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Friday, April 9th, 2010
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7:48 pm - random...
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guess who this quote is about...
"Despite international travels, it is in the nearby streams and forests, wetlands and bogs of southwestern Pennsylvania where you will most likely find Dr. _____ with her students, outfitted in hip waders, canoes or cross-country skis. As students in her classes, laboratories and research groups will testify, Dr. _____ not only offers a top-notch learning experience, but also an outdoor adventure worthy of the Discovery Channel.”
if you guessed my st vincent research advisor, ol Dr. Greenpants Walter, you are correct!! and yes, i can honestly say i did find myself in hip waders, canoes and cross-country skis in her labs. luckily not at the same time. they forgot to mention you will also go fossil hunting behind a latrobe carwash, eat dandelion leaves in class and almost die in the st vincent field trip van 5 times.
she was awarded the Boniface Wimmer Faculty Award for excellence in teaching last year. go Dr. Walter! if there was also an award for instructor of craziest labs on the planet, she'd win that, too. every year.
and if i gain nothing else from my biology education, i will always remember soil is the placenta of the earth. if that quote isn't discovery channel worthy, i don't know what is.
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| Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
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9:21 pm - run devil devil run run
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gyno called today and told me to schedule a pelvic ultrasound after my next period. not sure of the logic behind waiting till after the period, but i'm not the one who went to medical school. the pain has mostly gone, but crops up again if i walk around too much. too bad i walk around in a lab all day!! cheese and taters. that will also make it 2 ultrasounds in 2 months.. a personal best.
i actually worked on my thesis for 4 hours straight today. i deserve a cookie. maybe i'll graduate after all?
my stomach doc started me on a new medication for heartburn and i have not felt sick a single time since starting it two weeks ago. this is miraculous. i never want to stop taking it, cept that it'll probably give me cancer or something. though if i keep getting heartburn, i may also get cancer...hmm... now if only the rest of my body would hop on the feeling better bandwagon.
i can't stop listening to this korean pop song called "run devil run" by girls' generation. deal with it.
i broke down and watched Twilight the other day. ok, WORST MOVIE EVER. and that is saying a lot. i almost turned it off several times because it was just painful to watch. 90% of the movie is staring. i mean, really? really? this is what little (and big) girls are screaming about? maybe i'm too old and realize how compleeeeetely screwed up the whole thing is. edward and bella's relationship comes out of NOWHERE and they are creepily in love with one another. like.. unhealthily in love. i refuse to allow any of my future children to read this series until they are old enough to know better. maybe the books are better, idk. i've heard similar complaints about them.
NINETY MINUTES OF STARING.
maybe i was spoiled because i just finished reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. i highly recommend it to anyone who digs 1800's british literature.
off to eat a fake ice cream tofu bar!! lactose intolerance be damned!
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| Monday, April 5th, 2010
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6:29 pm - ouchies
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you know how "they" always say you don't know what you have till it's gone? well i never realized how much i want to have kids until i started having problems with some organs that are vitally important to the baby production..
last month, i started having pain in my right ovary. i always have pain when i ovulate (which is normal) but this lasted for a couple of weeks. it went 90% away once i started my period. we (my mom and i) concluded i probably had an ovarian cyst that just went away on its own. they're normal to get from time to time and they usually just go away after a couple months.
fast forward to this month.. i started having the same pain in my left ovary! i am still assuming it's a cyst or some kind, only because i have no idea what else it could possibly be. i know what ovary pain feels like, and it's definitely ovary pain. it stayed pretty tame for about a week or so, and once i got to pittsburgh for spring break, i gave my gyno a call to get an opinion on it. unfortunately she was out of town and i couldn't be seen, but they said they'd fax her the information and have her call me when she got back.
at the time, the pain wasn't bad at all, so i was fine with waiting. well.. of course the pain then got worse. from last wednesday to easter, the pain got worse and worse every day. by the time saturday rolled around, i was really close to going to the ER to get an ultrasound done, just so someone could get a look at what was going on. i was taking pain killers around the clock and just laying on the couch with a heating pad, not able to move very far.
ovarian cysts are usually harmless and you often don't even know that you have them. they can be caused by a lot of things, from an egg not fully releasing to more serious things like endometriosis and cancer. one complication is having a cyst burst (which can become an emergency if it hemorrhages) or having the ovary be weighed down and cause your fallopian tube to twist and cut off blood supply to the ovary. this requires surgery to fix or possibly remove the ovary. this happened to my grandma a few years ago and they gave her a full hysterectomy because of her age.
so by yesterday, i was still in a lot of pain and rather freaked out, since i couldn't be seen by anyone unless i went to the ER. i debated delaying my return to kent until i could be seen by someone. i ultimately decided to come back rather than miss my busiest day of the week on the off chance i might get into the gyno's office.
thankfully, when i woke up this morning, i inexplicably felt a lot better. most of the pain is gone and i'm able to get around a lot more easily. not sure what occurred exactly.. but i'm glad it at least appears to be on the way out.
i called the gyno's office again and was told that my doctor won't be back till wednesday (gee thanks) but that my chart was on the top of the pile and would be the first person called. i'm still going to try to see her and figure out what's up. hopefully she'll figure something out :/
sooooo that's my tale of woe. as much as i hate how much everything surrounding being fertile hurts, i still want to be able to have kids!! little red haired kids :)
the moral of this story is: give your ovaries a hug and tell them how much you appreciate them... or they might mutiny.
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| Friday, March 26th, 2010
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8:21 pm
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i was just looking at wedding dresses online (insert AWWWWWWW here) and the site i was on had a whole section of "maternity" gowns. remember when you used to wear a white dress cause you were a virgin? hmm...
anyway, all i could think was, can you imagine being the woman modeling the dresses? oh ya, i'm a wedding dress model... i strap on this big fake stomach and then...
something tells me your modeling career did not go as planned...
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| Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
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5:41 pm - don't think of stopping until we are lightyears away
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i can't stop watching old tenchi muyo episodes on youtube.... every time i step outside i say to myself, "it's another beautiful day! such wonderful springlike weather..." i hope someone out there knows what i am referring to... if you don't, shame on you.
anywayyyyy. i have a class this semester called "populations, communities and ecosystems." it's a pretty useful ecology class, since it's been filling in the gaps in my general ecology education (considering i am getting an MS in it yet have never actually taken 'general ecology'. oops). my only problem with this class is the professor... he's got it in his head that by "teaching" they really meant "just give the class 3 articles to read before every class then make them discuss them for 2 hours without ever putting in any material of your own!" oh alright then.
it's such bullcrap! i can go read and talk about articles on my own. why am i sitting in a class for two hours in a little group of people answering questions about an article like i'm 12 years old again. can you not just give us some lectures?? is it so hard to TEACH things? all he does is give us an article, give us some questions about it and tell us to answer them in our groups. then we go around the room and give our answers. and he nods his head.
every like.. FIVE classes or so, he'll actually stand up there and lecture for 5 minutes. WTH. and he loves to choose really long 30 page articles that we're supposed to bring to class with us. my computer is about 60 years old and doesn't like to travel too much or run on its battery.. ever.. so i have to print them all out, effectively killing about twice as many trees as i'll ever save as an ecologist.
sigh. it just seems like the laziest way of teaching a class i've ever seen. i am so exhausted from constantly having to read and discuss 6 articles/week. ahhhh. and he always makes us move our desks all around the room, which is just a pet peeve of mine. please just let me sit down, get all my stuff out and absorb some knowledge.
last class everrrrrrrrrr. i can do it. but i won't like it.
ps. i was discussing my hatred of identifying aquatic invertebrates with my advisor the other day, and she asked, "if you hate them so much, why did you include them in your thesis?" well.. let's see.. BECAUSEYOUMADEMEEEEEE. annnd they're a really important water quality indicator and all that jazz... but still... totally her idea...
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| Friday, March 19th, 2010
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6:29 pm - ouchies
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whoever said light exercise is good for getting rid of cramps should be ashamed of themselves for telling such a bold-faced lie.
how did women live before pain medication came about?
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| Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
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7:24 pm - happy st patrick's day!
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way to convert ireland!
i am irish! i think i'm kind of a lot irish, actually... but i'm also like 7 different things soooo... i look like everything! (apparently everything looks really pale.. would you guess i was 1/4 italian?) marmar is super de duper irish (i think he's half irish and half english, but no one really knows...) and looks the part, what with his red hair and all. maybe we'll have little leprechaun babies?
i was also born without whatever gene it is that makes you want to go out into big crowds of drunk people and get drunk along with them. i was invited to go out with some coworkers and get shit-facedly drunk tonight, but i passed. actually i almost ran screaming in the other direction. as i was leaving the lab at 5, i drove by all the frats and through downtown kent. there were people evvvverywhere, already obviously drunk, haha. one girl walked right out in front of my car, which was thankfully mostly stopped at a stop sign. as i was driving by all these people, all i wanted to do was be home sitting on the couch watching a movie with my cat.
speak of the devil, she just hopped up on my lap :)
in closing, if anyone can explain lady gaga's 'bad romance' video (or lady gaga in general) i will give you a whole dollar.
current mood:  amused
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| Saturday, March 13th, 2010
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12:14 pm
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me: "i hate white chocolate and i hate peanut butter, but it turns out that i love white chocolate peanut butter!"
dad: "wait.. there's white chocolate peanut butter?"
me: "yeah!"
dad: "if i'm still able to feed myself when i'm dying, i want to eat that."
hahahahaha i love my dad
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| Saturday, March 6th, 2010
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12:14 am - watch this video
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Den1Ez1ks&feature=related
ok, i have no idea WHAT IN THE FLAMING HELL is going on in this video, or what they are saying, or why this song is named strawberry chips. but omg i love it. i discovered these two japanese chickies like, a year ago and i can't stop listening to their weird techno-y rap-y hip hoppy random japanese music.
why are parts of it in english? why are they dressed like christmas trees? why are they dancing? i don't don't know, but if it's wrong i don't wanna be right.
i wish i could figure out how to buy their cds :(
their name is actually "Halcali" rather than "Halicali" like the vid says. i feel i have written of them before, but i just enjoy their insane music that much.
i must share them with the world. that is my good deed for the day.
current mood:  DANCY
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| Thursday, March 4th, 2010
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12:00 am - stuff and things
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people keep telling me "i love the way you tell stories." like, the 5th person in the past six months told me this today. being that i am inside of myself and not on the outside listening to myself spinning these elaborate yarns, i do not know to what they are referring.
actually, there are several variations on this statement. several friends have claimed they enjoy my facial expressions when i am speaking (which i, obviously, have never noticed). several others enjoy my italian hand motions. others apparently find my voice inflections amusing.
WHAT IS UP WITH THIS. i'm flattered by the compliments, but i never realized i told stories any more amusingly than others, i just figured really funny stuff happens to me all the time...
this reminds me of the time rai and michelle and then my own eye doctor enlightened me to the fact that i apparently have larger-than-normal pupils. who knew? but suddenly everybody started telling me about it! i wonder how many other things people are noticing that i am unaware of... do i have a tail i never knew about? that'd be sweeeeet.
in completely unrelated news, i went to the GI doctor the other day about my ridiculous heartburn and the pain i always get in my left side. he felt all around, asked me a million questions and finally stated, "you've stumped me." well that is exactly what i want to hear the doctor say. so he ordered an ultrasound of my abdomen just to see how things are looking in there and all kinds of bloodwork to check various organ functioning to see if it sheds any light on the weird pain. he also asked if i had ever injured my ribs, because they seemed tender in one spot and said OMG YES. but the story of how i injured them is so completely ridiculous, i was ashamed to even explain it. i had bronchitis last year and coughed so much and so hard, i literally hurt my ribs. badly. like, i thought i broke a rib. i don't know what i really did, because i saw the doctor about it and she seemed unconcerned. but it STILL HURTS. if i try to do crunches, or press in the wrong spot (or if my superfat cat walks on my side), it's still tender. a full year later! who injures themselves COUGHING.
for reals. anyway, here's hopin they don't find anything weirdsville going on on the ultrasound or in the bloodwork. but damn it i would love to get an explanation for the pain/cramp i always get. sigh.
my insidey parts are defective, but i think the warranty expired...
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| Thursday, February 11th, 2010
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10:45 pm - things that make me happy
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1. observing small asian women trying to walk outside in the winter. for some reason, if you see someone with ridiculously fluffy giant boots wearing a ridiculously puffy fur lined full length coat, they are the smallest little asian lady ever. they know what's up.
2. on that note, observing people obviously improperly dressed for the weather. case in point: girls wearing ugg boots in the summer (or ever, really). girls wearing short skirts in the winter. men wearing shorts and flip flops in the snow (i saw it the other day!)
3. people who can't walk in their shoes.
4. this conversation between my advisor and a colleague during a meeting:
dr. L: i found this paper correlating beer consumption with number of papers published.
dr. B: what were their findings?
dr: L: more beer = more publications.
dr. B: i propose this become our new policy for this meeting.
dr. L: ok.
5. brownies in my oven.
6. geeking out: we accidentally shattered our PSP's LCD screen about 6 months ago. actually about a year and a half ago marcus did the same thing with his first PSP, then bought this new one off his cousin... so we had two useless PSPs. i discovered online that it is very easy to replace the screen, provided you have a replacement screen and several key tools. i bought a new screen on ebay for 20 bucks, and about 15 (seriously) variously sized screwdrivers later (it requires a #000 phillips head, just so's you know), i still couldn't get the ONE screw out that i needed to remove to get the casing off. tonight, i FINALLY GOT IT OUT. i may or may not have actually broken the plastic around the screw.. but i didn't damage the machine, so who cares! within 10 minutes the screen was replaced and the PSP is good as new :) i plan on doing this with the other one, so we'll either have two, sell one, or trade my dad for his nintendo DS. sweet. i also can finally play crisis core (ffvii fans- play it) again, which i had just really gotten into when the screen shattered. hooray!
7. brownies coming out of my oven :)
yum
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| Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
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5:20 pm - science
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i have a class this semester called "populations, communities and ecosystems." the teacher for the populations portion of the class is this old professor, dr. carlson, who is retiring next year. he's been a population ecologist most of his adult life, and he's got a very amusing way of looking at the science. he's also kiiiiinda well on his way to senility, and likes to say amusing things:
jael: 'i went to malone college.'
dr. c: 'is that catholic?'
jael: 'no, it's quaker.'
dr. c: 'oh, well then that's not as bad.'
regarding evolution: 'it's a long story.'
regarding chaos theory: 'i would explain it to you, but i don't understand it.'
'i'm going to let you design your own final. i'm retiring, so i don't really give a damn.'
he serves to perpetuate the fact that i've never had a normal biology teacher.
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| Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
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8:05 pm
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did you ever have a day where you just should not have even gotten out of bed in the morning? i've had three of those in a row so far.
monday i managed to knock my labmate's brand new laptop on the floor. it was the end of class and i was pushing in my chair. apparently her laptop was precariously placed on the corner of her desk, under her notebook. also apparently my butt is 1 inch bigger than i thought, because i bumped the notebook just hard enough to knock it off the desk. of course the laptop under it went crashing to the floor as well. we picked it up, figuring it'd be fine since it wasn't a very big fall and laptops are pretty sturdy. well apparently not this one, because it landed directly on its power button (which is stupidly placed on the outside corner- wtf?) and cracked it! so now you can't turn the damn thing on! so she had to send it back to gateway for them to repair it, and even if they don't do anything to it at all, she had to pay 85 bucks just to have them LOOK at it. i felt so terrible. she claimed she wasn't mad, it was an accident and she shouldn't have put it there and she has more money than me anyway... but still! how can you not feel bad... absolutely nothing else productive happened that day.. so yeah, should have just stayed in bed and saved the life of one (very recently purchased) computer.
yesterday i woke up with every intention of catching the 9:10 bus, but was too tired to actually wake up at 8am. promptly fell back asleep and eventually caught the 10:10 bus. it doesn't get me to my lab until liiiike.. 11am? and i had to leave at 2:30 to catch the 3pm bus home so that i could make it to a doctor's appointment i had at 4:30. so i worked in the lab for all of 3 1/2 hours. pointless. i go to the doctor, spend like 2 damn hours in the waiting room. it was a GI doctor who i was hoping could tell me why i keep getting pains in my sides. he decides he wants to do an ultrasound of my upper abdomen to rule out my gallbladder, pancreas and spleen, and do an endoscopy to check out what's going on with my heartburn. so i make all these appointments and it's a big long complicated process trying to figure out what days i can do it all, who can drive me to and fro (since i'll be sedated) and where my insurance will cover it.
so todayyyy, i woke up with a headache, which only managed to get worse as the day went on. finally determined i was having a migraine and had to leave work early, disoriented. i only just started feeling normal again about an hour ago, thank Jebus. whole day of work wasted AGAIN. annnnd, ended up having to CANCEL ALLLL of the appointments i made yesterday, because i determined that my insurance in the great state of ohio won't cover everything and i'd have to pay several hundred dollars out of pocket to have the tests done here. so i have to come back to pittsburgh at some point in the near future to try to get a visit in with a GI guy here to have the same tests done with my PA insurance which WILL cover all costs. so the whole doctor visit yesterday was, in essence, a big fat waste of time. and the only thing i accomplished today was reversing everything i did yesterday.
SO I SHOULD HAVE JUST STAYED IN BED.
AAAAAHHHHHISOWFKSLNVIOWFIOEHWIGABJSKDBUIWFGIWAHHHHH.
perhaps tomorrow will be my day to shine? cross your fingies.
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| Saturday, December 19th, 2009
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11:20 pm - how engaging
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soooooooo i got engaged.. yayyyyy!! it's funny i just wrote that other entry about this.. haha
i'm not really sure how i ever pictured it happening, but it was really perfect. marcus is a sports writer and in addition to a newspaper, he writes for two sites online. i usually edit his articles for him when i can. so on thursday, we were about to leave for dinner when he tells me he wrote an article and already posted it, but wanted me to edit it anyway. so i read all through the article, pointing out grammatical errors, and i get to the very last paragraph. it says something like "here's something to brighten your holiday" or something along those lines. i scrolled all the way to the bottom and it read, "alyssa... will you marry me?"
i turned around to see him on his knee with a beautiful ring. i then almost knocked him over with a very excited hug attack, haha.
it was just everything i never knew i wanted. perfect proposal, perfect ring, perfect timing. and in my humble opinion, perfect guy askin me ;)
i hope everyone gets to experience it :)
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| Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
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11:59 pm - everyone's a critic
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i have several guilty pleasures which manifest themselves in the form of movies i watch when marcus is at work and i am bored. there are way too many i'm ashamed to admit to loving... two of which are Romeo and Juliet (the 1996 Claire Danes version AND the 1968 Olivia Hussey version) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. i sadly just watched ALL of these tonight.. and feel compelled to review them...
first off, if you've never seen Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, go watch it. it is simultaneously the best and worst musical i have ever seen, and i have seen a LOT of musicals. it has such great songs, but they come at the oddest of moments. like, people are literally in the middle of a sentence when, unprovoked, they burst into song. it's really quite startling the first time you watch it. on top of this, it is theeeeee most insane story ever. it's set in 1850's Oregon. a lumberjack comes to town and decides he wants a wife, looks around town for the length of one song, proposes to a girl and she accepts. they move to his cabin in the woods with his 6 brothers later that same day. umm can you say gang rape? apparently not in 1850, cause all turns out well. she teaches them to be gentlemen, pops out a daughter and all the brothers marry her friends from town. hooray! trust me, i'm not doing it justice. if nothing else, fast forward to the barn-raising dance scene. 4 of the actors who played the brothers were classically trained dancers, and one (russ tamblyn- the dude who plays Riff in west side story) is a gymnast. the whole sequence is amazing because they are all such great dancers and just totally have fun with how ridiculous it is that lumberjacks would be able to dance like they do with no training. interesting fact: it was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 1954! WTH. seriously, go watch it.
ah Romeo and Juliet.. i'm so ashamed to admit i have the whole thing memorized. it is THEEEE worst love story ever. they speak like 3 lines to one another, decide they're in love and get married the next day. then SPOILER ALERT commit violent suicide when they can't be together. ohhh and juliet is 13. that's healthy. but i love it!! i love both versions, but i feel like the 1968 version does a better job of acknowledging that it's a ridiculous story and uses that to its advantage. i feel like the 1996 version is way too serious at times, considering how outlandish some parts of the story are. i like that the old version keeps R and J the ages they were supposed to be. i think it's important to the story- they're really super young and are convinced they're in love instantly cause you're crazy when you're 13! i remember asking my shakespeare professor back in the day why shakespeare made juliet sooo young. in the story, everyone acts like it's normal.. actually she's sort of treated like an old maid. they say multiple times that there are girls younger than her who are already mothers. even juliet's mom says she was her mother "much upon these years that you are now a maid." so that made her what like.. 12 when she popped out juliet? so she's like my age now? creepy! i wondered if people really did get married that young back in the dizzle, and my prof said no. even for shakespeare's time, it would have been really young and weird. um creepier? i feel like the modern version, which never directly states R and J's ages but they are clearly older than 13, loses something by making them older. it's like, they should know better.
i love the idea of modernizing the story, and i think the 90's version does a sweet job of it. but somehow the feud between the families makes way less sense in this version. you get the impression that montague and capulet are business rivals.. so why do their families want to kill one another? i always liked that shakespeare never gave any explanation as to why the two families hate each other so much. they've just hated one another for so long, no remembers why anymore. and they don't need to, they just hate each other's guts.
my big question is, why the hell don't romeo and juliet know who the other is?? how have they NEVER seen or heard of one another before? that always bugged me.
if you're still reading this, i need to add another movie to my ashamed-to-love list: the age of innocence. this movie gets made fun of a lot, but i personally think it's really well acted and well done. the edith wharton novel it's based off of is easily one of my favorite books- definitely better than the movie. the story is set in new york in the 1870s. it's about a young man- newland archer- from the upper crust of new york society who has just gotten engaged to another young socialite- may welland. their marriage will unite two of new york society's most powerful families. it wasn't technically an arranged marriage, but more of an extremely likely and expected marriage. in the beginning, newland is wholeheartedly head-over-heels for may because she represents everything about their society he has been brought up to love. but as the story progresses, he slowly finds that there is seemingly nothing more to may than a pretty face who has been raised to be the perfect wife and never think for herself. along the way, he inadvertently falls in love with her cousin ellen, who is everything may isn't. it's such an interesting story, because he honestly loves may in the beginning, but by the time he discovers he has made a mistake in marrying her, it's seemingly too late and it would be too scandalous to call everything off. i love this story because it's not even about these characters, it's about upper class old new york society itself. you miss out on a lot of this if you watch the movie without reading the book first. the author, edith wharton (the first woman to win a pulitzer- for this story), actually grew up in this society. it's almost like reading someone's diary from the 1870's. i've read that the phrase "keeping up with the joneses" actually referred to edith wharton's father's family. she really lived this whole story and it's really obvious in her writing.
i love this book (and movie) so much, i have but one criticism- NOTHING HAPPENS. seriously. nnnnothing happpens. but honestly, that was wharton's whole point. it's a story about almost doing things, but social customs preventing you from doing them. like newland archer says, "you gave me my first glimpse of a real life, then told me to carry on with a false one."
i highly recommend it.
and that is my humble opinion.
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| Friday, December 4th, 2009
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10:00 pm - fiber up my coffee for me, sonny
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begin rant.
i must express my frustration with the functioning (or non-functioning) of my organs. my thyroid is allegedly under control, which is good since that's my most serious problem. but everything else is all out of whack!
i regularly had to see a gastroenterologist from the time i was about 13 until last year. i've been on and off a whole bunch of medications for acid reflux, IBS and lactose intolerance throughout the years. among other things, i used to take zantac twice a day every day for about 4 years or so, until i requested to be taken off of it and just try to control my reflux with my diet. that worked ok up until about six months to a year ago. shortly after my gastro guy discharged me, i started having all kinds of problems again! figures.
half of the time when i eat, i end up with either heartburn or indigestion. it was really starting to get old. i bought some OTC zantac, but i've been consistently having to take it at least 3-4 times a week. then about 4 months ago, i got this pain in my left side when i eat. and it will not go away! i won't got into detail, but the IBS is totally out of control, too, even with multiple meds. at the urging of my parents and marcus, who claimed "it's not normal to be sick all of the time..." (psssh whatever) i finally gave up and decided to see my doctor here in kent to get her take on it all.
my whole goal back when i requested to be taken off of the zantac (as well as several other medications at the time) was to not have to take so many pills every day to function and to avoid having to pay so much for prescritions. so, i talked with my doctor about all of my problems.
annnd of course, she wrote me more prescriptions :( i have to start taking zantac twice a day again. she also demanded i take fiber supplements every day for.. forever. and recommended i try taking Lactobacillus acidophilus (the stuff in yogurt, now in convenient and disturbing pill form!), as it apparently can make a huge difference for some people with IBS problems.
the confounding problem here is my thyroid medication. it's very touchy stuff and i have to be careful about what i take with it so that it is properly absorbed. it needs to be taken in the morning on an empty stomach, and i have to wait a half hour to eat after. the zantac needs to be taken at least an hour after it. the fiber and the Lactobacillus need to be taken at least 4 hours after it. all of them have varying requirements of food or water to be taken with them, and are taken multiple times a day.
i recounted all of this to marcus while stirring my benefiber into some coffee, and he responded:
"you are officially 80 years old."
it's truuuuueeeee!!!!!! now imagine what i'll be like when i'm actually 80? maybe it'll go in reverse and i'll be the picture of health :)
sigh.
end rant.
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| Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
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10:24 pm - anywhere you go, let me go too
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it seems like when people figure out that marcus and i have been dating for 4 years, they instantly reach the same conclusion: are you gonna get marrrrried????
nope just gonna date for forever. jkkk.
i was talking to my mom about the engagement subject when i was home for thanksgiving. i told her marcus and i had been talking about it a lot recently and we'd really like to be engaged by the time i graduate in august. i don't know where i'm going to end up getting a job, and i'd just like to have that whole end taken care of, if that makes sense. so that i know wherever i end up, he's along for the ride and have that factor into the equation. i know he is, but we'd like it to be official.. haha
anyway, my mom agreed it made sense. i commented, "too bad we're poor right now.." and she responded, "yeah, but you might be poor for a long time!" touche, mom. the funny thing about this is that she's always been big on, "you're married for a looooong time, so no need to rush an engagement." she's a smart lady.
i was innocently sitting on the couch at thanksgiving when my uncle joe plopped down beside me and said, "so what's up, are you gonna marry marcus?" haha, so random. i was like, uhhh if he asks me?
today a guy i work with discovered we'd been dating for 4 years and exclaimed, "holy hell, either break up or get hitched!"
last but not least, every single time i am home, all of my friends ask when the wedding is.
iiin my humble opinion, i think 4 years is a perfectly normal amount of time to date before getting engaged, especially considering we're still young and have no money. although i may be influenced by the fact that my parents dated for 4 years before getting engaged. idk, any opinions on it?
back to knitting the ridiculous number of scarves i agreed to knit as presents.....
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| Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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5:10 pm
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why didn't anyone tell me i had to major in engineering to find a job?
JERKS
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| Friday, October 30th, 2009
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6:28 pm - so calm your waves and slow the churn and you may have my precious bones on my return
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i am listening to this song called "bu de bu ai." i'm pretty sure it's in chinese? i know it was originally korean and this is a remake with new lyrics but the same tune. and that the title means "gotta love" or "have to love." anyway.. i first heard it in my japanese and chinese history class at st vincent. the professor played the youtube video for us one morning, because there is a hilarious version of it being lip synced by two guys who call themselves the asian backstreet boys. i remember her playing it and even though it was reeeeally funny, no one laughed. because she was like, the scariest most serious teacher ever, so everyone was like, "is it a joke? is it some sort of test?" it was really awkward. i was biting my lip the whole time trying not to laugh. when it was over she was like, "i can't believe you guys didn't laugh! my husband and i were cracking up at this.." then everyone kind of felt bad... weird. but two years later, i STILL love this song, and the video of the two guys lip syncing. look it up! while you're at it, look up "tandem" by halcali, these two japanese chicks who sing hiphoppy/rap music. that is good stuff. i have no idea what they're saying, but they sure do seem happy about it. in fact, if you can tell me what they are saying, i will give you a whole dollar.
on a completely unrelated topic, we have seminars every friday at kent, because apparently that's the sciencey grad schooly thing to do. well 99% of the time they SUCK and you have no idea what the person is talking about because it's not in your field. newflash: all science is not the same. just because i study bacteria in streams does not mean i understand molecular genetics of fruit flies. that was what today's was about: the evolution of different colors in fruit flies. let's talk about why we should all give a crap about that. oh wait, we shouldn't! because it has no real world application! WHY IS THE NSF FUNDING THIS? no one knows. worst. research. ever. for real. it was just like, "let's find the gene that makes fruit flies tan and put it in these brown ones and see what happens!" i could be using that money....
at the beginning of the seminar, dr. case stood up and said, "does anyone have any announcements?" at which point heather leaned over to me and whispered, "i hate KSU?" now there's an announcement!
speaking of this, i was sipping coffee in the student center the other day and i saw a girl walk by with a harvard shirt on. i didn't have the heart to tell her she actually goes to kent state.
later on i was working in the lab putting toxic chemicals in tubes when i get tapped on the shoulder. it's this girl from another lab who speaks about two whole words of english. seriously. she hands me this sheet of a bunch of numbers, and i eventually determined that she was asking me how to do a certain calculation. i have no idea if i answered her question, or if she even had a question at all. we talked for at least 5 minutes, and i'm not sure what was said. i then went back to putting toxic chemicals in tubes.
I LOVE SCIENCE. oh speaking of science, i met with my advisor the other day to talk about my upcoming sampling of my streams (again). i asked her about graduating, since i keep getting all of these emails about it. she said, and i quote, "well, i think it would be unrealistic to expect to graduate in may." oh, i'm sorry, i didn't realize i had such lofty dreams when i said i wanted to graduate on time. and so, as i suspected all along, i am going to be in kent until august. this creates a whole other mess in terms of when and where will i find a job, can i extend my lease (which is up in july), how will i pay rent for however long i extend the lease annnnnnd so on. that's cool.
on the bright side, i should be able to get two papers out of my one thesis, which will be good for future job obtaining. and every single other person i know also has to go until august instead of may, so at least i'm not alone.
lesigh.
have a happy halloween! marcus and i were gonna go as old people (it would have been epic) but now he has to work at his big person newspaper job. kind of ironic when you really think about it....
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| Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
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12:32 am
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to everyone i've lost touch with in the past years: i miss you.
i don't have many friends in kent. really, aside from marcus- who doesn't count as a friend cause that would be cheating- i have no one i would truly call a friend in kent. no one i would feel comfortable just calling up to chat with or hang out with outside of work. a couple of people are close.. but not quite there. i'm not going to be in kent much longer anway.. i don't know where i'll be soon.
i'm not sitting around crying in a corner or anything. i generally do like to be alone and do my own thing, i have marcus and my reason for being here- school and work- keep me busy 90% of the time. i also knit entirely too much.
but there are times, like tonight, when marcus is working all night and i have nothing pressing to do. i wish i had someone close by to hang out with. i know that if i ever really needed a friend for something, i have friends to turn to. but i have no one around to just hang out with. i can't get to pittsburgh as often as i'd like to see the high school friends. when i do get a chance to come home, we usually end up going to a bar, which is fine but it's hard to really catch up in a noisy bar while getting progressively more and more intoxicated. i want to invite everyone to come here, to my quiet apartment, for a weekend. but i doubt it'll ever ever work out. in fact, i tried once, and i think they laughed at the idea. it's that improbable. i miss just going out and doing things with everyone- like going to the mall or the movies or whatever.
of course i do all of these things with marcus. he luckily loves the mall as much as i do. we go out to the movies when something particularly good is out, or we stay home, drink some good beer and watch bad horror movies from netflix. we play board games, we ghost hunt, we make and eat delicious sushi. but sometimes, i just want to do something with "the girls."
sometimes when i'm home, i feel like it's been so long since i've talked with anyone there that we have nothing to say. shouldn't it be the opposite? we should have a lot to say about what's happened in between. it's like our lives have progressed but we've been on two increasingly different paths and everytime we meet again, we're a little farther apart. i'm watching RENT in the background right now, and it reminds me of when i saw it in theaters for the first time. i saw it with steph, erin and erin's mom. it was one of the funnest nights i've ever had, but somehow i feel like i won't have another night like that again. that makes me sad. i don't want to drift apart. but as time goes on, their lives progress together and without me. everytime i see them, i feel a little farther outside of the circle.
i miss everyone from saint vincent. living semi- alone (marcus and i work opposite schedules and really only have time to spend together on weekends) is so lonely compared to living there. especially senior year, when suddenly everyone all lived right across the hall or next door to one another. you never knew who was going to burst through the door, hopefully fully clothed (i wish i was kidding). and though i like to be alone a lot of the time, it was so fun to have everyone hanging out, squeezed together in one small dorm room, watching some weird movie. or sitting at a big full table in the cafeteria watching frank steal everyone's silverware.
i miss gingerbread house competitions and twilight zone marathons and getting excited about giant chinese food orders.
and then there are the people who i haven't talked to in literally years. like people from TI, who i genuinely really enjoyed spending time with, but somehow lost touch with and i could smack myself for it. like ashley- you're in japan! that's super sweet and i am green with envy. i'd really love to catch up with you sometime, i just don't know the best way to get that started. it just feels like it's been so long. there are people who have things in common with me- like a love of final fantasy games or knitting or cats- who i really wish i could talk to again. i have no one in my life to share those things with.
i've tried contacting people in the past- without success. i really really miss one friend in particular. i never knew why we stopped hanging out and communicating in general- it just happened one day. i've tried to call her and write to her several times, but i've never heard back. i still hope i will, because i'd love to pick the friendship up where it left off. i've heard through the grapevine that she's engaged, and i wish i could congratulate her. she was one of the only people early on who always supported my relationship with marcus, and i'm so grateful for it. i wish i could tell her that.
maybe it's completely my fault. maybe i'm just not trying hard enough. friendships do require effort. maybe i'm not putting enough in. i am terrible at phone communication, in particular. i read recently that mr. rogers woke up hours early everyday to write notes to anyone and everyone who took the time to contact him. maybe i need to get more sweaters?
anyway, i don't know who reads this, but if you're out there, please tell me how to contact you. i miss talking to you.
peace
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