Back. Again. Maybe. Whatever.

Every time I stop writing/documenting/musing, I think, "shame on you, self, you've not followed through on another project." This is a recurrent theme not only in my half-assed blogging, but also knitting, cleaning, and most other hobbies. I'm committed and excited, but only in spurts.

So here I am once again (I think this is about my 4th time recommitting) promising to, well, try again. I have lots of big changes on the horizon, and maybe it wouldn't hurt to move the tumult from the recesses of my brain and leave the weird random brain-thoughts here in the safe comfort of google.

Big changes/projects(!):
1. Moving to our new apartment
2. Furnishing said apartment to not look like a frat house
3. Finish planning post-wedding vacation
4. Finish planning wedding...
5. Write dissertation (ha!)
6. Get off my behind and knit a wedding present for J and J

With some amount of motivation or, more likely some amount of procrastination from doing the things on the above list, it's my hope to share a little bit more about all of the above. (Did that even make sense? It did to me.) So for the next few months (hopefully!) things here will be more like "science, science, moving, decorating, wedding, vacation, knit." Unless this is just a mirage and I don't post again for another 6 months. And I'm perfectly okay with that, too.

Feeling festive

We finally decorated the house for Christmas, and I think it looks pretty darn good. Mostly it's last year's decorations but it still looks nice.

Chiristmas shopping, hello, goodbye.

With my big work project off submitted to the great gods of science (i.e. just waiting over here), it seemed like a good time to finally start my Christmas shopping. So I braved the insane cold, to get my shop on. I don't know if it was the weather (it totally was) but the stores were pretty darn empty. In a mere few hours, I both started and finished my shopping. No denying that my list was short, but it feels good to sit back, relax and huddle under more blankets.

Grown up final exams

Although I'm often confused for a high schooler I'm actually a bona fide, college-graduated, grown-up. So the stress of final exams and getting ready for Christmas should be a thing of my past, right? Hardly. I have 3 major deadlines coming up and that mentality of "just have to survive until next Friday" is kicking in.

So if you'll indulge me in a short rant, and forgive the photo-less post, I'll be sure to make it up to you.

- I have a huge experiment going on. It's the kind where in at 7:00 a.m., mouse-wrangling until 10:00 p.m., and working most of those hours in between. And one of my mice was missing an eye and it was gross. Ugh all around.

- My manuscript resubmission is due by next Friday. I don't have all my results (ahem, see above) and I have boatloads of edits left. And I kind of need this to get published.

- I have to give a big presentation to my department on Wednesday. Who has TIME for this?

Ok done. Thanks. So as of next Friday, I'm on cruise control until Christmas. I just have to survive until then.

My world is so small...

(from here)

...that I got laughably excited about the newly described bacteria that can utilize arsenic? It's called GFAJ-1 for now, and (sadly) I required Wikipedia to find the original article that went live today in the journal Science. Sadder still, I don't have access to the manuscript from home but from what I can tell - biology just sort of changed here people.

Not to be outdone, Nature has a nice story posted today on the same subject wherein they refer to GFAJ-1 as an "oddball" (probably jealous that Science got the exclusive). But basically, it looks as though arsenic might be taking the place of phosphorus in all of the important molecules: DNA, RNA, cell membranes and ATP. This is different from every other known living organism in the universe. Who wouldn't be excited about that?