prelims hell

I am so relieved I could cry.

Our ball

Our ball
Originally uploaded by Hull Cove.

This may be my favorite rugby photo I have ever taken. Meredith Bagley, one of my teammates I have the most respect for, both on and off the field, in the middle, having just thrown the ball back to Meg (wearing the 12). She is an amazing flyhalf and brings up the entire team with her.

It's nice to finally have at least a little bit of a creative outlet with my photography. Even if it doesn't involve film and my own darkroom. Sports photography is a new one to me, so getting a photo like this one is even more exciting.

tension

Looking at a stress brochure today I realized I have eighteen of the twenty-five listed symptoms, including increased procrastination, being anxious and confused over unimportant events and increased frustration with minor annoyances. Great. I'm stressed. Not exactly a big suprise. Now all I can do is just keep myself from toppling over due to all of it.

it was a fun weekend.

something tells me Andy doesn't get it
Originally uploaded by Hull Cove.

Angela and I dancing while Andy wonders what the hell he was thinking in coming to Texas from London to coach a women's team.

Johari Window

I've been curious for a week, but too scared to put it up. It seems almost narcissistic, but here's the link to my Johari window.

worth it?

*Written 2.17.06 in the car

At the age of twelve no one dreams of their life at twenty-eight and imagines it being miserable. No, you fantasize about all the cool things you'll get to do, like drive a car and live away from parents, all paid for by your enormous salary from your Very Cool job. Even at eighteen we graduate high school and set out to chase our dreams on wings of passion, never thinking that the world isn't always going to be exciting and new. By the time we are a couple years out of college though, most of us resign ourselves to the fact that we will have to find our happiness outside of what we do for a living.

I never thought I might be one of those people. I chose my path based on my passion. I chose to go to graduate school because I genuinely LOVE science, particularly molecular biology. But I'm so stressed out lately that I keep wondering if it's worth it. When I talk about my job outside of work I light up. I get excited and can't stop smiling and the words "it's SO cool come out of my mouth a lot. And then I get to work the next day and the reality of my situation hits me all over again. My boss is terrible and I'm completely overloaded. The stress is fairly constant and as a result my neck and back are in terrible knots. I like the research. I love telling people I get mice drunk for a living. And I feel that what I'm doing is capable of making a difference, that at least in some small way it contributes to the greater good. And these are all things that are very, very necessary for me to be happy with my life.

So is it worth it? I guess that it all depends on what I mean by "it." If "it" means getting my PhD, then yes, it is. If "it" means my current situation. Well, at least I know this job, this phase is temporary.

screw you, CBS

CBS, I now officially hate you. You canceled my show. My. Show. Love Monkey. Y'know, the only new series on television this season that was actually worth watching. After only three episodes you canceled Love Monkey. You didn't even give things a chance! In quarter life terms, that's the equivalent of half a date, if that. It's an insult to something that you very well know could have been great...and what's worse, we had plans! Just me and Tom Cavanaugh, some Peanut M&M's and Sprite, in a quest for some really great music on a quiet Tuesday night. But no, you punked out. Some small minded, impatient exec couldn't handle it, so instead of hanging on to something you knew was quality you put it "on hiatus." Well, screw you, I spent the evening with the Olympics instead.

Edit - I went googling in search of hope for Love Monkey and found a petition to CBS to bring the show back. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but short of storming the corporate offices (which would burn off some stress...) it seems the best option to actually do something about this travesty.

sweet, sweet relief

Drumroll please....

Thanks to lots of help from my friend Jess (no, one of the other ones), to whom I am now forever indebted, The Abstracts Are FINISHED. I will go over them briefly one more time tomorrow before I email them to my track chair along with my personal research summary. So this gives me a week of freedom until I start on the ten page proposal. It's a breath of fresh air at least and a chance to de-stress a little.

So I'm sitting here watching the Olympics (I swear I'm addicted) with a cup of hot chocolate spiked with a little Irish Creme. Mmmm, the only way to make it through these cold winter nights. Truth be told, the speed skating and luge events aren't really all that exciting, though. The half pipe snowboard runs are amazing; its like these guys can fly. I want to be able to do that, however it would probably involve actually learning to snowboard though, and considering snowboarding involves actual snow and a hill I'm not seeing myself having the opportunity to pick it up any time soon.

fuel for the wanderlust

What the hell is up with the cheesy pop music playing as the various national teams walk through the Olympic arena? I do have to admit "Freedom" is appropriate for the United Sates, though. Otherwise it was a beautiful ceremony; I loved the opera ending and the drama of the torch lighting. There's something about the way the world comes together to compete in peace that truly appeals to the idealist in me.

Watching the opening ceremonies is only fueling my wanderlust. I want to be somewhere I have never before set foot. I want to watch the sun set over a landscape I have never seen, want to be somewhere the air smells different, where people see the world differently. I'm getting restless once again. I need to go somewhere, do something. Okay, do something that does not involve hammering the same simple concept into small minds over and over again or writing an abstract. I need to be three hundred miles from the nearest McDonalds. Where the sky is a different shade of blue, where the sunset has a different personality. It seems I'm feeling a little trapped by all of my stress these days.

Greece seems like a long, long, long way away. Life wouldn't be any easier if I was anywhere else, but it would be different. Do all humans suffer from these wanderlusts like I do, or is it just me? I'm starting to think I need to pick Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines. Maybe that will quench these longings to grab a backpack with the little bit I need and just go somewhere, anywhere.

this is what i'm doing instead of reading up on what i have to teach in three hours

As I child I hated avacado. To the point of avoiding guacamole right up through college. Whilst digging through my taco salad for the last small bits of avacodo-y goodness hidden among the bland iceberg remnants I realized I WAS AN IDIOT. Easy enough to blame east coast guacamole, though, seeing as how "good Mexican food on the east coast" is a complete contradiction in terms. I know for a fact it was not some sort of terror from my mother's demonstration of growing a baby avacado tree in a water glass when I was a child. That absolutely fascinated me and it was quite sad to have to throw the poor thing away when it got too big for the glass. Not quite as sad as decapitating mice for their brains, but I was young.

Today's other realizations include that I don't particularly like the coffee from the campus cafe across the street, getting out of bed late makes it that much more difficult to come into work, and Zack Hexum rocks. He is also the free iTunes download of the week. I downloaded the song the day before yesterday and have already listened to it exactly eight thousand five hundred and forty-two times. My iTunes count can prove it.

i wanna hold your hand

On this day in 1964 the British invasion began with the arrival of the Fab Four into JFK Airport greeted by 3000 screaming teenage girls. Music in America would never be the same.

I am still trying to find a topic and still stressed out enough about it that the last thing I want to do is keep thinking about it. So, I find myself surfing the web searching for distractions while I should be reading about RNA localization or something of the like. The fact that I'm getting nowhere and the deadline is Monday is looming over my head something like a tree about to fall on me. No wonder my neck and shoulders are so tense.

weekend summary

Pattie's housewarming party:
Unfortunaely I didn't get a picture of the cake, which I decorated with a few plastic cochroaches.

Saturday was the UT-Baylor/TSU Women's game:It was a gorgeous day for rugby.

Saturday night, a rugby party, with all the appropriate insanity:

Yes, those are four of my teammates, some of the whitest white girls you will ever meet, rapping, or at least trying, to Ice Ice Baby.

And of course, the best part, Andrea's Super Bowl party, which was followed by watching the cliffhanger that was this week's Grey's Anatomy.
As always seems to happen at parties half of us congregated in the kitchen to socialize near the food...
I warned you all I was going to abuse my new camera to my full ability. The rest of the weekend photos will be on flickr sometime in the next few days as I continue to procrastinate on getting out my abstracts.

you know you love it too

For those of you as crazy about Grey's Anatomy as I am, I found a blog that is updated each week by the writer or producer of the previous episode. As if I need something else to be addicted to.

Oh, and this week's article is a complete tease. I'm still screaming inside that last night's episode left us hanging in mid air like a trapeze artist that just might not be able to catch the bar.

type a stress

Yesterday's relief at finally having a hypothesis has segued nicely into today's stress over only have one hypothesis and needing another, in addition to two fully written abstracts on said hypotheses. I ran all over campus looking for cranberry juice, finally found it and paid too much for it. If I had vodka I'd consider mixing them.

Prelims. Everyone I know and respect around here has gone through them. Survived none worse for the wear. They all tell me I'm going to do just fine. On some level I really do believe I will do just fine. But that doesn't stop the basal level of panic that rises and puts my shoulders in knots. Too much to do today between teaching and journal club and meetings for the upcoming speaker series event (more on that later, I'm so excited to be the host for a Nobel Laureate).

Okay. Deep breath. Going to run discussion section now. Ah, my overacheivers, ought to be fun.