So in case you hadn't heard, ze germans have come out with a cheeseburger in a can! Can you say downfall of humanity?! L...O...L...
Following inspiration from a labmate, I put this little number together... go there and vote for my creation - it R teh AWESUM!

http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/View.aspx?CANHAZCHEEZBU128463091024218750.jpg

Enjoy... I think it R funny!

Spent the weekend in Dallas with my seeeester - it was AWSUM!

We did a whole ton of shopping which has left me with a new coffee table and bedside table (new bed to follow) as well as a bunch of new clothes - a dress and a pair of skinny jeans - actual factual trendy skinny jeans!!! Oh and thank goodness for the wonderful amazing place that is the lingrie department of Nordstrom's!  I've never felt so supported!  heehee

So yea this week I'll be having a visitor - of the xy persuasion... he and I will be venturing down to meet my madre on wednesday - oh so exciting! And then this weekend there will be tubing and smores and BEER!

Sorry this is so boring tonight - I've got little to nothing of interest to report - cholesterol test in the morning which means 12 hours fasting! Doesn't sound like much on paper but it sucks when you're staring the midnight munchies in the face!  I'm off to bed to sleep through the worst of the ice cream cravings! Nighty night yall!

So yea things pretty much couldn't get any better... Well, not entirely - if there were to suddenly appear a wormhole between here and San Antonio so I could make the trip in 3 minutes instead of about 3 hours THEN things would be that P-word! Yall know the word - starts with P-, ends with -erfect!

All things boy-related are great, work is slow but that's very temporary, the house is still standing and still mine, all of my fabulous girlfriends with weddings this summer are now experiencing that "wedded bliss" thing!

So there's my take on the last few halcyon weeks - so sad to watch summer slowly drain away and leave real life where it once stood in all its glory, but such is life... So it goes.

I'm sure to have bored most with this peppy bit but stay tuned for the frustrated and possibly even maudlin posts to inevitably follow today's great height! 

Yay estrogen!

Yea so here I sit in lab and joseph just got on this kick about how valuable a jeweler's lungs might be at the end of a life spent carving gemstones... Diamond dust much?

Anyhow, today is the first ORP-free Monday I've had this year and it's awesome!  We've got youngins up visiting from harris county community college to show them what it's like to work in a lab on sorghum - trying to recruit others for lab life.  Not sure if it's working but they seem to be having a good time playing with PCR and running a gel and such - makes me all nostalgic for my first days in lab back in the HuLab...

As yall can see from my new profile picture, I got a new haircut this weekend - Becki's awesome cousin Kelly is in town and she just graduated from beauty school so she was getting in a little practice and Becki and I got new styles!  Not sure if they're visible but I even got highlights - never done that before!  Never had the guts but Kelly talked me into it and they look fab so it's all good.

So big congrats to my dear darling PAM!!!  Her saphenous butt is getting married!  Now I just have to meet the dude and make sure he's up to standards for my Pam! 

Today I got to talk with the big M about my summer project - I've been given the big fat go-ahead to get rolling with all the things that need doing so I finally get to head back to the Bench!!!  Oh how I miss benchwork - like the desert misses the rain!   I'm doing both a phylogenetic and a co-regulation study of the differential expression profiles of various genes in response to Abscisic acid-induced osmotic stress in sorghum, japonica rice, and maize!  That's a mouthful to be sure!  Tomorrow I get to lay out seeds on germination paper so they'll sprout nicely!  Wish me luck!

the best part of believe is the lie... - Fallout Boy

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.
Kurt Vonnegut

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.
Kurt Vonnegut

thanks Kurt -  my thoughts exactly!

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
 - Pablo Neruda, Love Sonnet XVII

Most beautiful poem ever.  Thanks to Patch Adams for reminding me of how long it had been since I had read it!  I suppose it's truly the final stanza that takes the proverbial cake - it is as though I could have written those very words were I born with the gift of a poetic pen... Thanks to Pablo for putting it down for me.  Now for some updates:

ORP first draft = done!

Finals = almost here!

Sickness = OVER!!!

New Gril = broken in and FAB!

Nighty night boys and girls!

Yesterday one of the best writers the world has ever known across time and all eras left us all behind here with nothing but his writings for comfort. 

I'm writing of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.  He was born on the 11th of November in 1922, and died at the age of 84 on the 11th of April, 2007.  He was 84 years old and the single most influential literary figure of my entire mentality.  I'm going to put a smattering of quotes up from his books and writings, etc. so all of yall can figure out how awesome he was and read some of his things.  He was actually a POW during his service in WWII and that experience spawned Slaughterhouse-Five, the one work of his most highschool students actually get to see in a classroom setting.  It's the bottom tier, in my opinion, of his writings.  My personal favorites are Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.  Here are some quotes from his books:

Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy

Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God

Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He refused to believe that he had gonorrhea, wereas the truth was that he did

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.

Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants.

Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.

Belief is nearly the whole of the Universe, whether based on truth or not.

We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is

That's about all there is to be said on that matter for now, off to another rousing round of a class I care little to listen to by a professor I care even less about! woohoo...

Have a better day than Kurt everybody!

Hay hay hay...

So yea - where to begin - I got my permanent lab assigned - I'm in the M lab forever now!  I've got my own desk and bench and pipettman and everything!  Project updates to follow mos def! 

For now I'm celebrating my ultra-productive morning with an ultra-unproductive hour or so till lunch time.  I gave a practice presentation for my ORP this morning (in case you're not in the loop yet it's a practice research proposal I have to come up with and write then defend in front of a faculty committee at the end of my first year to stay in the PhD program! Yikes!)  The practice session went really well and I got awesome feedback and concrete suggestions from the practice committee - talk about intimidating to stand up in front of three people who have already been through and passed this thing, to stand up and not feel like apologizing for wasting their time with my ill-preparation!  In all reality it went really well and they tell me that I'm pretty much a step ahead of the pack and on the right track for now so that's encouraging!

This afternoon will consist of some super-awesome bench work to purify some pellets of RNA that I isolated from ground tissue earlier this week!  Lots of filters and spinning and a DNaseI digestion for half an hour to clear out the pesky DNA from my RNA - that we'll turn into cDNA soon enough as it turns out!  Yay Sorghum!

In terms of the drama side of life - that's for me to keep to myself on account of I'm writing this while at work and some things are better left unsaid...  The truly curious will seek out hints to discern the true nature of the drama that currently occurs in and around moi...

Gonna run a 5K tomorrow - in spite of near freezing temperatures and possible sleeting!!! Woohoo...

Peace out ladies and gents!