ambivalence

Paper due (almost)
So I have two more days left
Procrastinate much?

I'm writing a paper on octopus intelligence (for animal intelligence seminar, of course). Really. So in that spirit, I give you OCTOPUS VIDEOS!!. They're actually neat little (or giant) organisms. And the invertebrate factor makes for an interesting discussion; one I may subject my dear readers to at some point.
Clearly, I haven't been a very good blogger lately. This semester has been more frenetic than I thought it would be. And I was betting on very. My computational neuro class, while fascinating, involves Matlab programming. Which makes me want to curl up in the fetal position. Cellular and molecular neuro is fantastic and makes me miss biochemistry.
So yes, that brings us to 3 classes. 10 credits. And almost 0 research. This makes me very irritable. I have some data to analyze, but most of it looks like trash. And I have some digital models to work on, but no time to do experiments.
Which brings us to our point: I have a lot of ambivalence about this interdisciplinary program thing. I chose this program, this university because I wanted the broad background in neuroscience. But right now, it is making me absolutely crazy. We're required to take a few more classes than the other biology programs, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but a few more grad classes is a lot. I know I'll be grateful for it in the long run (when I try to get a job), but I just want to be done with classes and get fully into my dissertation research. This is like how I felt about gen ed classes in college. Let's be honest here: US history post-Civil War was a royal pain in the ass when I was taking it. But I'm glad I did.
Has anyone else had this experience?
Anyway, I shall continue to trudge through the code and signal pathways and primary literature.



Peace

builiding rehabilitation

Duct work, new lighting
Ladder evasions galore
Let it end soon, please

They're ripping out all the lighting and duct work in our building. Which is nice, yes, but I had to avoid three ladders to go from my office to the lab. And that is a distance of about 10 feet.
Other than that, experiments proceed as planned. It is awfully nice when classes (other than intersession) aren't in session. It is so quiet. And there's no line at the co-op!
And on top of that, I have an awesome new vegetarian cookbook. The two recipes I've tried so far have been quite tasty. Good days all around.


Peace.

New year?

Another new year
Another year of lab work
Maybe some progress

end of year

Oh my goodness. The year is almost over. In 20 minutes.

what I do for fun now

It's Friday night what
better time to track down some
obscure articles

Internet searching for turtle vocalization sound files led me to a claim that a certain species vocalized. (But why would I trust an wetlands ecologist on that one?) Anyway, I found a journal article backing it up.
FTW.
I really need to get out more.

grading

lab reports to grade
hopefully with graphs this time
really, data please

whew

finally finished
fellowship application
feel much better now

solution

Today I spent two
hours adjusting pH
dissolve all ready

pH=2 syllables because that's how it would sound out loud. True story. 2 hours-ish. 1.75 would have messed up my syllable count. EDTA won't dissolve until the solution hits about pH=8. I did not know that when I dumped in 180 grams of the stuff. After letting it stir for a few hours, I looked it up. Let that be a lesson to you. But I won.
And clearly I can't sleep and am all ready betrayed by the time stamp on this post.

entertainment

It seems that of late

Entertainment and pleasure

Have been inverted

I read Eat, Pray, Love a while ago. It's pretty good. Not great, but enjoyable and Ms Gilbert makes some good points. While visiting Italy, she observes that many people have replace pleasure with entertainment. Instead of enjoyment, we simply fill the time with whatever is easiest and disengage.

That is all.