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lady_matsu's Journal  The Nobel Prize in chemistry was announced this morning, going to three scientists who solved the working structure of ribosomes, which are the structures in a cell that translate genetic information into proteins. We discussed this today in genetics, and watched one of the videos the lab produced. This is hands down the best molecular modeling video I have ever seen. Anyway, if you wanted a peek into what makes me excited, there you go. That right there is amazing. Also I spend an embarrassing amount of time watching videos like this. It is just so gosh darn cool! Alright, so, it has been a while since my last update. At first it was because there was nothing going on, and then it was because there was too much going on. The time has come for a recap. I am up to my eyeballs in housemates. There are all kinds of Griffins, Alis, and Travises rolling around, as well as a Sara, who comes attached to the Travis. The house is constantly full of people, talking, laughing, cooking, studying. We tend to cook as a unit, as the sounds of the kitchen being in use draw us, and we sit on the counters and banter while watching the meal preparations. It’s a nice feel, and everyone appears to be getting along fine. And now that everyone has signed the lease and gotten their own set of keys, as of Tuesday, we all feel official. I have extraordinarily full days. Though I am taking less classes and have more time off than last semester, I now have more breaks between classes and live further off campus, preventing me from going home in those breaks. The fact that I’m on campus all day makes me feel busy, even though a lot of that time is spent laying on the grass studying, as opposed to actually being in class. I’m taking good classes this semester. Zoology is my last lower division biology major class, and I’m the whiz kid in lab who finishes extremely early and always knows the answers. My lab instructor was a little confused, and seemed prepared to dislike me for being a slacker. He wouldn’t let me leave without looking over my work yesterday, and was shocked to find that it was finished, the questions answered, the drawings full of details and labels. I’m sure I’ll slow down once we’re on to dissection, I’ve not done nearly as much of that as I have done microscopy. Genetics is going to be awesome. It is basically the only thing I came to college to study, so I am understandably thrilled. My advisor, Mark Wilson, is the professor. Its gonna be sooooo goooood. And I’ve already made enemies in discussion. Yeah enemies yeah! I’m all for transgenics and synthetic biology, and they’re all “blah blah blah sacredness of life!” and my professor says “I’ve always been confused when people make natural selection into something sacred. It’s simple chance and randomness.” We shall get along, he and I. Oral Interpretations is a colossal waste of my time. General Ed, how I hate you. Physics is boring, but it should pick up once we’ve moved on from painstakingly deriving the gorram acceleration equation. I’ve got a bitchin’ awesome job. I’m the assistant lab technician for the Biology/Biotechnology Core Facility. Which is a fancy title for “stockroom slave”. Actually, no, my job is more complicated than just stockroom, but that’s the basic gist of it. I prep labs and keep the stockroom clean and organized. I also process new shipments, and deliver them. But the stockroom isn’t actually a stockroom, it is two separate rooms known as the Biology and Biotechnology Core Facilities. There is a small stockroom section, but most of the area is dedicated to research. It is an open laboratory for grad students and undergrads to use for their own private research. So I help them, grow cultures, do PCR, electrophoresis, DNA analysis, jargon jargon technobabble none of you but Griffin will really know what I’m talking about, but it is neat and fun and I’m getting lots of hands on experience with lab techniques that I will use in future jobs. I like my boss, Anthony, a lot. He’s funny and interesting. He’s currently doing a research project involving mosquitoes, and it is so gross and boring that it is endearing. Anyway, he’s real nice. He is kinda shy and awkward, which is why he hired me: to be charming for him so he doesn’t have to talk to people. Also to keep him organized. Uh oh. Organizational genius I am not. I’ll figure it out, though. So things are good. Busy, and good. Things are going well Oh my god I love this house, please let us get it, oh please I woke up this morning with a fierce hangover, and I didn't drink anything last night. Regattas are hard as hell on the body. My whole body aches. I hotseated a race, where you get out of one boat and get directly into the next for another race. My lungs and throat ache, both from rowing and from cheering for our boats. My feet are tender from walking barefoot all day. My head aches from dehydration and from the cold. It rained the entire weekend, just poured. My hands are trashed. I rowed port in my first two races, and starboard in my third. I have blisters coating my palms liberally. I don't have cuticles, I have hangnails, from my hands being soaked for hours. Body is tired. But season is over. Body gets to rest. Brain is sad. That illness I had turned out to be the flu. I've spent the week laying about, being generally grumpy and miserable, getting up only to fail midterms. Okay, I only failed one midterm. I actually did rather well on my others. And thanks to the curve my ochem professor decided to have, I will be passing that class unless I do badly on the final. Oh good. Thank you curves. I spent an extraordinary amount of time this weekend playing Fable 2 with Blake. Fun, fun game. Quite silly, but randomly also very sad. Yesterday, at 5 am, I got on a bus for Lake Dexter, Oregon. We had a seven hour drive, got there about noon. The second I got off the bus, my boat went for a warm up run while my teammates rigged my four. We got back from the run and launched our boat, which had never rowed together before, of course. Ali was stroke, I was three, this novice B boat girl Cas was two, and a lightweight named Elana was bow. Not the most ideal boat. We race. It hurts. We get off the water, and almost immediately get back on the water for the Novice eight. This is the boat I've been really working for, and we placed first. Awesome! Got off the water, derigged, loaded the trailer, got back on the bus, and drove home. Got home right before midnight. I just did an out of state regatta in less than 19 hours. Oh, and did I mention I might have bronchitis? I am SO TIRED. So, I wake up at 5 am this morning, as usual, to take a nice leisurely shower and eat breakfast before crew. I like to start my mornings with plenty of time, or else I'm groggy and hungry and practice, and nothing gets done. I roll over and turn off my alarm, except... Oh shit. Its 5:45! I forgot to reset my alarm after we had later practice yesterday! leaping out of bed, I run around getting ready as fast as possible, throwing my books for my Thursday classes in my bag and running to my carpool pickup. Its a few minutes after 6, when I get picked up, but my driver Bailey isn't anywhere around. She didn't call me, which she normally does if I'm late. I wait five minutes, thinking she is just running late too, which happens. At 10 after, I call her. "Tawny?" she says sleepily, "It's Wednesday, Tawny." Oh. Fuck. Bailey has an 8 am class Wednesdays, she doesn't come to practice. I drive with Charlotte Wednesdays, and she picks me up at 6 am on campus, a fifteen minute walk away. Why hasn't she called me? I start running to campus, calling her at the same time. As her groggy voice says "Hello?" confusedly, I remember. She quit Saturday. I'm supposed to be going with Nydia. Apologizing frantically, I hang up on her and about face, running to where I'm supposed to meet Nydia, six blocks away. I call Nydia as I run. No answer. Its 6:15. I need to be at the boathouse in 15 minutes. I call again. Still no answer. I call The Dread Coach Robin, who snaps that she'll try and get a hold of Nydia, and that she is very upset with me and then hangs up on me. I suddenly remember Coach Brian. He lives in Arcata, and is almost always ten minutes late to practice. Maybe he'll still be in the area! I call, and he apologizes. "I just got to Eureka, Tawny, I'm sorry." Nydia calls on Robin's phone and harangues me. "You were supposed to call me last night and remind me!" I was, I now remember. "Now Robin is angry with me! GOD, Tawny!" and yet again, someone hangs up on me. I sit down hard on the sidewalk, and stare blankly at my feet. We have a very important regatta this weekend. I'm working as hard as I can to get into the 'A' boat, which I was in for my first race, but lost in my second race. There it goes. There is no way I'm getting into that boat now. Blinking back tears, I watch 6:30 go by on my phone. Its still dark out. A bat flies by. I stagger to my feet and trudge back to my apartment, where... I locked myself out. Travis is happily asleep... at Sara's. There are several ways to break into my apartment, all of which involve a neighbor letting me into their place and onto their balcony. I walk to my favorite coffee shop, which is closed. I then circle Arcata, wasting half an hour until I find an open coffee shop. I tell the barista my story, and he gives me free coffee and a hug. Thanks barista. You're awesome. But I'm still locked out. I wander back to the apartment, and Travis is just letting himself in to get ready for the day. Oh thank god. Man, what a morning. Fuck you, morning. You gotta let go when they get that old You gotta let 'em go 'Cause if you hold on, they'll puncture your lungs And separate your spine from your skull You gotta let 'em go You gotta let go when they get that old You gotta let 'em go 'Cause if you hold on, they'll bite your fingers off And tear you limb from limb It's second nature to them You gotta let go when they get that old You gotta let 'em go 'Cause if you hold on, they'll tear your stomach open And rip your guts out with their teeth You gotta just release http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv0Nq7tl ( A 2k test. ) |
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