i've been reading some of my fellow bloggers' posting and have realized that shoes are an epidemic. and now i am feeling the need to buy a new pair of sexy shoes. and im impressed at all the real women on these blogs. not the frumpy dumpies, but people that if i met IRL i might feel the need to try to outdo....and that is a compliment.
my earlier today post was really aggro... but its like someone threatening your children.
tell me im wrong
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
i always thought sleeping yr way to the top was a myth...
this blog has been removed by the the Diva due to content that she sorta regrets putting up. Doesn't make it less true, but she's been feeling more equanimitous (i dunno what the "ous" of equanimity is) or perhaps magnanamous is a better word. I'm not the loser here, just 2nd. And all I want it to publish and get out anyway, so whatever, right? And that would make me win, right, just doing right by myself, right? and people who are lame, and do shitty things unto others eventually get theirs, right? my dad always says that the only revenge to have is to wait and let them hang themselves...and they usually do. and when they do you're allowed to feel vindicated (and try not to be too happy, like throwing a party or anything ostentatious like that)...
anyway, i feel a little ucky for having maybe lowered myself slightly.
its been a tough weekend...
onwards and upwards...
toodles
anyway, i feel a little ucky for having maybe lowered myself slightly.
its been a tough weekend...
onwards and upwards...
toodles
Sunday, April 12, 2009
In Defense of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt
Scientist mother - this should explain things a bit...
I'd like to tell a story about love:
imagine you were single for most of grad school life. not to say you didn't go through quite a few not-so-awesome excuses for dates, but really you didnt have boyfriends. there was one, back when you started you had one. you'd been together for about 3-4 years and he left after your first year of grad school to go back home...and though it tears you to pieces, and it takes forever to piece back together, in the end it is likely the best thing that ever happened to you. it is simply amazing what you will let yourself believe when someone you love tells you it is so...and you are 19. it is also amazing when you look back years later and think "holy shit was i retarded...that guy; that arrogant, insecure, overcompensatory asshole led me to believe that i was less than he..." grrrrrr.
and years later you do have a boyfriend who is fun at first (when you are drunk and enjoying just the fact that someone worhips you for how fucking cool you are) until you realize that he DOES NOT READ (books), and is mind-numbingly boring, and may have a phd but is truly an idiot. and you come to realize that there are things that are worse than being alone.
so you break it off and you live it up! you party all summer and do whatever you want. you answer to no one, you make extra money with a difficult TAship and you free lance doing non-science graphix and you love your life. and then you volunteer for some rich-people event just to have some fun and drink for free in the last year of your 20s...
but wait, there is a pre-amble. you are taking a month off in a couple months so lab work is super intense. there is a paper that was just rejected, but can be resubmitted if you completely develop RNAi techniques for your lab, but it is really hard work and you're competing with the research associate because this is the environment your boss foments. and then your friend's boyfriend, who just got a job working for a luxury boat company, invites you to this party weekend, you just have to help out a bit and lend a hand...its all included. so you agree to come, because it's the last long weekend of the summer. But then you get stuck because maybe the constructs are ready and all you want to do it work...but you're stuck becuase you've gone for the interview and they've accepted you and you are committed. and you feel like its a mistake because there is all this work to be done, and you can't afford time off, and besides, you're pretty sure that your friend's boyfriend wants you there for other less admirable reasons...he cares a little too much about your well-being if you know what i mean... then two days before you are set to go, you get the sequencing results and realize that you can take the weekend because low and behold, you still have no ability to subclone. period. so all these forces seem to work toward you going on this volunteering weekend for rich people to get away from it all...hehe, their lives are soooooooooo hard...anyway...
so on the morning of the departure, you're waiting for said friend's shitty boyfriend to pack up the boat, and you see this guyon the dock...but he could be anyone, he's not necessarily with your group, but even from a distance there is something about him. then you see him again later and he clearly IS with your group. and your heart jumps a bit...and then you actually meet him, cos he's there to work just like you...
he's not even your regular "type"...he's blond instead of brunet (no "ette" for boys...), and instead of your regular giant, he's only 5'10", with the most incredible turquoise eyes that pierce your brain when he looks at you, because he's looking into you rather than at you(r boobs/ass/legs/whatever). and you suspect he has a girlfriend cos guys like this always do...and you have real conversations straight away and you realize that he's not just some grunt at a lowly job, but someone who is something who can be so much and you see things you wish you weren't seeing because its too hard to hope that it could be real after so so so many losers come and gone (no pun intended...). and all you want to do is be near him, talking to him. and then you fuck. not the first night, but the second one. and its amazing. and then as it turns out there IS a girlfriend, though she was not permitted to come along, and it gets extremely complicated extremely fast.
he's crazy about you, you feel it, and he's trying so hard to stay away from you, but he always ends up there beside you. there is a gala, and you start getting anxious. you smoke 1000 cigarettes and get loaded. meanwhile you friend is soooooo unhappy but you're only vaguely aware cause there is your own personal drama and you are too drunk to do anything rational like take care of her. but she and this guy that you've already slept with, they make sure you get to bed...and of course, it is HIS. but they go back out, while you sleep it off. and when he comes in, you make love again. and in the morning again. and you are falling so fast and you are so scared because this is the best you've felt in so long...and it cannot be real...because there is this girlfriend...
on the way home, you leave your friend alone with the guy she has just dumped (while you were passed out), and you feel so shitty for it, but you need to be with this guy for as long as possible before the bubble breaks...and you have this amazing ride home, and this amazing conversation and you realize not that you are in danger of falling, but its gone so far beyond that...and all you can do is try to minimize the pain when its over because it cannot last...
but he's in love with you, and you share a cab home, and he kisses you good bye. and then...he leaves her within the week. he gets his own place. you get to help set it up. and you realize that it may not have been the most admirable way to go, but....this is the love of your life. and you didnt even know he existed two weeks ago...
that was almost two years ago. and there has been a lot of drama. but there has never been such a fit. there has never been such a bond and a closeness and an understanding. i am constantly amazed by what this man is capable of. we share a love of africa, we share a desire to help people, we share our passionate opinions, and lastly, but definitely not least; we share a passion for life and each other.
so i am sorry to say this, but kudos to Angelina and Brad for taking a chance doing the wrong thing to get to something so right.
I'd like to tell a story about love:
imagine you were single for most of grad school life. not to say you didn't go through quite a few not-so-awesome excuses for dates, but really you didnt have boyfriends. there was one, back when you started you had one. you'd been together for about 3-4 years and he left after your first year of grad school to go back home...and though it tears you to pieces, and it takes forever to piece back together, in the end it is likely the best thing that ever happened to you. it is simply amazing what you will let yourself believe when someone you love tells you it is so...and you are 19. it is also amazing when you look back years later and think "holy shit was i retarded...that guy; that arrogant, insecure, overcompensatory asshole led me to believe that i was less than he..." grrrrrr.
and years later you do have a boyfriend who is fun at first (when you are drunk and enjoying just the fact that someone worhips you for how fucking cool you are) until you realize that he DOES NOT READ (books), and is mind-numbingly boring, and may have a phd but is truly an idiot. and you come to realize that there are things that are worse than being alone.
so you break it off and you live it up! you party all summer and do whatever you want. you answer to no one, you make extra money with a difficult TAship and you free lance doing non-science graphix and you love your life. and then you volunteer for some rich-people event just to have some fun and drink for free in the last year of your 20s...
but wait, there is a pre-amble. you are taking a month off in a couple months so lab work is super intense. there is a paper that was just rejected, but can be resubmitted if you completely develop RNAi techniques for your lab, but it is really hard work and you're competing with the research associate because this is the environment your boss foments. and then your friend's boyfriend, who just got a job working for a luxury boat company, invites you to this party weekend, you just have to help out a bit and lend a hand...its all included. so you agree to come, because it's the last long weekend of the summer. But then you get stuck because maybe the constructs are ready and all you want to do it work...but you're stuck becuase you've gone for the interview and they've accepted you and you are committed. and you feel like its a mistake because there is all this work to be done, and you can't afford time off, and besides, you're pretty sure that your friend's boyfriend wants you there for other less admirable reasons...he cares a little too much about your well-being if you know what i mean... then two days before you are set to go, you get the sequencing results and realize that you can take the weekend because low and behold, you still have no ability to subclone. period. so all these forces seem to work toward you going on this volunteering weekend for rich people to get away from it all...hehe, their lives are soooooooooo hard...anyway...
so on the morning of the departure, you're waiting for said friend's shitty boyfriend to pack up the boat, and you see this guyon the dock...but he could be anyone, he's not necessarily with your group, but even from a distance there is something about him. then you see him again later and he clearly IS with your group. and your heart jumps a bit...and then you actually meet him, cos he's there to work just like you...
he's not even your regular "type"...he's blond instead of brunet (no "ette" for boys...), and instead of your regular giant, he's only 5'10", with the most incredible turquoise eyes that pierce your brain when he looks at you, because he's looking into you rather than at you(r boobs/ass/legs/whatever). and you suspect he has a girlfriend cos guys like this always do...and you have real conversations straight away and you realize that he's not just some grunt at a lowly job, but someone who is something who can be so much and you see things you wish you weren't seeing because its too hard to hope that it could be real after so so so many losers come and gone (no pun intended...). and all you want to do is be near him, talking to him. and then you fuck. not the first night, but the second one. and its amazing. and then as it turns out there IS a girlfriend, though she was not permitted to come along, and it gets extremely complicated extremely fast.
he's crazy about you, you feel it, and he's trying so hard to stay away from you, but he always ends up there beside you. there is a gala, and you start getting anxious. you smoke 1000 cigarettes and get loaded. meanwhile you friend is soooooo unhappy but you're only vaguely aware cause there is your own personal drama and you are too drunk to do anything rational like take care of her. but she and this guy that you've already slept with, they make sure you get to bed...and of course, it is HIS. but they go back out, while you sleep it off. and when he comes in, you make love again. and in the morning again. and you are falling so fast and you are so scared because this is the best you've felt in so long...and it cannot be real...because there is this girlfriend...
on the way home, you leave your friend alone with the guy she has just dumped (while you were passed out), and you feel so shitty for it, but you need to be with this guy for as long as possible before the bubble breaks...and you have this amazing ride home, and this amazing conversation and you realize not that you are in danger of falling, but its gone so far beyond that...and all you can do is try to minimize the pain when its over because it cannot last...
but he's in love with you, and you share a cab home, and he kisses you good bye. and then...he leaves her within the week. he gets his own place. you get to help set it up. and you realize that it may not have been the most admirable way to go, but....this is the love of your life. and you didnt even know he existed two weeks ago...
that was almost two years ago. and there has been a lot of drama. but there has never been such a fit. there has never been such a bond and a closeness and an understanding. i am constantly amazed by what this man is capable of. we share a love of africa, we share a desire to help people, we share our passionate opinions, and lastly, but definitely not least; we share a passion for life and each other.
so i am sorry to say this, but kudos to Angelina and Brad for taking a chance doing the wrong thing to get to something so right.
a traitor to my brain
do you ever feel like you've spent your whole life thinking that you will make these huge contributions, that you will be historically important, that you are special and you aren't just like everyone else....only to realize that maybe you're just deluded?
i feel that way sometimes...when i think about what i'm gonna do next with my life i start to realize that a big part of me just wants to get any non-suicide-inducing, soul-sucking j-o-b, pay off my debt (no small task), get married and have the beautiful white-blond blue-eyed babies i could only have with this amazing man i get to call "mine".
am i a traitor to my brain...? am i unsuccesful as a person...will all my male friends be disappointed in me? will my super-breeder girlfriends (or former friends, realistically speaking) be irritatingly satisfied that i am no longer of the lofty and elite academic life...and in fact no better than them (as i believe they think that I think i am better than they)?
or will i continue to not be true to myself and push myself through a postdoc because it's the only thing i can do...am i deluded to think that i could do anything else at this point? i have an idea. i think it is a pretty good idea, for a potential postdoc project. it has NOTHING to do with what i have spent the last 5 years doing. and at this point it is completely based in theory. should i find a way to do it, or should i leave it to a better scientist than i. if it is a good idea, then someone at some point will also come to it and will make something of it, right?
i should get back to thesis writing or something.
i feel that way sometimes...when i think about what i'm gonna do next with my life i start to realize that a big part of me just wants to get any non-suicide-inducing, soul-sucking j-o-b, pay off my debt (no small task), get married and have the beautiful white-blond blue-eyed babies i could only have with this amazing man i get to call "mine".
am i a traitor to my brain...? am i unsuccesful as a person...will all my male friends be disappointed in me? will my super-breeder girlfriends (or former friends, realistically speaking) be irritatingly satisfied that i am no longer of the lofty and elite academic life...and in fact no better than them (as i believe they think that I think i am better than they)?
or will i continue to not be true to myself and push myself through a postdoc because it's the only thing i can do...am i deluded to think that i could do anything else at this point? i have an idea. i think it is a pretty good idea, for a potential postdoc project. it has NOTHING to do with what i have spent the last 5 years doing. and at this point it is completely based in theory. should i find a way to do it, or should i leave it to a better scientist than i. if it is a good idea, then someone at some point will also come to it and will make something of it, right?
i should get back to thesis writing or something.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
I am neeeeeeearly a step closer...
I wrote a paper last week. A whole paper. And for some reason I thought that it would be perfect off the first draft...you know 'cos I've written a paper before...took me 2 years to publish it...it's always easier the second time around...i totally know what i'm doing now (i'm not capitalizing "i" anymore, it's annoying)...blablabla.
and of course my boss had the occassion to read this old review i wrote and THEN he reads my new paper. so of course he is set up for devastating disappointment when he finds my new paper to be lacking. and NO ONE likes my vocab. They say i'm posturing...trying to look smart. but that's how i fucking talk. sorry if i grew up in a house full of verbose bombastic people with impressive reading lists...whatev. so i was really bummed by the look on his face when he gave it back with comments, and the additional, oh-so-subtle slight of "well, i didnt want to rewrite it for you..." piss off.
anyway. it's a chapter. chapter 3 to be precise. when it's off to the people with all the power and no other redeeming qualities except for the ability to assess and scrutinize to the smallest angstrom the breadth and depth of my lack of intellect and work ethic by way of my body of work; my poor little paper... i feel so bad for it.
okay not really. i hate it and want it out of my sight quite honestly.
i also started a new painting the other day. it made me so happy to do something over which i have complete control, artistically, stylistically, and fate-wise as well. this thing with science is only fun when it works. and it's not in the cards for me it seems. is it just me, or does it seem in the end like the best option, the option for being true to oneself, is to leave this academy of bullshit and posturing (now I am the accuser)... i can't wait to finish. go to a warm sandy place devoid of anything resembling these people or this place and get a tan while reading the 8 books im trying to get through right now....
Books i am currently not finished but wish to:
1) The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie
2) Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3) The Kite Runner - by that guy
4) Journey to the End of the Night - Louis Ferdenand Celine
5) My Friend Leonard - James Frey
6) The Devil Wears Prada - who knows
7) The Scramble for Africa - From Livingstone to Present
8) Rebel Sell: how counterculture is just another part of the mainstream (helps me laugh at the flaky artsy types i used to hang with who thought that mainstream was evil...and i thought they were kinda stupid).
9)A New Earth - Echkart Tolle
10)My Idea of Fun - Will Self
11) The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass
there are others that i havent finished but they are not on a list of priorities - i.e. on my bedside shelf...
I just polished off, for the second time, "To kill a mockingbird" back the other week when i was also writing my first draft. i forgot how powerful that book is. amazing. worth a second read. probably worth a third. i really enjoy re-reading books that i read when i was younger, more naive, maybe in a different headspace. i think that books and the arts are among humanities greatest acheivements. not medicine, not physics and aerospace engineering, not infrastructure, cell phones or hybrid cars. books and art and music. this is the height of man.
and of course my boss had the occassion to read this old review i wrote and THEN he reads my new paper. so of course he is set up for devastating disappointment when he finds my new paper to be lacking. and NO ONE likes my vocab. They say i'm posturing...trying to look smart. but that's how i fucking talk. sorry if i grew up in a house full of verbose bombastic people with impressive reading lists...whatev. so i was really bummed by the look on his face when he gave it back with comments, and the additional, oh-so-subtle slight of "well, i didnt want to rewrite it for you..." piss off.
anyway. it's a chapter. chapter 3 to be precise. when it's off to the people with all the power and no other redeeming qualities except for the ability to assess and scrutinize to the smallest angstrom the breadth and depth of my lack of intellect and work ethic by way of my body of work; my poor little paper... i feel so bad for it.
okay not really. i hate it and want it out of my sight quite honestly.
i also started a new painting the other day. it made me so happy to do something over which i have complete control, artistically, stylistically, and fate-wise as well. this thing with science is only fun when it works. and it's not in the cards for me it seems. is it just me, or does it seem in the end like the best option, the option for being true to oneself, is to leave this academy of bullshit and posturing (now I am the accuser)... i can't wait to finish. go to a warm sandy place devoid of anything resembling these people or this place and get a tan while reading the 8 books im trying to get through right now....
Books i am currently not finished but wish to:
1) The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie
2) Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3) The Kite Runner - by that guy
4) Journey to the End of the Night - Louis Ferdenand Celine
5) My Friend Leonard - James Frey
6) The Devil Wears Prada - who knows
7) The Scramble for Africa - From Livingstone to Present
8) Rebel Sell: how counterculture is just another part of the mainstream (helps me laugh at the flaky artsy types i used to hang with who thought that mainstream was evil...and i thought they were kinda stupid).
9)A New Earth - Echkart Tolle
10)My Idea of Fun - Will Self
11) The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass
there are others that i havent finished but they are not on a list of priorities - i.e. on my bedside shelf...
I just polished off, for the second time, "To kill a mockingbird" back the other week when i was also writing my first draft. i forgot how powerful that book is. amazing. worth a second read. probably worth a third. i really enjoy re-reading books that i read when i was younger, more naive, maybe in a different headspace. i think that books and the arts are among humanities greatest acheivements. not medicine, not physics and aerospace engineering, not infrastructure, cell phones or hybrid cars. books and art and music. this is the height of man.
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