jobs and wonder and glee

So the micro lab TA job is out- I gave them a call and the class is monday and wednesday nights (and I'd be expected to be there, which unless someone has a rapid-o-clone handy, will be slightly difficult seeing as how I'm supposed to be in class.)

but I applied for a job at Border's Books, and also at a photography studio hiring photogs. The photog job is sort of a 'what the hell' sort of thing, but we'll see.

checked out the MBARI website today...and nearly had a heart attack, because Francisco Chavez is going to have a biological oceanography project seeking an intern.

gleep!

bio oceanography with the God of Oceanography! gleep!

gleep!

sooo...

I just did something really stupid.

I studied some for physics, took a break, and decided to check my email.

This somehow translated into me looking at pictures on the Øytun Folkehøgskole 01-02 facebook group, pictures of the 5-year reunion (that I missed) and now I´m bawling, homesick for turmat, turkos, and finnmark, and wanting to run away.

with still more physics left to do.

not. cool.

this day sucks.

I dealt with my first ever superbitch today.

word of entreaty: if you're really pissed off at yourself for waiting too long to order your holiday presents, don't take it out on the minions.

also, if you say "I understand that it's not your fault," and then continue to harangue me for the next fifteen minutes, you're not helping your case.

my Myspace account has been hacked. disregard anything you get from me that seems even the slightest bit sketchy. you should have already gotten a message from me about the hacking if you're a friend of mine on that site.

one final down...

one to go. and a lab to write, but oh well.

I totally remember my cousin Erik saying something on the order of "yeah, well, at least you only have to take your o-chem final once, and then you're done."...the last time I took an Ochem final.

joy. double the fun!

I hate ochem finals for this reason: you think you're safe. you're motoring on through, hydroborating and oxymercurating and nomenclaturing and beta-substituting your way along, cheerful (or at least slightly in denial)... and cheer a little when you realize you're on the last problem! whee!...so now all that stands between me and freedom is figuring out the structure of this beast? no problem!...ok, so, here's my molecular formula...and my IR...and my NMR...
...wait...
...uh...hm. man. it's been a long time since my last NMR. is that?...yeah, that's totally not an alcohol, and it's not an alkyne, and there's no double bonds...
peak size...that's....uh...is that a quartet or a multiplet?....or...hm, relative heights...

*this continues for about 15 minutes.*

Arg! what is it?! I've gotten a gazillion possiblilities, all just slightly into the uncomfortably almost-wrong-almost right realm of possibilities...whine whine whine think think think...
...wait...
crap. that's totally a ketone fingerprint.

*FACEPALM*scribble scribble scribble flee.

Yep.

Ochem inna bun. onna stick. Done until end of January.

it's the 17th. hooboy. who threw me through the timewarp without warning me?!

mitts done! I'm not fully satisfied but they're done! now must send immediately or I'll start ripping and then they won't be done and that's bad because it's december 17th.

ack. ackkitty ack ack.

work at ugh in the morning tomorrow, so no pictures of knitting for you tonight. tomorrow maybe. if physics doesn't eat my face again.

a brief pause...

for a brain-stumper.

check out this sentence, from my physics assignment:

If p is in pascals and V is in cubic meters, then W is in joules.

now. doesn't this seem like a setup for a syllogism? you know, if A is B and B is C, then A is C?
aren't they stating, essentially, if A is B and C is D, then E is F?

...buh?
and what do pascals and cubic meters have to do with joules?! ok, pascals, maybe.
still.

arg!

and all this could have been avoided by a simple restatement...oh, say..."consider that p is in pascals, V is in cubic meters, and w is in joules."

arg!

when.....

when all is bleak and ucky and the demons are winning the war in your head...

some very random things can make it better.

Exhibit A:) thai cilantro spicy wings + pad thai + vietnamese coffee + The Boy

Exhibit B:) This quote from zenkitty:

It was there because that was how Beowulf would have really felt. He wouldn’t have been polite or politically correct about it, and he wouldn’t have cared if he offended someone. (If someone offended HIM, he’d take a battleaxe to them. If you’re so offended, where’s your battleaxe? Oh, you haven’t got a battleaxe? Well, then Beowulf WINS.) (The Beowulf in my head is not a man of subtle arguments.)

From a comment on this blog from the man behind Schlock Mercenary. it's close to the bottom of the page. skip down to it, it's totally worth it. It totally reminded me of the angl0sax0red thing, and made me smile.

Exhibit C:) My fortune cookie, which told me "it's one of those low-key days that you'd rather spend just chilling" and taught me how to say very comfortable in chinese. (hun xue fu)

and lastly,

Exhibit D:) Vermonty Python. All hail Ben and Jerry's.

I knew there was a reason...

...for not wanting to get out of bed today.

snif. Syvilla needs hugs today.

snif2. Terry Pratchett had damn well better stay 'I aten't dead' for a long while. a long while. ya hear?

oh dear

Kates and I are at it again...we play scrabble online a fair amount, and it seems that most of the games are pretty typical, at least for the two of us word-freaks.

and then...
every so often...
...something in the random generator that gives us our 'letters' goes a bit haywire, and we get...
...naughty scrabble.

through no fault of our own, of course. we just go for the high scores, honest. I blame kates for this first one, though. she started with "hole" and as I fiddled with my letters, my highest score became...sodomy....and now she's complaining that it won't let her play 'labias' (because it's not an s-plural).

so far our word list is:
Hole
Sodomy
Mine
Noose
Lust
Voted

ok. back to picture sorting.

cross fingers; the ants are still gone...

Cue dramatic, heart-pounding-in-terror music...

...go.

cue voiceover.....

....go.

They Come.....
....From The Darkest Reaches of The Walls...
....Blending Chameleonlike into Your Room...
...For One Purpose...
...Total Domination.....

cue dissonant antifanfare...

...go.

The ants...have been battled.

serious ick factor. we'll see how long this round of poison goes.

Lab....pssssshh...

yeah yeah yeah, so I totally should be finishing my lab right now, but I have an excuse.

the Attack of the Ants part whatever-we're-on-now.

this time, they're coming in through the tiniest crack in the wall where countertop meets wall. how? no freakin' clue, because that wall is shared with the bathroom wall. not an outdoor wall.

but they are definitely coming in there. and there's about a billion ants who are now getting very very clean, because our reaction when The Boy opened the dishwasher was "...uh...EAT CASCADE!...see how they like that." or something very similar.

I'm not unloading it. nu-uh. ew.

but in further entomological fun....my grasshopper was finally posted on insectpod and you should totally go check it out.

ok, ok. I'll do the lab. jees.

and if you reaaaally want your head to hurt....

I just...I just...my brain...
so...
hurty...

Now, really, I've no idea why it is that I love that song. I mean the original, Sir Mix-a-lot version. probably something to do with careening around suburban streets in Alexis's jeep with Kendra and Katie on our way to track meets, and spending ridiculous amounts of time waiting for the 4x4 to finally be over so we could pile into the bus (it was rare that we could actually drive to a meet, but always memorable) and go home. or sitting, freezing, in early march minnesota weather at the Minnetonka High track waiting for the stupid cro-magnon lecherous man leading our half the track meet to finish finals and let us into the nice warm bus....where all the runners, the precious, delicate, fragile runners, had been waiting for the past hour. at least. oh, some of our good friends (mostly high jumpers and pole vaulters) stuck it out with us, but we knew where us poor throwers stood in line.



sorry. rant snuck up on me.

anyway. at least it's restarted my brain, although now I have images of the pirates cast from senior year singing baby got back stuck in my head.

I've reached a milestone.

no, it's not a real job, although I'm working on it.
no, it's not that I finally got up off my arse and have a steady workout schedule that is more than sporadic runs and hypothermic bike rides.

I have just created...well, am in the process of creating...my first ever on-my-own clean-out-the-refrigerator Marit Surprise.

it contains:
copious amounts of turkey, (which barely made a dent in the supply...)
chives
onion
sweet mayan onion, whatever that was
carrots
red curry powder
garlic and onion powder
sherry
rice wine vinegar
chicken stock
mae ploy sauce
soy sauce
green peppers

...and has been burbling away in the crockpot since 1400.

also, I'm glad The Boy wasn't in evidence when I was cooking, because I learned on the RCS that, for some things, mold or gooshy bits don't really matter. you just cut them off, pretend momentary amnesia, look at the non gooshy bits, and if you can't tell you just cut off gooshy bits, it's good to eat.

if that's just grossing you out, I have no apologies to you. remember the Dirt article?
of course you do. if you don't, well then clicky!

KNITTING:

• I've come down with Second Mitten Syndrome.

• Halfway...no...actually...1/3 of the way...through the hemming row of T4. oh. god. now I know why some knitbloggers refuse to knit hems. it's mind numbing, but god forbid you do anything else at the same time, cause you can't.

• the scarf is getting relegated to 'too much brain hurty' for now.
  

1,3,7-trimethylxanthine

oh, how we love thee.

(That's caffeine, in case your ferrous O-chem is oxidized.)

a snapshot from work today:

J: What's SM?
N: S&M?
J: No, like... 'John Smith, SM?'
D: Sir...Math...uh...
N: Super Man.
Me: Masters of Science.
N: No, that's MS.
Me: that's the american convention. SM is Scientiae Magister, or Master/Teacher of the Sciences.
J: ...how the hell do you know that?
Me: I minored in dead languages.

Thing I Have Learned Today:

• edamame is not food. (at least not when you prepare it thinking it's snow peas. even so...)

• people cannot follow simple, labelled, check-the-box order forms, but when it comes to needlessly confusingly complicated web interfaces, they're fine.

• if you call a small company to purchase gifts 18 business days before Christmas at 1045 am PST and get a machine, you need to a) take your happy pills before leaving your message or b) need stronger happy pills or c) maybe some industrial strength tranquilizers.*

*you know my favorite level of hate? the Mrs-White-From-Clue-Clip hate? picture that vocal tone, railing about the fact that it's business hours and they're talking to a machine. never mind the fact that there were 2 people available to answer the phone. ok, and that's not really something I learned, but it's something someone should learn. and I am very very glad that I didn't have to call them back.

• Like John Bellairs, Tamara Siler Jones's novels are now on the Not To Be Read Before Sleep list. in big font, all caps.
  

oh...dear.....god...

and at this unholy hour of the day....

it's raining....

I'm awake....

there's something wrong with waking up at 0630 so I can be at work by 0800 when it's 2.5 miles away...

and I just got this wonderful spam email from Filipe Reese, the subject of which was "acoustic acoustic fitful raven," which I think totally needs to be a song, the lyrics of which should be the body of the email:

true satanic toxicology tritium quackery electrocardiogram
cunning transmute weapon
stupendous ac satanic hast incalculable appropriable isomorph toxicology acoustic
acoustic appropriable comma whale fitful acoustic spyglass bypath
transmute isomorph satanic
incalculable bicker coast axe townsmen acoustic hast
comma cunning spyglass raven long isomorph true quota elkhart hast
food enthusiasm long engage appropriable townsmen vicarious litigate frieze vicarious
whale litigate hast ac indecent coast elkhart frieze

it's late, and I'm dead...

so this is a quick one.

check out the awesomeness that came in the mail today!


I am holding it in front of my face because you don't want to see the zombified me. and I'm distracting you with a thumbs up with the finished mitt! one down, one to go...here's hoping I've got enough yarn...

whee! *thud* zzzzzz...

ok, east bay, cut the crap...

this is my least favorite weather. I like cold. I do. but only if it snows. now it's like early november in MN, only eternal...

no leaves.

bright sunny days that tempt you out on your bike where you promptly freeze to death and stay cold all day once you're back grr.

no snow.

we haven't figured out how to turn on the heat yet.

think it's time?hmmmm...

yes, that's one of the steve zissou hats from WHOI.

and here...
is one of the mitts I'm making for a christmas present. think I'll finish? wish me luck!

ignore the paper. I hit thumb in the middle of lab and had to improvise.

the purple.red.blue blur is Phronima the Betta.

the brown smear at the top is Hermit the Trog (or La Grenouille). he's still hoping there's food somewhere up there.



and here...

my favoritistest sweatshirt ever. possibly. might tie with my concert band sweatshirt, but maybe not.

Øytun Folkehøgskole.

represent.