it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown

I got my first black eye yesterday in our match against Alamo City. It's just a little one, but I am quite proud of my shiner. And the shirts from the tournament are the coolest. The back has a picture of Charlie Brown and a rugby ball (instead of the usual football) and the text "It's a great tournament, Charlie Brown." Apparently the after-party had a Great Pumpkin theme, but the Valks decided to come back to Austin early. Too bad my teammates aren't more social.

This afternoon I went to Chris' soccer game. Seemed like a good way to procrastinate and besides, he showed up to my match last weekend, so I owed him one. It's odd to watch soccer now I'm playing rugby. Less control, more spread out, less exciting (I may be shot for that one). Rugby is definitely the more evolved game. After all, it only looks like brutal chaos.

Okay. Neuro. Got to study for neuro. No trick or treating for me this year with a test bright and early on All Saints Day.

mmm, ice cream

One of my favorite things about my program is their insistence on feeding us Amy's Ice Cream twice a year. Big servings. As much as we can eat. There simply is not a better way to start off the weekend.

Actually, there is. Free ice cream in the afternoon, soul food for dinner, and music for the soul - a Mike McClure Band show at Threadgill's World Headquarters tonight. I still firmly believe that everyone should own a copy of Everything Upsidedown. I'd compare it to ice cream, but that's too sweet, and not at all nourishing...alcohol makes a better comparison for music. MMB is a glass of good red wine, solid and bold and oaken with hints of a taste you can't quite put your finger on.

bigger than the white sox

It's always good to know what the rest of the world really thinks of us. None of the US-based news article actually come out and say it, but from BBC news: "Miers debacle hits struggling president"

Debacle. Not a word a US newspaper would use. Not only because of its connotation, but because a large chunk of the population has no idea what it means. Forgive my large vocabulary and word-nerdiness, please.

I like the way it sounds, too. Debacle. Debacle. Debacle. ...I am far too easily amused....

my weekend

It was a fantastic weekend! I didn't get anything productive done at all, but I had so much fun.

Rugby day on Saturday. My first 15's game. I was put in as a prop,

(I'm in the red #3 jersey - with bad form, but it could be worse)

which I wasn't ready for in any way shape or form. It was a definitely my first game. I was kinda lost on the field, and my lock was really frustrated. Time and experience is what I need and I love this sport. Oil wrestling fundraiser...well, it was an interesting evening. They needed me to wrestle to balance a match, so taking one for the team I threw my self-respect out the window and went into the ring. And yes, I won.

My dear friend Jessica was in Austin for the weekend and we got to spend some time together yesterday afternoon. I've missed her; she's moving down here in January and I am very, very excited. Having one of my college friends here will be so wonderful. She is one of a small number of people was really close to in undergrad and one of not so many people that I have kept in touch with since that time in life.

So good weekend, and I'm going to do my best to make sure this will be a good week as well.

tonic state of threatened homeostasis

In other words, stress.

My frustration is steadily increasing, but I'm not ready to give up on grad school or a career in science yet either. I chose my path and I'm going to stick it out.

Messed up the cells again (though this time it wasn't entirely my fault, for once). New ones are growing. Reverse transcriptions yesterday, hybridizations this afternoon, then finish off the arrays tomorrow and scan. And hope beyond all hope that I at least one of my four arrays comes out some semblance of good.

(If you didn't get that last part this is what matters:)
My optimism says all of this is great. The stress-spawned evil little monster of reality is telling me the arrays will be unintelligible ugly yellow smears and the contamination problem is going to come back. Ah, graduate school.

finally a home game!!!

Zilker park, on the rugby pitch.

I don’t know for sure, but I will likely be playing in the UT game and one of the other two. We’ll be out there all day, so come out any time and if I’m not on the pitch I’ll explain what’s going on.

And there will be free beer during the rookie skits.

a woman's place is in the maul

I am sore. I am bruised in odd places. My shoulder is killing me. I am happier than I've been in the last month.

Finally I got to participate in a full practice. Apparently the side that went to the tournament in Philly lost a lot of mauls, so that's how we spent most of practice. It was great.

The funny thing is, my ankle feels better now, too.

drunken teenage...mice

Yesterday's presentation on my drunken teenage mice in lab meeting went well. Apparently better than I thought. I definitely didn't think it was all that great when I tapered off to my acknowledgements.

The usual chain of events: Presentation given, fielding usually small questions during the talk and larger ones along with suggestions and ideas immediately afterword. In the several hours after leaving the conference room one usually hears a polite "good job" or "nice talk" from the people they talk to on a regular basis. This means the talk wasn't unbearable. By the end of the day everyone not directly involved in the same research has forgotten about it. If wasn't very good, well, experience and confidence nearly inevitably improve ability.

So at first I assumed the compliments were simply everyone being really nice. We work in an oddly supportive yet ambivalent little culture (I chalk it up to being socially awkward science types). Then I was getting compliments from people I've barely interacted with and now I'm really wondering if it was actually really good. The PI usually has the most scathing comments. Not this time. Sue's only complaint was completely minor involving choice of line color. Yet, I didn't walk away feeling confident. So did I fool them, or are they fooling me?

why am i in texas?

Newport bridge, taken from Taylor Point in Jamestown, RI. I borrowed the image from this website, which has a lot of truly fantastic photos of New England. Plenty of material to make me homesick for the east.

a case of the monday's

It was a day. Just a day. Kind of bland. Not even vanilla bland. More like iceberg lettuce bland. There were no particular highs or lows. I was fairly productive at work. Didn't get a whole lot done, but a didn't spend too much time surfing either. No good or bad suprises. No emotional tear-ups. No particularly happy moments. Thing is, I think I'd prefer a fairly bad day to this kind of unexciting, blah day. How messed up is that? Maybe it's the mix of naproxen and claritin talking. Lately I've been feeling all kinds of uncomfortable emotional neediness. I'd like to blame that on the anti-inflammatories. The neediness is bothering me like it never has before. I need to figure out how to deal with it because it's going to cause me to do something unhealthy.

Besides, I need to get out of my selfish little loop of pity. Scarier and worse things are happening to people I love. My fifteen year old cousin, Colleen, ran away from home a week and a half ago. She's been in my mind a lot lately. Naturally the entire scattered from coast to coast extended family is worried and her parents are frantic. She talked to her mom and dad a few days ago and as of then she was fine. What makes you decide to leave the safety of home for the streets? I know too much about the things that happen to street kids. Especially girls on their own. Common sense screams that anything is better than that. And winter is creeping up quickly on Anchorage, AK. My imagination is coming up with all sorts of scenarios. The best of them involve her going home once she realizes what it's like to be really hungry and really need a shower or finding her way to California and our Aunt Cathy, who she emails fairly regularly. I don't even know if Alaska has an Amber alert type of program or if it is even valid for this sort of thing...

What makes you decide to leave home like this? I don't think I ever would have considered running away. Not running away running away. (Planning to live in the neighbor's hay loft at the age of 10 doesn't count.) Granted, I got along with my parents fairly well in high school, but things did get rough from time to time. I mean I was a normal teenager, but going out into the world with nowhere to go, no way to support or protect yourself? It isn't even a solution, just an escape into a dead end. Vented enough...didn't realize that was pent up in me, even. Keep her in your prayers, please.