emily Clay: (read her blog) This girl is freakin' amazing. She goes on vacation by herself with nothing but a backpack, and that makes her my hero. When I "ran" my first 5K last year, she was there waiting around one of the last bends in the course. I was in a lot of pain and starting to get pretty tired, but seeing her there gave me the motivation I needed to pull it together and accomplish my goal of finishing strong. With her donation of $10, I am starting to see the finish line of my Relay for Life fundraising goal as well.

[Your name here]

Five Things Friday

2011-06-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

I can't believe another week has come and gone already! This week went by so fast because I only worked four days of it, and those work days were relatively chill. I could definitely deal with four work days per week instead of five from now on. Now on to the five positive things I felt like mentioning.

1. I stood up for myself this week. Some potentially shady stuff was going down in my lab group, and I spoke up and said that what was happening wasn't okay. I'm good at expressing my opinions, but when it feels like I'm asking for something (even when it's just acknowledgement) I really struggle. I am just proud of myself every time I do something that's hard for me.

2. Woman caves. Brittainy and I cleaned out our basement and made it into a usable space in our apartment. It's a cool little hang out. We have candles out, a basket of blankets, slightly uncomfortable love seat, pictures on the wall, and a TV connected to a laptop for Netflix and DVD consumption. We christened it Monday night by watching a movie and painting our nails down there.

3. This watch. It is like the ToyWatch watch that Sandra Bullock wears on The Blind Side, but it's purple (or pretty much any color you could want) and much cheaper. I am anxiously awaiting its arrival in my mailbox.

4. In my reading today, I discovered a whole section in this book I've been reading that is exactly what I'm trying to do with my research. It could be depressing because someone has already done what I'm doing, and they observed the same things I'm observing, but they used less conclusive techniques. It will actually give more validity to the papers I publish, plus they made some time-dependent observations that I didn't think to look for, so now I have more ideas for experiments to do.

5. This. Is amazing. I was showing a lab mate the last video I shared with you on Five Things Friday, and talked about how great the guitar playing was. Then he challenged, "What I want to see is someone playing Flight of the Bumblebee on guitar." Challenge accepted. What follows is my favorite of the videos I found, and has had me on the edge of my seat waiting for Friday to come as the perfect opportunity to share it with you.

Also, he has never actually seen a guitar because he was born blind. When he was 12 his grandfather bought him a guitar, and he practiced every day for 14 hours or so. I love stories of people who improve themselves beyond what others expect of them through hard work.

Have a great weekend!

Granny's Cheese Bread

2011-05-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

In my family every year we woke on Christmas morning to a loaf of this bread that my grandmother made for everyone in our family. This is probably the most perfect bread ever. The slices are swirled with butter, parmesan cheese, and freshly ground black pepper. The inside of the slices is soft and pillowy, and the crust is golden with just the right amount of crunch. I have searched the internet high and low for a recipe for this bread, and found only recipes for stuff like this:

I love Little Caesars fine foods as far as take-out is concerned, but it's a far cry from Italian Holiday at Home. Also, I can eat this without cooking it, which is the beauty of Little Caesars, but I don't need a recipe.

My brother got a copy of my grandmother's hand-written recipe card for the REAL DEAL cheese bread that we all ate every Christmas. The only problem with the recipe is that it was hopelessly vague/illegible. Granny never needed a recipe for anything, so his transcription of it was riddled with question marks. My project of the day was to "translate" her recipe and write instructions that the uninitiated could follow.

I preface all of this by saying that I am not a baker. One of my unspoken goals of 2011 was to learn how to make bread. I have attempted this with varied results. But since I've made a lot of mistakes, if anything that makes me more qualified to instruct others on what to do. Or not do. So I proudly present to you the Chemist's Guide to Granny's Cheese Bread:

Ingredients:

2 Packages dry active yeast

1/2 cup warm water (run tap until it's as hot as you can stand it)

3-1/2 cups lukewarm milk (I took that amount of milk and zapped it in the micro for 90 seconds.

1 egg

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons salt

1/8 cup vegetable oil

10-12 cups flour

3-4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1–1-1/2 cups grated parmesan cheese

freshly ground black pepper

Dissolve yeast and sugar in water. Lightly beat in the egg. Add milk and salt. Don't be afraid. Yes, I know that there is a lot of liquid in the bowl. Have faith. Start adding flour one cup at a time, incorporating almost all of the previous addition before adding more. When it gets into a dough-like mass that is difficult to stir with a spatula, turn the dough out onto a floured board (or clean countertop) and continue incorporating flour throughout the kneading process.

A word on kneading. I have done some reading on kneading, and I have decided that this is where I have been going wrong 99% of the time when I attempt bread. First of all, the method is to turn the dough a quarter turn, pull away from you, fold towards you, and press forward with the heel of your hand, then repeat. The quarter turn should always be in the SAME direction. Did you know that? THE SAME DIRECTION. I also have a hard time knowing when it's done. You press your fingers in and it bounces back, yes. But that is something I can question. I like the "windowpane" test best. You tear off a little piece of dough and stretch it thin enough to see light from something like a window shining through it. If it tears before you get it that thin, you need to keep kneading, otherwise you're good. I have a great fear of over-kneading, and have therefore neglected to knead my previous doughs sufficiently, resulting in dense loaves.

The 1/8 cup of vegetable oil was 1/4 cup on my grandmother's recipe, and it was a source of debate in my family as we discussed the recipe. Her instructions (after dissolving the yeast) read "stir in remaining ingredients except for flour." When I told my brother that I made it today, he asked me, "So, what did you do with the oil?" Well, Mark, I used it to grease the bowl. I dutifully used the quarter cup today, but it was a little overkill. You could definitely get away with 1/8 cup, maybe even less if you cover the bowl with a damp towel while it rises. Just pour the oil into the bowl, put the beautiful round dough ball in it pretty-side down, then turn it over. That should coat the whole surface of it with oil, which will prevent drying.

Now you wait about half an hour for the dough to double in size. I mean, like half an hour if you live in humid Kentucky and keep your house oppressively hot like my grandmother did. You can simulate Kentucky by putting a pan of water in your oven and turning it on warm for about two minutes, then turning it off, inserting the dough, and then closing the door. You know it's done rising when it's double the size it was before OR when you stick your fingers in the dough the impression remains.

Divide the dough into two parts. Roll out each part into a longish rectangle.

Spread softened butter over the length of the rectangle with your fingers. Grind pepper evenly over the dough...

...then pour grated parmesan cheese over that.

Roll up the dough to form a long roll of dough. Coil that up in a seasoned cast iron skillet starting with the outside of the coil. I spaced mine so that it was in the center of the skillet.

Let that rise again for another hour. This is what it looks like after rising the second time:

Bake at 325F for about 1 hour. This is so good right out of the oven, so as soon as it's cool enough to hold onto and cut, do it. Plus, look how attractive it is! Bread is high return for... okay, high efforts. But at least this is a bread you can't buy in any store.

Bread is high return for... okay, high efforts. But at least this is a bread you can't buy in any store.

Five Things Friday

2011-05-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

The Pretty Life Anonymous, a fashion blog that I follow (it's my guilty pleasure, okay?) does this thing called Five Things Friday. You list five things you love on a Friday. So, I'm not promising that I'll continue with this, but this particular Friday I'm in the mood to list five things that I loved this week.

1. Edible house plants. I love to cook, and I needed some house plants. So I bought edible ones. Well, two of them are edible. One of them decidedly is not (the far left). The edible ones are basil and rosemary, two of my favorite herbs to use fresh. Plus, whenever I need a boost I just go over and give them a little whiff.

2. This photo:

I took it on my way home from work one day right before it poured rain. I just love the lighting, and the fact that it's big machinery in a field of wild plants. I'm glad I was aware enough to stop and appreciate it.

3. Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream. On Thursdays we have what some roommates have affectionately called "Pizza and Beer's Law" on the third floor of the Chemistry building. Spectroscopy graduate students (and friends) gather to eat pizzas and talk about nerdy stuff. This week the pizza was ordered late, and while we were waiting someone realized that we had several large vats of ice cream base and access to large quantities of liquid nitrogen. So what naturally happened was the making of liquid nitrogen ice cream. The photo below is three of the regulars stirring the ice cream. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble!

4. My grandmother's cheese bread. I've been bugging my brother for the recipe since before Christmas, and he just sent it to me a week or so ago. Now I have both the recipe and the ingredients, and I plan to make my first attempt at it tomorrow. The recipe's a little cryptic, so I don't know that this will be exactly my grandmother's cheese bread, but I do have at least a loose outline of what it involves, and that's better than what I had before. Look for a post in the next few days reporting the success or failure of the attempt with revised instructions.

5. Tedeschi Trucks Band. Oh Laws I love this band, and I just discovered them today. It's a husband-wife team that has united a band of 11 ultra-talented musicians to make magic happen in your ear canal. Susan Tedeschi has a soulful voice (the closest comparison I can think of is Patty Griffin) and "plays the guitar like a 4,000 year old black man." Derek Trucks plays guitar licks that would make Eric Clapton proud. My brother (a guitar connoisseur, and the reason I discovered them) said, "Derek Trucks is a machine." I agree. Their album Revelator drops on June 7 (you can pre-order it on amazon as I already have), but until then, here's a video of them performing at Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival this year:

Zombie Apocalypse Now

2011-05-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

Long hours this week. Snap. I sure hope all the work is worth it, but in case it's not, let's brush up on our Zombie Plans. (I've already written another entry about this, in case you're interested.) My hobby the past few years has been asking fellow students what ELSE they have considered as careers. You can tell what my job satisfaction is like depending on how far away my fantasy job is for the day. Example: One of my friends struggling with research told me his dream job was Mail Carrier, which I found humorous because that's what my dad does, and he's not exactly skipping his way to work every day.

Lately, my zombie jobs have been a little less undead (is that a double negative?). Scientific Writing Consultants and Patent Agents very frequently have PhD's in hard sciences. Circus performers, roadies, and helicopter pilots typically don't.

I've always been a dabbler, and maybe I'll get bored with teaching Chemistry one day and want to move on to greener pastures, and it's good to be prepared.

Somewhat less related than you might think, this week the CDC released a Zombie Apocalypse preparedness guide, which you should so totally check out. It's actually a tongue-in-cheek presentation of their standard emergency preparedness protocol. A government agency has shown signs of a sense of humor. Isn't that the first horseman of the apocalypse?

Why Chemists Make the Best Chefs

2011-05-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

I want to start out by saying that I swear that this isn't a food blog. It's just that when you spend hour upon hour in a chemistry lab stirring and heating things you can't eat, you want to spend the weekend working on things that you CAN eat. And 99% of the time the kitchen creations turn out much better than what you make in the lab. Chemists are great cooks. We are. I think a lot of lab skills transfer really well to the kitchen, and the process of good chemistry is like the process of good cooking.

Before we get started, you should know that the Scientific Method that they teach you in high school and in introductory science classes is WRONG. What really happens in science is you start with a question, have an idea of what might happen (hypothesis), and then experiment. That's where the method breaks down for me. First of all, if you have a really good solid hypothesis, you have no business experimenting. Often, I don't have any clue of what's going to happen when I start an experiment. Oh, there's a question alright, and that question usually starts a lot like "I wonder what would happen if..." Probably one of my biggest pet peeves is when our lab assistants ask me, "So... are you sure that'll work?" Of course, I'm not sure. If I were sure, it wouldn't be research!

Now for the noms. Tonight I made home-made honest to goodness from scratch shells and cheese for the first time ever. Something you should know here is that no scientist just walks into the lab and starts experimenting. In science, you learn basic knowledge and skills necessary to succeed, and in cheffery this has been endowed upon you by your mother, Julia Child, or both. While the basics are certainly essential, to make real progress you also have to be abreast of what's happening NOW. In science, we call this Recent Literature, and in cheffery this is food blogs and forums. You don't read all of them necessarily, just the ones that apply to you. I like Chef John at food wishes because his dishes are tasty, technically solid, and accessible.

So I read on his blog that mac and cheese is good gooey in the middle and crunchy on top, and probably the most helpful hint was that in order to achieve that, you only need 20 minutes in a hot oven since everything is already hot when you start. Makes sense.

I knew that the gooey cheesy part of traditional mac & cheese is typically a béchamel sauce* with cheese added at the end, which then actually makes it a mornay sauce. Now you know all sorts of french words to impress your friends. I happened to have a lovely mornay sauce left over from making hot browns last week. This has its parallel in research as well - it is financially beneficial to do different experiments with materials you already have. I revived it in a sauce pan with some slow heating and the addition of some milk. I chopped up half a package of bacon and fried it in my cast iron skillet because hot brown has bacon in it so I already know it's going to be great with the sauce and because duh everything's better with bacon. By the way, if you have a cast iron skillet, this is the best thing you will ever do for it - mine is used exclusively for bacon and corn bread.

Hot brown also has tomatoes, but I didn't think those would hold up well as leftovers (and I can't finish a whole pan by myself), so I chopped sun dried tomatoes finely and added those to the noodles, mornay, and bacon. For the crunchy, all I had was bread, so I just tore up a piece of whole wheat bread and distributed it on top, then sprayed with olive oil before putting it into a 400º oven for 20 minutes. And done. I call it Hot Brown Shells and Cheese.

Back to chemistry. I think part of what makes chemists good at cooking is our ability to identify problems with a method and figure out how to improve them. We liked this recipe, so if it sounds good as is to you, go ahead with it, you have my blessing. Next time, I'd leave out the sun dried tomatoes, top the pasta with additional shredded cheddar and serve with fresh tomatoes on the side. Next time I may change my mind about it again, but that's science for you!

*Mornay sauce is so easy to make. You start with a roux from equal parts butter and flour. Melt butter in a sauce pan until it sizzles a bit, then whisk in the flour and cook for a few minutes until it starts to rise and looks kind of sandy. Cooking the roux kills the raw taste of the flour. Chef John says for 1 lb of macaroni, you need half a cup of roux (1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup flour). Add whatever herbs you want now. Hot brown sauce has a splash of worcestershire, a pinch of dry mustard, and a half dollop of chicken/turkey base. Add cold milk (3 cups) one cup at a time to the roux with whisking. Turn the heat down and let it thicken. That's the béchamel. Add a few cups of shredded sharp cheddar, and you've got my hot brown mornay.

Dear Mrs. Benson and Spunky Women

2011-05-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

I came across an interesting article today. It's a bit lengthy, but if you've got about ten minutes, I highly recommend giving it a read. Anyway, the article, which first appeared in the Relief Society Magazine in April of 1936, introduces us to the fictional Mrs. Benson, who suffers from boredom in her newly empty nest. Our heroine not only feels bored but unnecessary. Looking for the silver lining, she decides to kill time by taking her grandfather's old guns to a local museum. As she prepares the antique firearms for donation, she receives a call from her neighbor, Lettie Mack, who can't seem to coax her new knitting machine into knitting a sock. She had purchased it with great personal sacrifice as an investment with a contract from the company that they would purchase every perfect sock she managed to turn out with it. Upon seeing the contraption, Mrs. Benson realizes that not only would the simple-minded Lettie struggle with the machine, but no one could ever turn out a single perfect sock on it.

Mrs. Benson lures the salesman to the town jailhouse under the pretense that she intended to convert the building into a knitting factory where young local girls could work. This is where it gets good. With a pearl-handled revolver from her grandfather's collection, she commands the salesman to stand against the wall as she locks him in the jail cell. Prior to the capture, she had prepared in the room a stove and all the implements and ingredients necessary to bake homemade bread. She demanded of the salesman that he make her a perfect loaf of bread, and even gave him a few tips, before she would release him. Unable to make the bread, the salesman finally buys his release with the money from the sale of Mrs. Mack's knitting machine, which Mrs. Benson returns to her hidden inside a jar of beans.

Mrs. Benson had what I would call spunk. It's something that I feel is severely lacking in the modern perception of The Ideal Mormon Woman. Living in Utah, there are a lot of women that fit pretty much the same standard mold, with little deviation. They keep their hair long, they don't joke around too much yet carry a perpetual smile on their lips, their answer to any problem is "just pray about it," and they give all their talks in a tone of voice most appropriate for a Primary class. I know a lot of women like this; I love them and in fact have nothing against them. What I will say, though, is that although those women do tend to be very faithful, that model is not in itself the definition of righteous womanhood.

It's no secret that I relate most to the Strong Southern Woman. My favorite movies are Fried Green Tomatoes, Steel Magnolias, The Blind Side, and other movies with strong female leads. I love meeting women who don't fit the mold, and in fact don't even try to fit it. My own mother is one of those women. She had a difficult family life as a teenager and suffered things that no one should have to experience, and instead of suffering through it silently, she changed the situation in a positive way by moving across the country by herself to live with her grandmother in Kentucky. After staying home and raising her children, then working at low-paying jobs, she changed her situation by returning to college and graduated a year after I did with her Bachelor of Science in Accounting. My mother has many fine qualities, and among them is an ability to look on the bright side, but by her example I have learned that sometimes you've just got to take responsibility for your own happiness and make it happen without caring what anyone else will think.

I'm not sure why the women in public positions in the church seem to come off as so demure. I know that the most faithful women I have met in my life (both in and out of the LDS faith) have been anything BUT demure. I think of those pioneer women carrying handcarts across the plains. Those women could NOT have been dainty. They had to have been no-nonsense women who just did what had to be done.

I've seen enough women who are willing to bow unquestioningly to the forces around them. I'm ready to see something different. Show me a woman with a fire in her eyes, who doesn't let that fire become extinguished by the judgements of others. Show me a woman who loves without reserve because she knows how to stand up to those who don't deserve to have it. Show me a woman who isn't afraid to grieve. Show me a woman who can laugh at herself. Show me a woman who makes mistakes and learns from them. Show me a woman who honors her feelings without explaining why. Show me a woman with faith in Christ and not in outcomes. Show me a woman who sacrifices for those she loves. Show me a woman who constantly learns and gets her hands dirty. To me, those are the things that define a beautiful woman of God. I'd like to see more real women of God, a variety of them, "warts and all," to lead the women of the world. And I hope we can all appreciate a little more fully the Mrs. Bensons of the world who don't wait for anyone else to solve their troubles.

My Week in Photos

2011-04-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've grown a greater appreciation for life, and have even almost enjoyed my research. Life is good. I am so happy about it, and I have nothing particularly deep to share, but here are some pictures of my good life and some of the stuff I've been up to.

First of all. I made Easter Bread last Friday. Find the recipe on the Food Wishes blog. Favorite food blog ever.

Saturday, we dyed Easter eggs with Brittainy's friend Kirsti from Arkansas who stayed with us all weekend long until yesterday. So much fun!

I cooked a lot of food on Easter Sunday, and some of it even got eaten. It's probably the biggest overestimation in the history of my feeding lots of people, so lots of unanticipated leftovers. I made two more recipes from Food Wishes: Ultimate Roast Chicken (followed exactly) and a highly altered version of Truffled Potatoes Gratin. Highly altered in that there wasn't a single truffle in the whole recipe. Delicious regardless.

On Wednesday I worked the longest work day I've ever worked. I arrived at work just prior to 9 thanks to my new bicycle that shaves a few minutes off my commute (and puts me in a much better mood than walking) and left at 11:33 PM. I ate lunch at my desk, and only took a single one hour break at 6 to have dinner. My friend Blair took me to @12 (chinese restaurant similar to Panda Express) where we both got essentially identical lame fortunes in our fortune cookies:

After work that night, I discovered my new favorite thing: riding my bike on campus at midnight. I can't even describe how wonderfully relaxing it was. The night was crisp and clear, the sidewalks on campus are smooth and flat, and at midnight no one else is around. I took a few spins around campus, singing softly to myself as I pedaled (just watch for "suspicious female singing to self on bike" in police beat) before heading home for bed.

Then I got to work at 9 Thursday morning "hung over" from working too long the previous day, and decided to take a breakfast break. I got a jamba juice oatmeal and ate it outside the art museum. Seriously, best breakfast, and the best way to have it. Hands down. Try it sometime. But if you see me, please pretend I'm not there. I do value my time alone enjoying the outside. I don't get to do it too often, being in a windowless lab all day.

It was such a nice day yesterday, seriously. It was so nice that I took another joy ride on my bike around town. As I was whizzing down the street, I saw the BYU duck pond, and decided to stop and watch the ducks for a bit. There were BABY DUCKS there! These ones found a wood board in the pond and used it like a raft, floating across the pond. It was maybe the cutest thing ever.

Now I'm processing data on my computer at home because I spent most of the day cruising town, having "lunch," and watching Water for Elephants (super dark and violent, not a fan) with Ali. I did have some encouraging results earlier today - hopefully they'll continue to be encouraging - and that makes it okay that this is how I'm spending my Friday night.

I HAS CHEEZBURGER

2011-04-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

If, on this fine Friday night (or whenever you're reading this), you felt like there was a massive hole in your life that could only be filled by a photo of me trying to fit an entire cheeseburger in my mouth, you've come to the right place. If you need it like you needed a hole in your head, well, I'm sorry. I waited in line for fifteen minutes for that cheeseburger, and watched while patty after juicy patty passed me by, so when I finally got one, I had to commemorate the moment with a picture.

I just realized that most of the pictures I have of most people is of them eating. If I have nothing but flattering pictures of you, it is a rarity, and we need to remedy the situation soon. I think I have enough of such pictures to make a collage for my kitchen. What is the cuteness potential of a collage in someone's kitchen of their friends taking giant gaping bites of food that they've cooked? Personally, I think it's up there with baby animals.

Prepare for a lot more food entries. Easter is coming, and I plan on celebrating the fulfillment of the law of Moses by cooking cloven hoofed animals and eating lots of processed sugar. That, and I can't be bothered to always write deep, thought-provoking blog posts...

I'm the Me in Monogamy

2011-04-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

I'm a girl who has it all together. At least, that's the way I feel, for now. I am going through a period of clarity that I experience every now and then. Not that correlation equals causation, but I am also spending a lot of time by myself lately. I am a person who requires a lot of decompression time, and now that I don't have any classes and have a very "flexible" social life, I actually get it.

Sometimes I just sit at home and enjoy my company, but I've also taken the time to go on adventures all on my own. You could say that I've been dating myself for some time now, gotten to know myself, and I've fallen in love.

And while spending some time with a friend this afternoon, I realized the meaning of not being able to love another person until you love yourself. I used to always be with people because it was better than being by myself. Now I'm perfectly content to be by myself all day every day, and I only spend time with people because I want to be with them. I don't depend on other people for my personal happiness anymore, so I am now more free to truly love them.

On the other hand, I'm a little pickier about who I spend my time with. I haven't been as shy about pushing away toxic relationships. I used to allow myself to be somewhat of a doormat. If someone was going to hurt in a relationship, I figured it might as well be me, so it always WAS me. Now, I treat myself as I would treat my best friend. Now when I am disrespected, it's like "How dare you treat ME like that!"

It's a good place to be in. I feel like I'm on an elevated plane of understanding because of it. I guess it won't last too long, but while it does, I'm going to enjoy it.

Ratatouille

2011-03-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

I cooked this for dinner tonight:

Ratatouille tastes much better than it looks!

Thanks to my friendly friend Rebekah who sent me an oh so thoughtful gift of the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. Whenever I get in a recipe rut (which is pretty often as a graduate student) I try out a new recipe from that book. All the ones I've tried so far have been very reasonable, meaning that the ingredients can be found in the local grocery store and don't require carving out an afternoon for cooking.

Ratatouille is supposedly great left over, which to this graduate student means that I won't be cooking dinner for the rest of this week. I'm gonna be boiling pasta noodles and spooning the ratatouille right over them.

I'm trying to be better to my body and soul lately. It means I'm trying to eat more veggies and whole grains and fewer preservatives. It means I've been reading my scriptures a lot more and listening to general conference on the way to work. They're small changes, but I feel 100x more wonderful now.

Matters of the Heart

2011-03-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel totally ripped off. The priesthood session of general conference is so great; I would almost go so far as to say that it is the best session. I don't know what it is about it - maybe I'm just the sort of person who needs to hear things very directly, and the addresses in the priesthood session certainly are very direct. Today while I walked to work and while I rearranged the books on my shelf in the lab (I love organizing!) I listened to priesthood session. The talk I liked the best this morning was one by Elder Patrick Kearon of the Seventy titled, "Come unto Me with Full Purpose of Heart, and I Shall Heal You." In it, he talked about not holding back pieces of our heart from the Lord, among other things.

I had a Uruguayan companion in the mission who always underlined the word "corazón" in her scriptures (that's "heart" in Spanish). Every morning she shared them with me, and maybe it is for that reason that they all really stick out to me. It has become very clear to me through the short time I've spent studying and pondering that the Gospel is really all about heart.

It's about having a broken heart. It's about experiencing a mighty change of heart. It's about giving all our hearts. It's about loving God with all our hearts. It's about serving Him with all our hearts. It's about letting the affections of our hearts be upon Him forever.

To me this just means to do things sincerely. I can go through the motions. That's easy to do. But doing things because I sincerely want to do them? Much harder. The beautiful thing is that just wanting to want to do something and doing it even when you don't want to eventually gets your heart into it. So lately I'm praying that as I perform those duties I feel obligated to perform that my heart will also be won.

Building Happiness

2011-03-05T21:37:00.000-08:00

((My High School Smile))

What's that you ask? Where have you been? Why haven't you written?

The short-hand of it is that things have gone horribly wrong in 2011 and I haven't wanted to discuss it. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, has quite gone the way I wanted it to go. I started the year off with $1000 in car repairs and hefty travel expenses left-over from Christmas break. One of my oldest Provo friendships abruptly ended. My laptop screen was broken in transit from a scientific conference in Monterrey, California. BYU messed up one of my tax forms, which delayed the filing of my taxes. My social life seems to have suddenly curled up and died off in... wherever social lives go to die.

Despite all of it, I feel like it's still been okay. Maybe the hard times are over, but maybe not. I have a tendency to be negative and dramatic about things, which only makes my problems worse than they really are, and I don't want to pretend to have this permanent rosy outlook on things, but here it is right now. I'm being profound, so humor me.

I feel like it's all necessary, and strangely see how it could be a blessing in disguise. A very, very clever disguise. Bad things never really go away, and I've noticed that in spite of that, many people manage to be happy anyway. Then there are other people who seem to have everything going for them who are clearly unhappy and dissatisfied with life. I've changed my resolutions from whatever they were before to one simple thing: Learn to be happy.

Happiness isn't a thing dependent on circumstance or outsider opinion. I knew this at one point of my life, and then I became concerned with other things and forgot it. I bought into the lie that happiness requires the unspoken, unanimous consent of my personal Happiness Approval Committee, which consists of my friends from all periods of my life, professors, religious leaders, and family members. I think the validity of my own happiness regardless of what others think about it is a lesson that I will probably have to learn over and over again in my life. C.S. Lewis gave a speech at King's College entitled "The Inner Ring,"which you could possibly go and read. In this discourse, Lewis talks about the driving desire most of us develop to be inside an exclusive group. He uses victorian heroines' desires to be part of Society as an example, and then says that being asked to put in long hours at work can also have the same effect, because of the idea that you are asked as the only one qualified to do the job right. It all depends on approval from other people. Everyone who has an Inner Circle that they desire to be "in" on chooses it for themselves, whether consciously or otherwise. Lewis adds, "The quest for the Inner Circle will break your hearts unless you break it," and ends by saying that breaking it in your work life unconsciously puts you inside the only Inner Circle that matters there, which is that of the true craftsman in the profession. Breaking it in your personal life unconsciously puts you inside the only Inner Circle that matters there: sincere friendship, which "causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world."

Less related to Lewis but more related to happiness, a scripture really stood out to me this week. It surprised me that one of them managed to catch my attention, because I'm reading rather swiftly these days. It was Doctrine & Covenants 76:1, although probably lots of scriptures say the same thing. "The Lord is God, and beside him there is no Savior." Nothing can save us but Him. I can surround myself with riches, with worldly approval, with a loving family, with fun and excellent friends, with academic and professional achievements, and while they may give the appearance and sensation, none of it will really ever bring me lasting happiness or fulfillment in life.

So this year instead of focusing on the things I wish were going right, I am going to focus on the things I can improve in my life to bring me closer to God. I'm going to be grateful for the things that are going right. I'm going to spend time with people I enjoy. I'm going to spend time doing things I like doing. I am going to build a happiness in my life that is impervious to public opinion and independent of circumstance.

Avoidance

2011-01-04T22:50:00.000-08:00

I'm still avoiding unpacking. Writing this entry is infinitely preferable.

I just faced the terrible crowd that was at Smith's. I ran into about five people I knew there. The first person I ran into walked around with me for the first five minutes of shopping, during which time I ran into two more people who knew me. She was super impressed. I ran into two people who knew me at the SLC airport, and the friend who picked me up told me I must be really scarred from Chem 107 because each time I heard my name in that large public place I thought it was someone from a class I taught. I must just be a really memorable person because more people know me than I recognize, and none of them were Chem 107 students. Or maybe I'm just REALLY bad at remembering people. Whoops.

Anyway, Smith's was absolutely terrible. It was evident from the empty shelves that college students had come back from Christmas break - no deli meats, no packaged salads, no yellow onions, no baby carrots. Oh, and there was a couple holding hands and staring longingly into each other's eyes in the produce section. I suddenly lost my desire for pre-washed broccoli. I tweeted about it from the parking lot, but was about THIS close to just stopping in the aisle. That's how you know you're just a little too attached to social networking. Speaking of which, my dad gets a text message every time I tweet something. I sincerely apologize to anyone else out there who may be following me and hasn't figured out how to disable that. I'm convinced that any day now my dad will tire of the constant texts and unsubscribe.

Also, I promise to try (try) to balance my prolific microblogging with a little more nanoblogging and macroblogging (aka writing on here) in the future.

In Loving Memory of 2010

2010-12-31T20:53:00.000-08:00

It's easy to believe our lives are stagnant and boring when we are experiencing the slow progression of days, but then when we look back from a different perspective we can finally see how far we've come.

I used to think that new years' resolutions were a little silly because there's nothing special about the 31st of December, and that's partially true. Part of having a successful resolution is to realize that you can start fresh every day. New Years just serves as a convenient evaluation point in that it happens at regular intervals and motivates us to keep reaching a little higher. But before we get into things I want to do better in 2011, let's send 2010 off with some love, because it was truly a great year for me.

These are the good things that happened in 2010 in the order in which I thought of them:

I got to work as a living ordinance worker at the Provo temple.

I have picked up a pleasant amount of sass.

I began a weekly tradition of Chinese food with the chemistry crew.

I saw LOTS of live shows, including Collective Soul, Patty Griffin, Carrie Underwood, and Blue Man Group.

I told a few people what I wanted out of our relationship and accepted the outcomes.

I recovered from a rotator cuff impingement without surgery.

I learned more profoundly the meaning of mourning with those who mourn through attending the funeral for the brother of a friend and through feeling the comfort of near-strangers who attended my grandmother's funeral.

I trained for and completed my first 5K race in the lavender of Utah.

I finally realized that I'm not the type of girl who should be playing "the game." And that that's a good thing.

I passed Organic Chemistry by the skin of my teeth.

I beat polystyrene into subjection. Kind of.

I discovered that a chocolate/vanilla swirled frosty at Wendy's is called a "Michael Jackson." Also, that Brick Oven delivers chicken noodle soup to your apartment.

I discovered the amazingness of Firefly. And Nathan Fillion.

I taught a lot of people a lot of general kitchen skills, including teaching the relief society how to make gnocchi.

I beat an entire arcade game (Golden Axe: Revenge of the Death Adder) in one session.

There were lots of great youtube videos, like "Grandmas discover PhotoBooth!"

Rise and Shout the Cougars are Out! I saw almost every BYU home basketball game this season so far and have almost learned the school song.

I made (in Brittainy's words) "the best turkey this side of the Mason-dixon" for Thanksgiving.

2010 was a great year. Hope it was great for you, too. Now let's start the list for 2011! :) And let's party like we're grandmas. I gotta feelin' that 2011 is going to be great!

Great Week

2010-11-17T21:50:00.000-08:00

This week has been really great for me. A lot of the things that I have been struggling with lately have given me repose, and just good things in general are happening for me. I haven't been writing on here recently, but I hope to remedy that now and start writing more frequently.

Our lab is working on publishing a paper that will change things in our field for the better and lays the groundwork to do some really high quality research. I really questioned the theories of data interpretation in our field, and I'm glad that we figured out how to really interpret data so that I can have confidence in the data that I collect from now on. I've also worked out a deal with the other person working on my project. He knows a lot more about our equipment than I do, and has somewhat monopolized the time our project gets to use it. From now on, we're working together, which I owe to my ability to translate what he says into something that other people understand and want to read.

I've been spending more time with friends, more time being still and quiet, and less time doing things I feel obliged to do.

My students love me. Every semester about mid-terms I wonder what I was thinking when I accepted the student instructor assignment, and then every semester about this time it seems just so rewarding. I may be crazy, but I can't wait until I am teaching full-time as a professor. I appreciate the opportunity that I have had to know what I'm going to be getting into, to reconsider and choose it anyway.

Also helping my week along is Josh Groban. I'm sure you've heard my song about Josh Groban. He has the voice of an angel, and I don't know what I'd do without it. His new album, Illuminations, is wonderful. I might even say it is the best one yet. Maybe I like it the best because it has a lot of songs in english, so it's more accessible, but the french songs are beautiful as well; they make me want to learn french so I can better connect to them.

I've also started Christmas music. Don't judge. I'm more excited than usual for the holidays this year. If it weren't for needing the space in my living room for thanksgiving guests, I'd totally put up my tree now.

Memories of Granny

2010-10-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

My grandmother, who I have always called Granny passed away yesterday morning a little past midnight. Accordingly, I flew in yesterday afternoon to be with my family. Wednesday afternoon my dad called and held the phone up to her ear and I talked to her for the last time, and right after that I told my friend Danielle about her and started crying. I have been fine since I've been home, at least until the visitation tonight. I avoided looking in the casket for a long time. I looked at the pictures of my grandmother with all of her grandkids, and a lot of them are with me, the youngest granddaughter. I look just exactly like Granny in all the pictures of her when she was young. In the middle of the collage was a picture of Granny and Pops holding me when I was about a year old. In the casket, Granny was wearing the same dress as she was in that picture. I really was fine, though, until I saw her hands. I couldn't stop thinking about her hands.

The mortician really did a beautiful job on her - she looked more like herself in the casket than she has in the last five years. Her hands, though... looked plastic. I probably know the back of her hands better than I know my own. She always had such soft, soft hands (that's where I get my soft hands) and one of my most vivid memories of her is of me playing with the skin on the back of her hands as a child because it was loose from old age, but still very very soft.

Whenever I try to think of the most perfect person, I think of Granny. I remember walking into her bedroom one night to find her reading her Bible. Other times I found her praying the rosary by her bedside. She and Pops took care of me when my parents had to work and let me make blanket tents in their living room when I was really, really young, and visiting their house was always the highlight of my week. My favorite video to watch at Christmas time is of Granny making Christmas cookies and telling my dad to g et out of her kitchen with that camera. She always spoke her mind. It was almost funny how when it was just the family at the funeral home before the visitation we were all exchanging stories of offensive things that she had said to us. My mom said one of the last things she said to her was "You... you are out of proportion!" My dad and brother both got haircuts this morning, and one of my dad's aunts said to him, "Good thing, or your mother would sit right up out of that casket and tell you to cut it!" She was never shy about speaking her mind. It wasn't mean, it was just her culture and who she was, and to us who loved her it was nothing short of endearing.

Last time I saw her she held my hands and didn't seem to want to let go. I hugged her and kissed her cheeks, and she kept wanting to hold my hands and just look into my eyes. Somehow inside I knew it would be the last time I'd see her. She was so sick and fragile that I cried even then leaving her house.

For the past few years she's been praying to die, and for the past few months she has talked to Pops and her mother in her sleep asking them to come get her. She was ready to go, and she knew she was going to Heaven.

On one of the boards there was a picture of Granny dancing with my dad when he married my mom, and everyone pointed it out. My Granny always loved to dance, and we were all certain that right now she's dancing with Pops while her cousin Primo (who died about five years ago) and my grandfather's brother Unkie play mandolin and accordion and sing. This is what she wanted, and after more than 96 years, it wasn't unexpected, but it's still really hard to think that someone that close and special to me is gone, and that I'm not going to see her again for a long time. I am going to miss her, and I'll always, always, remember her.

From My Frying Pan to Your Screen

2010-09-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

They say that if you have to buy a zucchini in Utah, you don't have friends. I got a call from Blair last night saying that he had a zucchini for me, and here it is:

Yes, that is one massive zucchini. And when I see such a large zucchini, I get this idea. I want to FRY it.

That's the Southern woman in me, and boy were my room mates happy that she was there with her frying pan to make the night more delicious.

Here we are all sliced up:

Dredged in flour mixture and egg and flour mixture again...

And into the cast iron skillet. This is where happiness lives:

You may file this picture under "delicious" and "success."

To me, these were very successful. They were the best fried zucchini I have ever swallowed, and they passed the Angela-test, which is that someone who swore they didn't like zucchini ate several pieces and raved about how great it was. I have convinced several room mates over the years that vegetables they had always hated were actually really yummy if you cook them in enough fat. :)

Scrubbing Bubbles

2010-08-16T23:14:00.000-07:00

I wish cleaning my bathroom really looked like this:

...Rather than reality:

Luckily, in my mold/bacteria genocide, there was a 100% fatality rate. No one can survive bleach and intense scrubbing with a scrub brush. If you don't believe me, just ask my rotator cuff. I would like to detach it from my body right about now...

Love, True Love

2010-08-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

Today in the temple I was very impressed with the meaning of love, and not just the love of God that usually impresses me in the temple. Anyone read The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis? According to Lewis, there are four kinds of human love: Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity. I have always been taught by the spirit about divine love and Charity, which are closely related (and almost indistinguishable at times) but this week I learned all about Eros and Friendship, which I learned today are also closely related.

I saw a lot of people in love, which shouldn't be that unusual because I frequently help with marriages in the temple. The couple to which I was assigned as a guide was ridiculously in love - more so than any other couple I had ever seen in the temple. They were both just BEAMING with happiness to be sealed to one another for eternity. I overheard them telling each other how happy they were to finally be married to each other. They were just giddy about each other, and it seemed like the rest of the world didn't even exist to them. I remember thinking, "Wow, this is what it's like. I won't settle for anything less than this." One of their guests arrived before them, and we had the chance to chat. He told me their story, which was that they had been friends for several years, but they just weren't feeling anything beyond that, at least never mutually. And then they kissed. They started dating a few months ago, and were engaged three weeks ago. It's amazing (and a little scary) how fast things can turn around.

Then I briefly helped a sister who was being sealed to her third adopted child. Today was her 18th wedding anniversary, and apparently for each child they picked this same day of the year for the sealings so they wouldn't have as many dates to keep track of. She was much calmer than the usual bride because she'd been through it all several times before, but she was still very concerned about looking pretty for her husband and the children which were present. She wasn't giddy with excitement, but had a calm love that showed in her countenance in a way I can't really describe.

As I was waiting on Sean in the waiting room, I saw an adorable older couple. The woman had on an ivory dress that she probably had owned since the 80s with a draped neckline, and the man had suspenders that held his pants up at the bottom of his rib cage. They sat down on the sofa next to me and commented at how firm the seat was, bouncing playfully on it for a few seconds. A couple that they knew came up and said, "Happy 64th!" and handed them a gift bag. The woman opened it up and held up a pink nightgown, and then picked up a pink bottle of lotion. It was Pure Seduction from Victoria Secret because I recognized the flower on it, and the younger woman made a point to show the older woman the title. The old man and old woman both giggled, and she held it up to his nose to smell it. It was such a sweet thing to see. They were still so totally in love, but not in the giddy "we are so lucky to have found each other," sort of way, but in the "we've loved each other consistently for 64 years, and those small acts of selflessness have added up to wonderful cuteness" sort of way.

The newly-wed couple was filled with enthusiasm for their future together, but the older couple had something that they didn't. They had 64 years of sacrifice and experiences together. They were lucky to be there together too, but it had so much more to it than luck. Chemistry can't carry you through 64 years, but the give and take of a strong friendship and strong faith in God can. Their love had evolved to become a more intense version of the original friendship that likely initiated their acquaintance.

True love resembles inexpressibly intense true friendship more than it does giddy inexpressibly desperate attraction. Maybe my thoughts on this subject will change, but that's what I think now, and that realization came as a surprise to me.

Our thoughts on love itself really do change with experience. I was discussing with Devaun the other night about how someone had told her that you don't really love your husband until you're married. At first we thought that it was because a lot of couples around here just don't date enough before they marry to know it, but I think it's more than that. I think they DID love each other before they were married. It's just that once you're married your love intensifies in such a way that you think there's no way possible that you REALLY loved before. I've experienced it on a smaller scale. I've loved before, but each time I love more intensely my definition of TRUE love changes, and I doubt the love I had previously. I anticipate great love in my future, and look forward to the loves of the future that will make the loves of today seem to fade into nothings.

Things I Love

2010-08-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

Things I am loving right now:

Talking about good things going on in my life with friends
Inside Jokes
Optimistic extrapolation
All-Clad 8 pc standard-sized measuring cup & spoon combo set
The whole Williams-Sonoma experience
Tweeting random thoughts throughout the day
Seeing new comments on Facebook
My box of pictures from high school and college
Running into people I love in unexpected places
Devaun singing passionately in my bedroom floor
Route 44 Cherry Limeade

Further Evidence Of My Nerdiness

2010-08-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you needed further evidence of my nerdiness, but in case you wanted it, here it is:

Today while I was loading a sample and beginning to collect data on the NMR for a P-chem lab I'm helping to test and revise, I sang this line:

"Locking, shimming on the NMR."

You know, to the tune of "Dancing, shagging on the boulevard." Wouldn't this enter anyone's mind?

When you write songs where three words in a single line need links to explain their meaning, you are a nerd. Or a geek. But that's a discussion for another day.

2010-08-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

Health Update: Significant improvement. I alluded to being sick in the last entry, but I mean I was really really sick earlier in the week. At the time of last posting I was still feeling less than wonderful, but it was the tail end of the illness. On Tuesday I felt bad enough to go see a doctor, which for me is a huge deal. I hate doctors and avoid them at all costs. It was kind of strange. On Saturday morning I noticed that my nose was kind of tender like I was going to get a zit. By Tuesday morning, it felt like a heavy weight boxer slugged me as hard as they could right on the bridge of my nose. The doctor was kind of stumped as to what it was, although he thought it could be the mother of all sinus infections. He accordingly prescribed an antibiotic that would knock out all bacterial suspects (and the host along with them). Because I'm still taking the antibiotics, I am still pretty much exhausted all the time and have brief dizzy spells, but my nose is 95% normal. There is still a little bit of soreness, but it's not anywhere near where it was before.

Sorry about that paragraph of possibly TMI, but symptoms of my illnesses are something I really enjoy describing for some reason.

Last night I discovered that Brick Oven will deliver chicken noodle soup to your door and got the time capsule set up on my new Mac. It was a golden day in my life.

Today, however, was spent almost entirely half-heartedly reading scientific papers and fixing my laptop. I had to wipe my hard drive and reinstall windows from scratch, which is an even bigger pain than you might expect. If I ever doubted my hatred for Windows Vista, that doubt is now completely gone.

I'm going to Lagoon tomorrow after my temple shift and hopefully a nap, and I'm super excited about it. I have wanted to go to a theme park all summer long, and I'm glad I'm finally getting to go.

Oh, and is anyone else sad that the summer is going to be over in a few weeks?

Freakish Tendencies

2010-08-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

So apparently the best way to get me to clean is to make me sick and keep me in the house all day. After laying in bed watching my own personally abridged version of Lord of the Rings (unknowingly and druggedly skipping the second movie) and annoying my friends with facebook chat messages all day, I couldn't stand myself anymore and decided to go downstairs for something to drink. I got a glass of ice water, but instead of drinking it, I ended up washing all the dishes and cleaning the kitchen. And by clean the kitchen, I mean I cleaned out the toaster oven, scrubbed the floors with a scrub brush, cleaned underneath the burners, and disinfected all surfaces. Oh, and while I was at it, I scrubbed out the downstairs bathroom toilet. And now I'm kinda sorta hoping Devaun doesn't notice because I was supposed to be in bed resting all day. I'm still not feeling all that great, but cleaning somehow made me feel better. Either sometimes you need a rest from rest or I'm a freak. Take your pick.

And now I feel like I might want to wash a load of laundry and dust my room as well just for the sake of completeness...

Yup, I'm a freak.

Scales of Justice 101

2010-07-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, one Ryan Creech, reminded me today of a thing called Xanga. It was a blogging community on which most of my friends from Cumberland had blogs. When I was in college (brace yourself for how old I'm about to sound), there was *gasp* NO FACEBOOK. We kept track of each other by following each other's blogs, chatting on AIM, and calling each other on land lines. But the phones were at least cordless. Some of them. Quit staring at me like I belong in a nursing home!

Anyhow. I read this entry from my old xanga and laughed pretty hard, so I'm reposting it here. Also, as a bonus, you get to see my little chubby sophomore self and what my dorm room looked like in college:

I have decided that Tuesday mornings might be the perfect time to do laundry, and as such I put in three loads (I haven't done laundry in a while) in the washers while I took a shower, and while I'm waiting on them to dry, I might as well waste time. Because let's face it, I have things I should be doing that aren't journal-related.

Maybe I should have consulted the scales of justice (see above)... The scales of justice is something I do sometimes when I want to emphasize the obviousness of the choice that someone else just doesn't see, or that I didn't seem to see at the time I made the choice... The scales of justice debuted on my other journal sometime last semester, and I still have the pictures, so yes, this has now become a picture entry.

The scales of justice are a useful tool to decide between two choices. If there are more than two choices, they must be paired; otherwise this becomes a very complicated ordeal, as I have been known to pull muscles when more than two choices are weighed on the scales simultaneously. For two choices, this is useful. In one hand, you put one choice, and in the other hand you put the other choice. It's very simple, because, you see, the correct choice simply weighs more than the incorrect choice.

Above you will see illustrated an average decision on the scales of justice. In my right hand is the correct choice, and in my left is the incorrect choice. Sometimes there is no way to decide between two choices except to consult the Scales of Justice because two choices can sometimes look identical, but one could be much heavier than the other, and naturally, if a choice weighs less than a duck, it might turn you into a newt. :)

Sometimes the results can be astonishingly clear after the scales of justice test has been applied:

That incorrect choice had to be scraped off the ceiling after the picture was taken!

I have evoked the Scales of Justice on many occasions, and they have never been wrong yet! So next time you have a big decision, you can whip out The Scales, and you will have to agonize over the decision no longer!

Big Day

2010-07-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

So, today is the day of my big nasty physical chemistry area seminar and oral examination. At the end of the day today I will either be a PhD candidate or a very tired former graduate student.

The grand total of my sleep last night was like four hours, which I guess is normal for the night before a big day. Amazingly, I didn't have any presentation nightmares. In all my dreams, my presentation goes fairly well, with the exception of the dream I had last week where I showed up and my presentation still wasn't finished. Well, my presentation is finished and saved in several different formats in several different places. I can present on my laptop in Powerpoint or on Dr. Patterson's laptop in Keynote, and assuming some computer will connect to the internet, I have access from any other imaginable computer as well since I intelligently saved my presentation on my iDisk.

Ewww I just opened the powerpoint version, and it looks nasty. Like, all the pictures are super grainy. Oh well, at least I finished it early enough that I can tweak it before I have to give the presentation. I'm doing fine on time. Yay me!

I'm kind of happy to have this distraction from other things going on in my life, actually. Staying busy is such a good feeling right now, and I think I really need it. Today after my presentation, though, I plan on taking a looooong nap. Then, I'm going to read my book. Because tomorrow starts a new round of writing and presentations...

Anyhow, good vibes are definitely appreciated.

Cleave

2010-07-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

Follow-up.

So I met this guy last night who was very fun to talk to. That's pretty much it, though, no big deal. Anyway, I felt like I did a fantastic job with meeting him - much better than usual. I mean, he straight-up told me I caught his attention as soon as he walked in the door because of my confidence.

(I jumped up and acted like we were old friends and he just didn't remember me)

He continued talking to me after that, one thing led to another, and... I decided he would be the first recipient of my uninvited (and possibly unwanted) phone number.

I started thinking it was stupid while I was talking to him, and ended up not giving him the card, which is an anticlimactic beginning, but you can't always be so dramatic...

Then after he left I was talking to one of the girls there about the card idea, and she didn't think it would be a bad idea to give it to him. So I told her she could give it to him if she wanted. He is borrowing a meat cleaver from her this week for a movie project he's involved in. She is going to tie my number to the hole in the meat cleaver and say, "We've been commanded to cleave to one another." I don't know how the rest will go, but it will be entertaining to hear about his reaction either way.

So. It's kind of a cowardly way of giving out the first card, but it IS the first card, and if nothing else it's an interesting way to execute.

Next time, the rule will be that I will hand it to him boldly and confidently, because if I've learned anything from this, it's that boldness actually does get you somewhere. Somewhere...

Boldly Going

2010-07-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

There are ten digits, that when entered telephonically, could change your life forever. They are my phone number. And they have been written on a note card with a note expressing their potential for life-changing. Is it bold? Yes. But it's a fun little project, and I'm kind of curious to see if it will work.

I imagine it will be a great rush just to give one out. And it has the potential for even more fun after that!

Anyone else wanna try it???

Edit: Oh, the things I think up late on a Saturday night... Will I actually do this? Let's hope not. But seriously, has anyone else ever considered this?

Michael Jackson

2010-07-19T05:21:00.000-07:00

I used to think that Google knew everything. It is impressive sometimes the things that it comes up with. But just for the record, Google, when you want a Frosty from Wendy's with both chocolate and vanilla, it is called a Michael Jackson.

So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

This post was so much more important than my research paper...

Virtual Graduate Students

2010-06-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

My mom was sick with pneumonia earlier this week, which gave her the opportunity to discover a game that came preloaded on her computer. It is called Virtual Villagers, and she was telling me about it today. One of the activities is research, and she says that a lot of times they just don't want to do it. Just like me. Anyhow, she was reading a tips website about how to get them to do research, and we found the advice humorous, particularly if you substitute "graduate students" everywhere it says "villagers."

"Villagers may not be as malleable as you might wish.  Sometimes they will 
refuse to perform a task, or they will be intellectually incapable of 
understanding it.  You therefore need to deposit the individual again and 
again at the location where the task is performed until the person succeeds.  
If the individual fails, he or she will stand there, shaking his/her head, 
murmuring 'No'.
You have to ignore this reluctance and force the person to do what he/she is 
told!"

Quote from: http://faqs.ign.com/articles/800/800862p1.html

You Can Never Go Home

2010-06-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

I am currently in my hometown in northern Kentucky visiting with my family and friends. Other than quality time with my parents, going back to my hometown after years of being away mainly serves the purpose of reminding me why I got the heck out.

My mom said today, "She was born and raised here, but she's not a Maysvillian at heart." She really hit the nail on the head with that one - I have felt quite out of place here since I've been home, and I'm not unhappy with that. I have caught up with some friends that I haven't seen since high school, and their lives are startlingly different from mine and startlingly different from what I would have imagined for them. My friend Carole graduated at the top of the class with me - we were two out of three students in our graduating class to graduate with a special Commonwealth Diploma. She is married to her high school boyfriend, has a three-year-old daughter, and still works at Long John Silvers just like she did in high school. I asked her how she liked being a team leader there (because at least she's a manager now) and she said, "It's not where I want to be now..."

I was the wild one in my group of friends (not that I was ever very wild), and Heather was the typical southern daddy's girl. She works at the Kmart pharmacy, and has two children from two different fathers. She did marry the father of the younger one, so things have taken a happier turn lately; however, she is also not at the place where she would like to be in her life.

Another reason I'm glad I don't live here is there just isn't anything to do. I've been here a week and seen every movie in the theater and eaten at every restaurant at least once. Why? Because that's what there is to do, and everyone who wants to do something with me wants to watch a movie or go out to breakfast/lunch/dinner.

This morning I woke up in tears after dreaming about giving a speech in which no one listened to me. It reminded me of my high school graduation. I was the salutatorian, but ended up giving the valedictory address. The way I was introduced (or the lack thereof) and where I was in the program made people think that the ceremony was over, so while I gave my short speech to the packed fieldhouse, people were socializing and filing out. In real life, I saw people filing out, and the moment I had built up to be the great victory lap of my high school career ended up being a huge disappointment; however, I decided to just push right on through and finish the speech even though I just wanted to crawl off the stage and hide somewhere indefinitely. In my dream, I just stood up and sobbed in front of everyone. As much as I hate waking up crying, it felt good.

I don't know where I'm going with this. It's been an eye-opening experience. As much as I romanticize my hometown, it really is obvious that I don't belong here. So tonight I'm driving out of town to have dinner with my brother in Lexington, and then driving back here to go to bed. I need a vacation from my vacation... That, and his life is worse than mine because he works for AT&T the week they were supposed to release the iPhone 4 but didn't.

The Day You Never Thought Would Come

2010-06-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Normally a sealing at the temple takes about ten minutes, but the sealer also gives a little introduction beforehand that takes another fifteen. During this time, I sit outside patiently, quietly contemplating life and its mysteries. Yesterday the sealing with which I was involved lasted about fifteen minutes TOTAL. Afterwards, the bride's twin sister commented to me that he was the perfect sealer for them because they wanted it to be simple and to the point. On the way up the elevator alone with the bride, I had asked her how she was feeling. She said, "I'm not nervous at all - just so excited. It's something we saw in the future but never thought would really happen. And now it's finally here!" All that waiting and anticipation really made that day so much more special for her - she was focused on just the right things, and was nothing but kind to everyone around her all day, which is unfortunately not something I can say for everyone I've worked with.

A lot of brides SAY they're not nervous, but I totally believe it in her case. She was the most not-nervous person I saw all day, actually. Not that I don't love in their own way everyone that comes through the temple doors, but I can't shake how much she and her family impressed me. I just know that if I went over to the home of anyone in that family (including her new in-laws) that their house would smell like cookies or pie or something like that. You know?

I learn something from everyone I guide there. When I firsts got the assignment I have to admit that I felt a little flattered that the Lord and my supervisors thought enough of me to let me work with brides and missionaries every week. As time goes by, though, I realize more and more that this assignment is for me.

I've been given lots of precious opportunities to talk to my family about the Gospel. I've learned first-hand about how exact the Lord is in fulfilling all His promises. I've learned in a small part how wise He is in not always fulfilling them speedily. My eyes and spirit have been filled with spectacular views of eternity.

This sabbath morning, I feel so incredibly blessed. I am nowhere near where I "want" to be in my life right now, nor where I expected to be at this point, but I can't help but feeling that everything's going to be just fine.

"We Hate You" and the diatribes of an irate little fish

2010-05-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

This is what we woke up to this morning. I decided to check my junk mail folder in my email, and I noticed that we had a cleaning inspection notice from MVM that said that we have a cleaning inspection TODAY.

A. What kind of unprofessional ONLY notifies tenants of such an important thing by an email? It went into ALL of our bulk mail boxes, and we're lucky that that's where it went, because my mail client usually puts junk directly into the trash.

B. What kind of jerk schedules a cleaning inspection on a Monday? What are we supposed to do? Scrub the floors after church? Take off work Monday morning?

C. Our vacuum cleaner broke on Saturday when I tried to vacuum my room, and a cloud of dirt puffed out as it did so. Could that have come at a more inconvenient time? Seriously?

I'm doing the latter today. But seriously? What were they thinking? It's like they're thinking, "We hate these girls... What could we do to really disrupt their lives? Oh, I don't know... A cleaning inspection? Yeah. And on a Monday."

And Utah also hates us apparently. Because it's snowing. Seriously? Seriously?

Cleaning Up and Handing Over Control

2010-05-23T08:37:00.001-07:00

Time for my monthly entry again! No, really, I wish I could write on here more often, and I do sit down to write a few times a week, but then I end up filing my efforts in the round file every time.

Life is pretty good right now. Nothing is particularly good and nothing is particularly bad in my "public life," but I just have a really good outlook right now. Sunny days that don't get too hot will do that for you, I guess.

I spent the day cleaning house, and it felt really good. Satisfying... My room is as clean as I wanted it to be several weeks ago when I started cleaning it... Of course, in that time it has dirtied itself again several times over, but no matter. The point is that it's clean NOW, and I am here to enjoy it.

One of my latest projects has been to spend more time by myself, which is a phase that has recurred several times in the past year or two, but this time it's different. I usually spent time by myself to get used to being alone because I felt like I would never have anyone to share my life with. This time, I am spending more time by myself because I enjoy my own company. And that's a good feeling. I still like being around other people, but I've lately gained an appreciation for quiet time in my own thoughts and communing with God.

I was able to help a sister at the temple in a really personal and intimate way this morning because of some of the disappointments in my own life. She was an escort for the sister I was guiding today, and while the other sister was getting dressed, we somehow got on the subject of dating. I think she said something about how I probably had no problem dating (ha!) because I'm so pretty, and I said that I just had a lot of close male friends who seem intent on keeping it that way. She said, "Oh, yes, my daughter has the same experience. It makes me so sad to see such a worthy young woman suffering so much with dating. She just doesn't feel as good about herself." I said, "Well, I know what that's like, and it's an awful feeling, but I know the Lord doesn't deny his worthy children any blessings, even when it seems like other people's free will can do just that." Then I told her about an experience I had a few weeks ago at the temple that helped me. This sister was being sealed to her husband and four beautiful children, and although her other family members were unable to attend because of life choices they had made, she desired more than anything that someone from her family could be there with her on such a joyous occasion. She had a dream the night before that her grandmother, who had died, told her that she would be there, and then the sealer told them prior to the sealing that the spirits of their ancestors would be there with them. She cried, knowing that the Lord had, in His own way, granted her desire. Every righteous desire is fulfilled. Trust is always required, but the Lord is good on ALL his promises, even the promises we don't think are possible.

That realization, and giving my worries over to the Lord has made life really good right now. My goal now is to make this summer the best summer of my life so far, and I think it's well on its way to being just that.

The Best Laid Schemes

2010-04-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

One of the suggestions in a book I have (which is called The Happy Book, I might add) is to plan out what you would do with a day in which you didn't use the computer or watch TV, and then do it.

I've kind of been doing that unofficially for the past few days. I think it would be nice to spring clean my life. I have a pile of stuff to donate already, and I just haven't had time to take it to DI. I'd like that pile to get a lot bigger so I can rid myself of the excess belongings that are holding me back, ideally. It would also feel really good to give everything a good organizing.

I realized that one of my former room mates moved out with my whisk, which was a nice whisk from my grandfather, which makes me want to put all my nice kitchen stuff in my room so that I will still have nice kitchen stuff when I move out by myself.

I also want to clean out my car and get a nice $20 car wash where they clean the interior and exterior for you in about ten minutes while you hang out in their DRY waiting room.

Another thing I've been planning is my LIFE. I have figured out the most fun way I could live a live of singleness. I am going to graduate when I'm 29 or 30, and then I'm going to move to wherever I can find the best job. I will live in a really bare bones apartment for a year or so, and then I'm going to put down a huge down-payment on a house so my mortgage will get paid off as quickly as possible. Also, I will drive an Audi. Basically, I have made the decision that if I graduate as a 30 year old single female PhD chemist, I'm going to take the single life with grace and joy. I will NOT be the crazy cat lady. I will be the smokin' hot young instructor that gets chili peppers on ratemyprofessor.com.

It's fun planning stuff. :)

Cute and Cold

2010-04-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

A conversation between flamboyant boy (FB) who sits behind me in my Organic Chemistry class and another guy (AG) who sits down the row from him:

FB: I am wearing shorts today!
Me: It snowed last night! Why are you wearing shorts?
FB: I wanted to look cute today. Cute always trumps cold!
Me (and pretty much everyone else): ((speechless))
AG: Well, you could be cute AND cold!
FB: Thanks!

That just made my ENTIRE day, and I just thought I'd share it.

If You Can't Win...

2010-04-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Win for losing!

Life is all about failing; falling flat on your face and then brushing yourself off and trying again. Successful people are those who make many mistakes, but come away from each one stronger, wiser, and with a new perspective.

"Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also." -Carl Jung

In my life, I have always striven for success, and until the past few years, I have always attained the success I have sought. These past few years in which my life has NOT gone according to my best-laid plans have taught me a lot about failure. Number one, that it's not so bad. Number two, that failures are a lot more productive when you learn from them. Number three, that it's really nice to hear about other people's failures.

"A fiasco is a type of folktale told to others that makes other people feel more alive because it didn't happen to them." -Drew Baylor, Elizabethtown

In a primal way, we want to hear about other people's failures because it makes us feel better about our own shortcomings. Deeper down than that, I think it also helps us connect with other people because it is something that we all experience despite our best efforts, and letting down our guards enough to admit failure opens us up for more meaningful relationships. What I mean, though, is that hearing about other people's failures can help us not make the same mistakes.

I have had an idea in my mind the past few weeks that I finally shared with some friends last night, and I think it has potential. It feeds off of the idea of sharing failures so that someone can learn from them, laugh with you, and connect. If it works, it could really change the way research is done...

Alone

2010-03-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

I am alone in the office. It is an odd, unexpected sort of feeling. I felt like I walked into the Twilight Zone this morning when I came in. There are normally three of us graduate students in here, talking to each other, working on our individual projects, and debating the best way to achieve our lab goals. One coworker took the day off. The other coworker just isn't here, and left in his stead a cleaned-off, empty desk, that has left me quite curious. I like being left alone sometimes. I have been able to get finished with all the grading for Chem 107 completely uninterrupted. So this is what it's like to be the only graduate student in a lab group...

That's What She Said

2010-03-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

This morning was the practical exam for Chem 107, and a student comes up to "consult" with us to see if their answer is correct. Emily, who works in the stockroom, ended up doing it because I was talking to another student.

Emily: So you think you have iron?
Student: That's what she said. (referring to me)

I don't know why, but that tickled me so much that I couldn't even talk for at least three minutes. I think I got way too much sleep last night, because I've been chipper like this ALL day...

My Favorite Hymns (and why I love them)

2010-03-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Music does such a good job of touching my soul. Sometimes it's so hard to express what exactly the music makes you feel, and perhaps that is the beauty of music. It expresses ideas that words alone fail to capture. This weekend a few hymns from stake conference and at the temple got me really choked up, so I thought it fitting to share a few of my favorite hymns:

1. Lead, Kindly Light. This hymn has been one of my very favorite hymns since forever. It brings me so much comfort in my life because it seems like I'm always walking into the dark with my hand in the hand of the Lord. This hymn helps remind me that although it can sometimes feel uncertain it is truly always "safer than the known way." It always seems to reassure and remind that every promise of the Lord will one day be fulfilled, even though at times our lives seem to be filled with darkness. I love every verse, but especially the last one:

So long thy pow'r hath blessed me sure it still

Will lead me on

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone.

And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost a while.

2. I Believe in Christ. This hymn was sung at my baptism, and I've suggested it at every baptism in which the baptized asks for my opinion. I had an experience with this hymn at general conference during my mission. The time was bleak, and I felt like a failure as a missionary. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang this hymn as the closing hymn of conference, and this line affected me more than anything else said at that conference:

I believe in Christ; He stands supreme!
From him I'll gain my fondest dream;

And while I strive through grief and pain
His voice is heard "Ye shall obtain."
I believe in Christ, so come what may;

With Him I'll stand in that great day
When on this earth he comes again
To rule among the sons of men!

3. Oid el Toque del Clarin. (Hear the call of the trump) This one is another mission one, obviously. It only exists in Spanish, but my companions and I used to sing it frequently because it was peppy. I mean it's inspirational, but we basically just sang it for the pep it gave to our step. But my favorite line in that one would go like this in English:

I want to be a loyal soldier beside the Lord
And for liberty fight with strength and courage
Throw out the cowards from among our ranks;
We want men of courage and firm heart!

4. Rock of Ages. Nice southern hymn that I hear very, very seldom out here in Utah. I tend to try to rely too much on myself and then I'm really hard on myself for not reaching perfection on my own. This hymn reminds me that I don't have to.

Not the labors of my hands can fill all thy law's demands;

Could my zeal no respite know, should my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.

While I draw this fleeting breath, when mine eyes shall close in death,

When I rise to worlds unknown and behold thee on thy throne,

Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee!

5. All Creatures of Our God and King. I have always loved this hymn, and it is one that keeps reappearing as my favorite hymn of the moment. It reminds me of Alma's discourse on how everything on earth testifies of God. All of nature praises God and worships Him perfectly. This hymn also reminds me of what a beautiful world the Lord has given us to live in, and the love he has for us. This is all besides the fact that the hymn is beautiful and easy enough to sing that I end up humming it almost every day.

All creatures of our God and King,

Lift up your voice and with us sing!

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou burning sun with golden beam,

Thou silver moon with softer gleam,

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Oh, praise Him! Alleluia!

What "They" Believe

2010-03-13T21:07:00.001-08:00

My mother is the most tolerant, charitable, forgiving, non-judgemental person I know. She grew up in the Church of God, became Catholic when she married my dad, and does book-keeping for a Presbyterian parish in my hometown. My mom firmly believes that people of all faiths will be in heaven, not just one denomination, and not even just Christians. She can't grasp why people have a blind hatred for other faiths and will defend any religion from criticism, even if it is one to which she would never ascribe.

While I don't agree entirely with my mom's assessment of heaven, I do agree with her fundamentally. I believe that all the religions to which my friends adhere, whether they be Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, or whatever, will improve them as human beings if they truly follow the teachings of that religion. That belief is the root of respect for other people and their own beliefs.

Having attended a Southern Baptist college as a Catho-Mormon, I know all about respect and lack of respect for the beliefs of others. Southern Baptists seem to have a reputation for being really closed-minded, and I must say although did see a lot of that, I also saw a lot of tolerance. Actually, in some aspects, my Baptist friends in college respected my beliefs and standards more than a lot of my young LDS friends. Specifically, I recall my friends protecting me from foul language, and having movie-watching parties in which they said, "But no R-rated movies, so Angela can come!"

That said, Janie, one of my Baptist friends posted on her facebook wall today a comment, "Does Glen Beck even read the Bible?" This friend, mind you, is one of the understanding good ones. She disagrees with Glen Beck, and from what I've heard him say, I disagree with him, too. Anyhow, some ignorant person said, "Well, he's Mormon, so it's not the same Bible, and that's why." I couldn't help but respond: "I don't know about Glenn Beck, but as a Mormon and believer in Christ as my lord and savior, I don't agree with the statement that we shouldn't care for the poor. To clarify, we use the King James Version of the bible, which is the same as most conservative Protestant churches. We also use the Book of Mormon as a companion volume of scripture,and it also VERY clearly teaches us that we are to care for the poor. You can read about what it teaches here if you're interested: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/mosiah/4/16-21#16 ." Then an additional commenter said: "Revelation 22:18

"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book." That's all I'm saying...whether your Catholic, Mormon, Church of God, Baptist...we are to live by HIS WORD, nothing else. I know many believers, regardless of background who tend to use other "writings" to supplement their beliefs. According to Revelation...not a good idea! I struggle with it myself, but it doesn't make it any less true."

The surprise came when I was about to point out the logical fallacy of that particular scripture. Another evangelical Christian beat me to it: "but early Christians added and took away all the time for 300 or 400 years before "our" cannon was settled and we've still been debating it for the other 1600 -1700 years. So, we're lucky The Revelation of John even made it, I guess. It could have been one of the more gruesome apocalypses (hard to imagine, I know).

Also, I respectfully would like to point out that John's words about "adding to the book" were almost certainly referring to the book he was writing, Revelation, not the bible as a whole. It's unlikely that John realized he was writing the last book of the bible.

I'm not saying we should add to the bible....I'm merely pointing out that John didn't know he was writing "the bible." He was writing letters to churches. It's like Paul telling timothy that "all scripture is inspired by God" ---he probably wasn't referring to the very words he was writing. I doubt he knew it would be part of our scripture. I'm pretty sure the word "scripture" to Paul and John and Peter and whatever other men (and women?) wrote the New Testament meant the Hebrew bible."

Anyhow, my point was simply going to be that as far as I could see, as evidenced by their being Christians, that God was still saving people, and therefore people were still having first-hand experiences with God. I've come to learn recently that all scriptures are just testimonies of people who have had first-hand experiences with God in some way. So in a way, every person who claims to have been saved and tells another person about their experience is "adding to the word of God," according to that definition. God has not finished communicating with us. Most Christians deep down also believe that, I think, even if they don't believe in literal scripture-writing prophecies these days.

I guess my point here is to be loving and tolerant of each other, and that we as Christians have a lot more in common than we do differences. It's time that we banded together, looked past our differences, and worked towards sharing the essential message of Christ with the world by our example. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John 13:35)

I am now both a barber and a seamstress

2010-03-11T22:19:00.000-08:00

I gave my first haircut tonight. It was a thrilling experience, I tell you. A friend of mine texted me and asked me to help him cut his hair, and I did. He had already buzzed off most of it, and I just had to get around his ears and on his neck where he couldn't quite see. I was so nervous at first, but then I relaxed. He wasn't nervous at all until I started trimming around his ears with the scissors. That was the least nervous part for me, personally, because I felt like I had more control with the scissors. Anyhow, I wish I had taken pictures of me wielding clippers and scissors like a pro.

I am hemming a pair of pants right now. Yes, at 11:00 PM. And I don't have a sewing machine, so I am doing it completely by HAND. Besides the fact that even if I had a sewing machine here I don't know how I would hem pants in a sewing machine. I guess the same way I would sew anything else, but a little more complicated because the fabric would have to stay folded nicely... I must find a way of transporting my sewing machine to Utah.

My sewing machine was my grandmother's sewing machine, and it is metal. The fact that it is metal makes it more rugged, but also, heavy. When my grandmother gave it to me, I had never used a sewing machine before, and one of the bobbins was broken. Since the sewing machine is as old as the hills, I couldn't just call the company to get a replacement part, so I watched E-bay until the needed part appeared after spending an afternoon with my roommate Katie determining which part needed to be replaced and what it might be called on product descriptions. I bought it for I think two dollars or something and was able to get the sewing machine in working order with no prior experience with sewing machine repair, or for that matter, operation. Then for some reason I never used it. And now I'm in Utah needing it, and it's in Kentucky. And I'm sewing pants by hand to avoid paying a tailor twelve dollars to do something I know how to do myself, tedious though it may be for me to do it. Next time, I'll just fork over the money. It's just that these pants were WAY on sale, and I don't believe in paying more for alterations than the original garment itself.

In unrelated news, my printer is possessed. It has continually been plugged in all night but randomly makes these odd shifting noises, like it's about to print a page even though it is not being turned on or off and is not connected to any external device that would tell it to do any such thing. Let's hope it doesn't rise up and kill me in my sleep... Or worse, unravel all the sewing I've done tonight.

Oh, The Joy of General Chemistry Labs...

2010-03-04T12:08:00.000-08:00

Aluminon Test

The above picture is of an aluminon test that a student showed me this morning in lab. You see, I usually only see the botched aluminon tests or aluminum tests without aluminon where the student hasn't adjusted the pH quite right and therefore can't tell whether the precipitate has formed or not. I almost doubt myself sometimes when I see so many botched results, but when the student came with this one this morning asking, "Is this a positive test," I said, "YEAH, it is!" It was great. In my excitement I took a picture of it and posted it on facebook. Then another student came up and said, "Mine looked like that, too!" I tried to be happy for them, too, but I couldn't get quite as enthusiastic the second time.

I sent out a mid-semester instructor review the other day, and one of my students said, "I love this class. I gave you a great reveiw. It might be something good to read on a Friday night." I didn't even know to be offended until Emily (stockroom) shouted at him as he was walking down the hallway, "Friday night? She has a LIFE!" Sadly, up until she said that, I was thinking to myself that it WOULD be something good to do on a Friday night...

According to blogger, this page gets hit a lot by people searching for images of the aluminon test. I've also noticed that it is one of the first results, so that explains why this is a popular page. Also, I know well the desperation of Chemistry students. If that is you, was this helpful? Is there something else you were looking for that wasn't here? This is my personal blog, but I do like helping out the "less fortunate!"

Phththththhhh!

2010-02-27T19:06:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting down to write, but I don't have much nice to say. That's your warning.

I complained to my mom on the phone today about how bad my life is. Honestly, though, I think I was just tired. I took a nap and woke up in a pretty decent mood, so maybe that's all I needed.

General crankiness aside, though, I do tend to have a bad attitude about certain things. I really hate my current romantic situation, which is that I currently have none. I go through short bursts of a peaceful feeling about being all alone for the rest of my life, and that's about as positive as I get.

How can I turn this around? I'm not too sure. I know that actually having someone show some interest would help me to have a better attitude about it, but I think that it actually works the other way around. Some of my friends to whom I'm pretty sure I have never complained about boys said that I was a really positive person except that I'm notoriously negative about dating.

I have two possible dates this coming weekend, but no solid plans. I'm excited about it because I haven't been on a date in forever, but at the same time I'm worried because I don't know if I even know how to be a good date, and I'm also worried that my bad attitude will ruin any chance I might have had with them.

Hmm. It is quite a problem. I think my decision is to continue listening to some Patty Griffin music until I feel better about it and then to just have fun on the dates and treat all men as if they are just friends. I think I'll come off as a lot more confident if I do that anyway.

I'm pretty dissatisfied with this post, but I'm going to publish it anyway. Everyone's allowed a bad day/week every now and then, right?

Giddy, Hyper, and Sleep-deprived! YAY!

2010-02-24T14:04:00.001-08:00

Lack of sleep this week has reached just the right point when I am giddy and not quite to where I want to curl up in a ball and go into a sleep coma. I spent all evening last night cleaning the apartment with the roomies listening to some shameless pop music and drinking coke zero. Oh, the memories.

My room mates keep me young.

My lab mates help me to recognize when I'm being crazy. I was imitating a water molecule in the hallway this morning, and aside from making me kind of dizzy, it was really fun.

I found a cough drop (Luden's, cherry, in my defense) in my back pack, and I exclaimed, "Cool! A cough drop! I love these things!"

Shortly thereafter I deemed a contaminated chunk of polystyrene "nanopolystyrene."

Then as my married lab mate was on the phone with his wife commenting about screaming babies, he said, "You have screaming kids, I have screaming co-workers." I started crying and whining like a baby, and then Dr. Sevy came in from his office next door and asked me if I had lost it, and I said, "Nope, just crying like a baby. It actually is quite refreshing."

Oh, and if any of you would like to see Patty Griffin with me in Salt Lake, speak up, because I got an extra ticket in the hopes that I wouldn't have to go by myself.

Adhesives and SFG

2010-02-19T10:11:00.000-08:00

This is a lay audience article on my research I wrote for my dreaded Writing Class of Death. I think this is the best I've ever done to describe my research so anyone could understand it, so yeah. Enjoy, or something like that:

On a quiet farm, a worker carefully sands away peeling paint off of a weathered fence in preparation to apply a fresh coat, knowing that in a few years he will return to start the process again. In a library, among stacks of old books, a librarian restores the cover of an old volume of literature that has, through age and repeated use, become unglued from its binding. Both the paint peeling off of the fence and the cover falling off the book represent problems with adhesive failure. In both cases, something has ceased to stick: the paint has ceased to stick to the fence, and the book has ceased to stick to its binding. Why do adhesives fail? The answer to this question could unlock the knowledge necessary to produce books as timeless as the stories they contain, fences that weather the years, and other useful applications.

We lack the basic understanding of adhesives, why they fail, and why they stick in the first place because adhesives hide between the two things they bond together. For many years, the nature of adhesives required us to break an adhesive bond before we could see what went wrong. Unfortunately, after an adhesive fails, it no longer acts like an adhesive, so this method of study fails to provide access to a true understanding of adhesives in action. Because of this lack of knowledge, adhesive designers create new coatings or glues by trial and error: they produce a sample that might work and then test it to determine if they succeeded. As you may have presumed, this approach has resulted in many more failures than successes. Some innovative adhesive companies have transformed such failures into successes. For example, 3M originally developed the adhesive used for their post-it notes as a super-strong, long-lasting adhesive. This invention obviously failed at its intended purpose, but we can all appreciate its usefulness as a light-duty temporary adhesive. Although the post-it example shows that not all failures represent losses to the company, not all failed adhesives prove profitable in the end. Designers need a fundamental understanding of why adhesives fail in order to improve upon the trial-and-error approach.

A new method offers to shed new light on the problem of studying adhesives, Sum Frequency Generation (SFG) Spectrosocopy. This method enables us to look at the orientation of molecules in an adhesive, even while that adhesive hides between the two materials it holds together. Spectroscopy involves sending light into some sample of interest and studying what happens to the light after it has interacted with that sample, which can tell us what the molecules of the sample are doing. Most methods in spectroscopy do not distinguish between bulk molecules and surface molecules, and in the case of adhesives, this causes major problems because the molecules of interest make up a small fraction of the total molecules in the sample. In the problem of the library book, for example, the adhesive molecules interact with the outside surface of the book spine and with the inside surface of the book cover to stick the two together. Whatever happens inside the book cover or inside the spine of the book (the bulk of the material) does nothing to affect the way the adhesive sticks the cover to the spine, even though the spine and cover represent a greater fraction of molecules than the adhesive molecules.

SFG only sees molecules on surfaces, so in the case of the book, it would only see the outside surface of the book and the inside surfaces where the spine attaches to the cover. Since SFG spectroscopy involves light, in order to study a buried surface, the light must be able to penetrate and escape, so a book does not make an ideal sample to study. To solve this problem, we use materials that will act like materials we would like to study if we could but that allow light to get through; for example, we can use two pieces of glass stuck together with some adhesive to take data using SFG as we pull them apart and see how the orientation of the molecules changes as the bond approaches failure. We could repeat this same procedure to study how adhesives change with heat, humidity, sunlight, and time.

Using Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy, we hope to learn more about the link between structure and function in adhesives. With this knowledge, strategic design could one day replace the trial and error method of adhesive development, saving companies and consumers money and improving the quality of many products.

Lent.

2010-02-17T21:40:00.001-08:00

Lent is 40 days and 40 nights (if you exclude Sundays). It is largely a Catholic tradition, but a lot of my protestant friends also participate. Lent is a time of repentance, a time to be spent creating habits that bring us closer to God or disowning habits that separate us from him.

Forty days is a little under twice the amount of time it takes for something to become a habit in your life, that makes it in general a good length of time over which to make a goal concerning behavior change.

I asked God what He would have me change to grow closer to him. Something that came to mind was exercise, which is an area of particular weakness for me, but since my body is a temple, taking care of my body should help me become closer to God. Since the epitome of health to me has always been running and because it's something I almost can't even conceive of myself being able to ever do, I've decided to run for Lent. Actually, it's a couch-to-5K. I've fallen off this wagon many, many times before, but this time I'm blogging about it like Julie and Julia, so I may actually succeed.

Anyhow, the address is http://flyingpiggyruns.blogspot.com/ just in case you're dying to follow me. :)

Birthday Wishes

2010-02-05T13:52:00.000-08:00

This year has been about taking control of my life and believing that the things I want in life already belong to me, and that all I have to do is just claim them.

Life is really good right now. I'm excited about things that are happening, taking care of things that weren't quite how I wanted them, and just loving life. And that's BEFORE my birthday.

I'm turning 26 in a week. I am so excited about my birthday, even if it means being another year older in a local world that seems to be getting younger and younger around me. Why? I always get what I want for my birthday. I'm not talking about material things here. The things I want and need materially are really easy to obtain, but the immaterial things are a little more challenging, and I feel quite blessed for always getting what I want for my birthday.

Last year for my birthday I wanted to go on a different date with a different guy every day the week of my birthday, which was going to be set up by a friend. This friend never got around to setting up said dates, but I ended up getting asked out almost every day of that week by different guys every day. For my birthday on my mission we met a family with five children who were all waiting on us when we came, and asked if they could be baptized after the first lesson. Every year I get what I want for my birthday, and why? Because I expect it.

I'm expecting good things for my birthday this year as always. And with the theme of 2010 being "It's My Turn," I will try to treat every day as if it were my birthday.

Compassionate Thinking Report

2010-02-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

January is now complete, and I feel that although I (along with the rest of the world's population) have not totally mastered compassionate thinking, I have learned a lot about it. Probably the most poignant thing I learned was a lesson taught to me by a friend. My thoughts had wandered far from compassion, and I had been analyzing my own motives and attitudes. I confided in him that I feared being alone in life, and that I just needed to learn to not fear it. He then told me the perfect thing to fit with the month's theme: "Your fear is legitimate. Trying to just brush it off is like telling yourself to 'just toughen up.' I don't think you'd ever say that to another person; why are you saying it to yourself?" That's what January was all about. Treat others AND myself in the most compassionate way possible. I improved, I learned, and I think that January was better for it.

On one of the final days in January I attended the funeral of the brother of a friend. It ended up being one of the saddest funerals I've ever attended, and I cried through the whole thing even though I had never met the deceased. It was one of the most spiritual events of my weekend (including church and the temple, actually) because it taught me what it means to "mourn with those who mourn."

The project for January was to participate in Operation Beautiful. My original goal was to place 50 post-it notes with affirming messages during the month of January, and I didn't quite make it that far, but I did place quite a few. Here are a few of my favorites:

The theme for February is "Love Without Fear." Some ideas I was having for projects was to knock door to door meeting all my neighbors or to try to go on lots of dates (which would mean I would have to ask boys out). I'm open for suggestions.

Control

2010-01-27T23:04:00.000-08:00

I feel so in control of my life right now, despite having an exam tomorrow I haven't studied for, an inbox full of student emails to respond to, and a paper due on Friday (or a piece of one anyway).

Seriously, grabbing hold of the reins in one area of your life does amazing things toward your overall happiness.

I've also discovered that when you want something real, you have to give away all the things you use as crutches because you don't have the real thing before you can have the real thing. Is that cryptic enough for you? You have to take up your bed before you can walk. Throw away the crutches, put your faith in the Lord, and start walking towards your own destiny!

I didn't realize it while I was doing it, but what happened on Monday may just define my whole year of "It's My Turn." Speaking of which, I'm looking forward to my post at the end of the month summarizing January's project and announcing February's project. So exciting!

Freedom

2010-01-25T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today I am free of a huge burden. I had a friendship that was lacking the level of honesty it should have had for the amount of time invested in it. It took a lot of courage and honesty to get out of my protective box of sarcasm and jokes, but I sat down and had a serious talk, and things feel so resolved and complete. I felt like I really needed to do that to prove to myself that I could have a serious relationship talk without being awkward and assert myself to get what I need out of it. I'm especially impressed that this talk was with a member of the opposite sex. I'm learning useful skills. It feels like a weight has been lifted, and I am FREE.

A Tale of Two Beakers

2010-01-20T13:08:00.001-08:00

It was the best of times. The sunlight filtered into the window of the lab, glimmering through HPLC-grade water in pristine beakers, playing on the reflective surface of molecularly clean silicon wafers. The chemist pondered Dr.'s Snell and Fresnel, and their laws of refraction and reflection as she gazed at the photons playing their games with the water and the glass.

Fres-nel? Fres-YES!

It was also the worst of times, particularly for this poor box elder beetle, and for the chemist, who had to somehow fish out the remains of Mr. Contaminant out of the water also containing her samples that took hours to clean.

I think this guy actually chewed through the parafilm to get where he is, so I don't feel too guilty about his demise. Apparently parafilm is not only good for protecting samples, but also protects the local wildlife. Oh, Mr. Contaminant, when will you ever learn?

*No Box Elder Beetles were (intentionally) harmed in the making of this blog post

*As always, this blog was written using 100% recycled electrons

Flier Fail

2010-01-19T22:50:00.000-08:00

I recently found the following flier in my mailbox the day before a Mandatory Meeting of Doom.

You will notice several things "wrong" with this flier. A certain design-minded friend of mine was apt to notice the overlap of the yellow writing on the white background on the left side of the image, which also bothered me, but wasn't the first thing I noticed. I found it overall ineffective as an advertisement because it resembles a flier for a dry seminar that I would prefer to skip or to which I should at least bring a rousing game of tetris. Ignoring the fact that "etc" is one of the bulleted points, this meeting was so dry that they needed to simultaneously threaten us vaguely with "more test taking" and bribe us with "pizza and drinks," a prospect so exciting that one space between the sentence and its punctuation just wasn't enough !!!

Probably the coup de grâce of the whole flier was what was NOT included. Now, I know I forgot something, but what could it be... Or more importantly, WHERE?

Josh Groban

2010-01-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

This is a little song I wrote about Josh Groban, sung to the tune of "I love to see the temple."

I love to see Josh Groban

I'll marry him some day

Convert him to the Gospel

And carry him away

Josh Groban has a special voice

A voice of love and beauty

I'll prepare myself to be his wife

Because he's such a cutie

FIN.

Graduate Life

2010-01-05T19:09:00.000-08:00

A new semester has officially begun, and with it has come a lot of gearing up and scrambling to get everything in good working order. I spent the day setting up the class websites for the general chemistry labs that I am teaching this semester. The first class was this morning at 8 AM, and after about fifteen minutes into spoon-feeding the syllabus to the students, I realized that they were overwhelmed with information already. There is SO much to go over in that class, though, so I still ended up going over introductory material, lab safety and stuff for nearly an hour.

I've made improvements on last year as far as that first lecture goes. For one thing, I told them what they could call me. I told them they could either call me by my first name or by my last name, but not to call me Dr. or Professor because I am neither of those things...yet. Last year I was called various and sundry things, and one of my friends even overheard some of my students discussing the matter in a study session. Therefore, the first thing on the first slide was my name, how to pronounce it, and my preferred titles.

In my other role as research assistant, I discussed research goals with my advisor. Previous to this meeting I had lunch with two fellow graduate students from other labs on the same floor also to informally discuss our research. We determined that it sounded more like a support group discussion than a lunch group. I confided, "I want to teach after this, anything but research. I definitely don't want to research for the rest of my life." One of my companions confided, "I'm glad someone else feels that way, too. I've been working on the same problem since I GOT here!" The other one said, "Sometimes I wonder if we will ever publish anything useful," as we all sighed in agreement. We all have fantasies of quitting graduate school to do other things, like open a Pizza Hut or go to optometry school. We agreed that it might have been better to be a brilliant something-else rather than a mediocre chemist. Then the Taiwanese lady who always waits on us came to our table with the soups we always order before we had the chance to order them, and when we left she said to one of the guys, "You finished your food!" With life being what it is for the humble graduate student, it's nice to have that sort of attention and to receive that rare praise for doing something as simple as finishing lunch.

It's My Turn

2010-01-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

At the risk of being cliche (and also a bit late), I want to reflect on 2009 and talk about goals for 2010.

2009 was a rough year for me in many ways. I feel like I spent a lot of the year feeling sorry for myself. Unfortunately, I allowed dating and not dating to define the year for me. It started off by my bullishly swearing off dating for the entire month of January, which was probably one of the best things I did all year. After I closed that umbrella, it rained men in February, and then a drought began again. I confessed my love for a friend of mine, which was met by the worst possible response, which was none at all. I bemoaned my single status. I frustrated myself by my ability to be very close friends with men and attract their undivided attention and foster desires to take me out on "friend dates" without ever being romantically interested. Several groups of my male friends faced off, each party wanting me to commit to them, while neither party had any interest in giving any commitment whatsoever to me.

Good things happened, too. I started working on my research with Dr. Patterson, who is the best advisor I could possibly ask for. He is so understanding of challenges I have and always asks for and seriously considers my ideas for our projects. We had a lot of research frustrations, but the group is getting a paper out at the beginning of this year due to research done in 2009, and I made a potentially major breakthrough in my project on the very last day I worked on it. I performed well in all of my classes, was elected president of spectroscopy club, and was able to raise my GPA enough to receive mercy from the Committee when my proficiency scores were less than desirable. I started working at the Provo temple in the summer, and I have made a lot of new acquaintances with some amazing women there. Working in the temple has been such an amazing blessing in my life, and has allowed me to understand the ordinances that much better and feel of service to what my friend and mentor Sherri called, "The Lord's VIPs." I was also able to attend the temple at least once every week in 2009, and acted as a proxy for dozens of my ancestors to receive their temple ordinances and be sealed as eternal families, which brought immeasurable joy to my life.

So now 2009 is over, and it's time to start thinking about the year to come. Frankly, I'm tired of looking back each year and seeing myself set the same half-hearted goals each year. So instead of making more resolutions I won't keep, this year shall have a theme. The theme for 2009 ended up being "If you like it then you should have put a ring on it," although unintentionally. I bet if you had to tally up the phrases I used in the year 2009, that phrase would have been dominant. The theme for 2010? "It's My Turn!" This theme was inspired by my friend Baley, who told me that she had a friend who used this as a theme one year with positive results. Basically, it's about treating my dreams as if they are already mine. It's about no longer telling myself that the things that I desire are for other people and not for me. It's about not putting off for another day what I could do to improve today. In other words, it's going to be a GREAT year.

In addition, each month is going to have a theme, hopefully without repeats. Last year had a lot of repeat themes because I didn't fully live the themes during the month in which they were attempted. This year my themes of the month will involve certain specific habits and attitudes I want to acquire, and a few projects and activities to motivate and inspire. The theme for January 2010 is Compassionate Thinking. This theme was inspired in sacrament meeting last week during a talk on compassion. Another friend of mind commented, "How very Zen of you," which made me suspect that my recent increased consumption of herbal teas may have influenced my desire to think compassionately. Compassionate Thinking is an element of mindfulness that I think eludes most women, and it shouldn't. Compassionate Thinking involves being non-judgemental of both yourself AND others. You observe, you take actions when necessary, but you don't judge. One activity I will do is observing when I am being judgemental, what sorts of things set it off, etc. I have already found that I am more judgemental (in a negative way) about the behaviors of men, particularly when it comes to dating. I also judge myself frequently, especially in regards to health and academics. The project I'm most excited about is participating in Operation Beautiful. Tomorrow I plan on buying a pad of post-it notes, writing affirming messages on each, and placing several of them each day in various public locations. My goal will be to exhaust my supply of post-its by the end of the month. Perhaps I will even photolog my efforts! I think that developing the skill of thinking compassionately from the very beginning of the year will help me be successful in accomplishing other goals associated with other themes of the month going with my overall theme of "It's My Turn." I'm excited about this theme and the theme of the year, and optimistic about what is to come.

Sickness and Procrastination of Packing

2009-12-20T18:28:00.001-08:00

Procrastinating packing is a bad idea, but I'm doing it. I waited until the night before to pack, and I'm further procrastinating by writing this post. I like traveling, but I hate packing. Anyone else feel the same?

My etickets have been printed and back-up copies have been sent to my cell phone. Oh, modern technology. What did I ever do without my iPhone? Remember things on my own?

I printed out a copy of my proof of car insurance, and it printed it on a full page. Now if I get pulled over by a sight-impaired police officer, he won't even need glasses to read the fine print. It is also quite obvious that it is simply a copy I printed on my computer, but I guess that doesn't really matter. It's better than what I had before, which was an expired proof of insurance with the agent's number printed on it for personal verification...

Ah, it feels good to get stuff done.

Procrastination is even worse when you get sick in between the time when you should have done something and the time when you have to rush to get it done at all. I keep telling myself it's not that bad, but I changed my mind while I was dragging my suitcase from the basement up to my bedroom on the second floor. I'm going to be okay. And about 24 hours from now I bet I'll be pulling up in my driveway at home.

Besides, another woman before me traveled to her Christmas destination large with child on the back of a donkey, and if I have to travel on an airplane with a head cold to feel a bit of what she might have felt, I embrace the opportunity.

Quiet Reflection and Affirmation

2009-12-16T08:03:00.000-08:00

Christmas break has officially begun! Because I SAID SO, darn it! I went to work yesterday anyway, and ended up staying late running scans of samples I had made that morning. Rather than being bothered to actually optimize the optics for back surface, we just integrated each scan for ten minutes rather than the customary two. Probably the best thing that happened yesterday was that two of the samples I made (the only ones I actually finished before losing signal) were exactly identical. They were supposed to be exactly identical, but that's never happened before on our spin-coater looking at things from the front surface. It makes me think that maybe we are getting some funky diffraction stuff going on with the silicon samples.

For the last two hours, I was completely alone with the loud and persistent hum of the laser's cooling system. I tend to avoid being alone, and I am rarely completely by myself, but it was actually quite lovely to have some privacy and "quiet" for a few hours. While I ran the scans on the PC, I watched Glee on the Mac. During one episode, I just started sobbing, and I couldn't stop for half an hour.

I just started thinking about my life, everything that has happened lately, and where I hoped I would be at this point. Emotions I have been unknowingly shoving to the back of the metaphorical closet started pouring out. When I told my room mate Emily about it after getting home, she asked me how that felt. I paused a moment and said, "Like I just got out of the shower." I forgot how cleansing it can be to have a good cry.

When I left work all I wanted to do was be alone to continue my quiet reflection, but I got a phone call from Blair. He asked me if I would mind going through his pantry and cooking something with him, and I said I would. I ended up making this spicy okra and rice that we loved. I had told him about the string of disappointments that had made me cry, and he asked me, "Well, have you done any good in the world today?" I didn't say anything, so he answered for me, "You made dinner tonight, and this is the healthiest food I've had all week." We had a short but intense conversation about relationships. My biggest frustration is that I have a lot of really close male friends for whom I have developed deeper feelings and who tend to only have feelings for really "magazine pretty" girls they barely know. He said "But you know what, they're mistaken because attraction won't matter for long, and friendship is the most important thing." I was so grateful to have him to be sensitive to my emotions and say the only things that could have comforted me.

What am I going to do with these feelings? I am going to love myself and never settle. I will find joy, not in spite of the journey, but IN the journey. If I marry, I will be a wife and mother who appreciates what she has. If I don't, I will be one of those strong spiritual single women who nurture all those around them. I will be that woman today.

A Mish Mash of Comments from the Peanut Gallery

2009-12-11T22:45:00.001-08:00

Posting again. This "blogging" experience is quite different from the experience of having an online journal. It may seem the same on the surface, but this feels more like talking to myself in an empty room with the doors open. No one is really listening, but you still can't say certain things because they CAN listen if they want. Which is the reason for my not doing it often, but here I am, posting yet again.

I have toyed again with the idea of doing a pop-science blog, but it just seems like too much work outside of school, and too similar to school work at that.

"Science is a fickle mistress..." I said to a friend studying ancient religion, regarding why I'm not exactly sure what my thesis will encompass. Right now I'm studying "adhesion," in the loosest possibly use of the word. Really, I'm studying spin coating and why the heck I can't get consistent samples when I'm using the same parameters every time on an automated system.

My advisor has this amazing ability to see the silver lining, which I think is really good for me. He used my frustrations to point out how great the technique we use is. According to everything else you could use to test my samples, they're identical, and yet our technique shows that they are NOT exactly the same, at least not on the surface. The LITERAL surface.

Anyhow, science is a fickle mistress. Hopefully I'll be studying something stickier soon, either because we've thrown in the towel with this spin-coating business and moved on or because we've solved the problem and moved on. I just want to get on with it.

Sometimes the best thing you can give to something is time. That's going with my personal life now, too. Again, the doors in here are open, and my voice resounds in this empty room, reminding me that you can indeed hear me, though I am the only one in the room. I am learning patience. But much like in my research I don't think I'm yet to the stage of really learning something of the patience, although with every day that passes in limbo my lack of patience does indeed become more evident to me.

In Kentucky, I always thought boots were stupid. I was anti-boot. I also always felt that tights were for little girls and ballerinas and had never owned thermals, not even as a child. A year in Utah finds me shopping with the specific goal of buying thermals, boots, and tights. I'm converted. I wore my new boots into the snow, and was impressed by the fact that not only did my feet stay dry, but they also stayed toasty warm.

That's it. That's all I'm saying. Now either come into the room and talk to me or go home, but get out of that hall!

The Parable of the Ink Pen

2009-12-09T21:16:00.001-08:00

Today at institute, I realized that the ink pen that I had made a point of remembering to bring was actually not any good. I reluctantly asked an ink pen from the girl sitting behind me, which she happily loaned me. Then, I turned around, and on the desk next to me was an ink pen. It wasn't a retirement ink pen, but it wasn't a 10 for a dollar ink pen either; in my world, that's nice.

It made me think. We do what we can to be prepared, and often that offering comes up short, but if we have done what we could to be as prepared as we know how to be, everything else we need will be provided for us.

That's a good thing to remember in this time of preparing for final exams and end of semester projects...

Zombie Plans

2009-05-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

I had a recent scare involving being booted from my dream. My way of dealing with it this time around made me realize how much I've grown in my adult life. I used to be terrified of coloring outside the lines, but I saw myself looking at the possibility of being compelled to blaze an as yet unconcidered trail as something beautiful and possibly serendipitous.

As I was preparing my salutatory speech for high school graduation, it was suggested that I simply blast "No Such Thing," by John Mayer, which had just come out at the time. Maybe I should have done it. The ironic thing is that I didn't play it because I wanted to please the principal, who I am still convinced was in education because he hated teenagers and being a high school principal gave him the means to make their lives miserable. At the time, I remember thinking, "Yeah, run through the halls of the high school!" but now I think one of the most important messages in that song is, "I am invincible, as long as I'm alive," and I am just now, after twenty five years of life failures and successes, coming to truly believe that. If things don't go as planned, things can still work out just fine.

I made a list of dreams that could be better served outside of graduate school. Jen called them Zombie Plans, referring to the plans that some nerdy young men tend to make regarding what they should do in case of zombie apocalypse. They are plans that are in place even though the need for them is highly unlikely to arise. They ranged from sensible to totally impractical, but they were my dreams. They are my dreams. First thing that came to mind was optometry school. I had forgotten all about that one. When I graduated high school, I wanted to be an optometrist (and an artist on the side), but my optometrist told me I should be an opthalmologist instead because they make more money, so I thought, "Sure, I'll go to medical school." Then in college I decided that my unusual fear of blood and needles made me a poor candidate for medicine and abandoned that dream for Chemistry. Anyhow, I let the tides around me pull me away from what I wanted to do, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think it was a dream that needed to be rediscovered.

Then came some immediately rejected ideas: organic farming, exotic dancer, rock star, and helicopter pilot.

I wanted something creative. I would love to be a science writer, writing about recent hot button research topics in an entertaining format for the general public. I decided during this time that I wanted to continue writing poetry and creating artwork. I discovered the need to feed my artistic side.

So... Even though the threatening zombie apocalypse was avoided for now, I'm glad I had the opportunity to consider the possibilities outside my chosen path and glance into the detours I could have taken, and could still travel.

Mine the Bird

2009-05-02T19:35:00.001-07:00

If I had a million dollars, we wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinners. In fact, we'd eat hot brown and smother it in really expensive dijon ketchup.

I threw a party at my house today for the Kentucky Derby, which is odd because I've never had a Kentucky derby party before, and in fact don't remember even watching it on TV. Funny how now that I'm not in Kentucky I appreciate it more. I am an advocate of Kentucky cuisine now. I made derby pie, hot brown, and mint julep, all from scratch, and all amazing. Kind of pretentious, though, since I'd never made any of those foods before today. I wanted hot brown, though, and the recipe I have makes enough for 12-15 people.

Anyhow, nothing beats the Kentucky derby to give you an excuse to wear a ridiculous hat, sip fancy cocktails, and cheer for horses with funny names. The only day of the year when I can be requested to sing "just one more" round of "My Old Kentucky Home."

A Story Already Told Many Times

2009-04-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

No true fiasco ever began as a quest for mere adequacy. A motto of the British Special Air Force is: 'Those who risk, win.' A single green vine shoot is able to grow through cement. The Pacific Northwestern salmon beats itself bloody on it's quest to travel hundreds of miles upstream against the current, with a single purpose, sex of course, but also... life.

I have found that there are few situations in my life that are not made better by the movie Elizabethtown. There is a quote in there for everything. The film ends with this quote, and I have been thinking a lot about that salmon.

I've been thinking about all the things we go through for "love."

So many love songs, and most of them have to to do with getting your heart broken. A group of friends and I made CD's for exchange of songs that we love but don't like to admit that we love, and most of the songs on the CDs are love songs.

The salmon beats itself bloody, the praying mantis gets eaten by its mate, and we get our hearts broken.

I suppose on paper it looks like we are fortunate winners in the universal game of love. Love literally kills them, and we only feel like it kills us.

.But maybe it's like they say in Elizabethtown. No quest for greatness begins with the search for mere adequacy. Love, once it is truly found, will endure through the eternities, will transcend all other bonds, and will ultimately transform us into what we were always meant to be. Is it worth it? I think so. Unless you're a praying mantis.