Sweet surrender / is all that I have to give

If I ever get hitched, I'm getting my cake from Cake Noveau.

Check out some of these designs!










I'd have to get hitched in an art gallery in order for those cakes to fit in. That's a whole lotta MmMmmmmmMmmm!

I believe I can fly; I believe I can touch the sky....

Two things.

1. After many years of experimentation and observation, I have deduced that it is absolutely impossible to look "cool," "slick," or even "normal" while running with your backpack on.
   
   
2. Genetics is a great field that everyone in my generation should be interested in if, for the only reason, because there is a gene called Sonic Hedgehog (that regulates many aspects of embryonic development). There is also a protein called Pikachurin that is named after a Pokemon character. Also, of note, is a transposon (a "jumping gene" that moves around the genome) named after Michael Jordan -- the Jordan transposon. Yes, peers, genetics is cool.

Your love is like a rollercoaster, baby baby, I wanna ride....

Sometimes it's difficult to explain ourselves to older generations. I think my parents look at my generation, in general, as immature and lacking work ethic. But, I believe that's truly because we are the MTV generation. We're the video game generation. We maybe didn't have as much expected of us while we were growing up as other generations because we were playing sports or learning the violin or away at summer camp while our parents were busy working. But we learned to bask in leisure, much like other generations learned to get their butt in gear working... because we had to!

Anyway, the above cartoon summarizes falling in love... for my generation. Give us women/men with playpen balls 3' deep in their living rooms, and we will give them our hearts and souls!

The chemicals between us / the walls that lie between us / lying in this bed that chemicals displaced

So, bisphenol-A (BPA) is a huge deal, right? It's in pretty much all of the plastics you use, especially as food and beverage containers, as well as dental sealants. Heating and cooling of the molecules releases carcinogens. BPA is associated with diabetes, liver enzyme disorders, and CVD. (See, September 2008 JAMA. We're currently doing some research on its association with polycystic ovarian disease, and it's thought to be associated with many other endocrine and metabolic disorders.

The good news is that Nalgene, maker of my favorite 32 oz colorful water bottles, has a new product -- the Everyday bottle -- made of Eastman Tritan copolyester, which can be thrown in the dishwasher or microwaved, heated, cooled, all that great stuff. So, I bought two -- a blue one and a red one. Because, quite frankly, I keep Nalgene bottles everywhere -- in lab, in my backpack, in my frisbee bag, and at home.



Yea Nalgene!

Midterms are in full swing. Yikes! Wish me luck.

Happy birthday yesterday, Kevin. And happy birthday today, Mom!

Last weekend. Grand Haven.

Talkin' blues, talkin' blues; they say your feet is just too big for your shoes

I have about a gazillion little things to catch up on over the weekend since I don't have a lot of free time during the week. This said, I also like to have a chance to go and hang out with friends, as well, since I also don't see many of my friends now that our HME classes are separate from the General Epid and IH students.

So, yesterday was a huge errand day. Sure, I could have gotten more accomplished than I did, but I also wanted to do a few things to decompress and relax. This meant that today, Sunday, is my busy day. I gave myself an approximate schedule and even set my alarm this morning so I could get up and get moving. My first stop was the laundry room to deposit two loads of laundry in the washer, then I planned on coming up immediately to start the ruggelach dough (I decided I wanted to try my hand at making chocolate ruggelach, and decided this weekend was a good time for it). From there, homework, some cleaning, some more laundry, frisbe, dinner with Juggles, more homework, and eventually bed (preferably sometime before midnight).

So, stop one. Laundry room. Throw some clothes in the washer and, as I'm about to go upstairs, this man who is down there at the dryer goes, "So, how about that $700 Billion bailout?" This justifies a response, I guess, even though it's over and done with so why bother to bitch too much. So I say something to the effect of, "Yeah, unfortunate, isn't it?" BAD FREAKING MOVE! Apparently this warrants a 40 minute conversation, probably 35 minutes of which was the crazy man, speaking about how it's the people's faults and they shouldn't have taken out the money and going off about everything from California finances and how wrong any slightly socialist reform (welfare, etc) is in his mind. I was livid for a short while and threw my two cents in until I realized that I had an agenda and grew annoyed with this man's inability to shut the heck up. I mean, sure, he made some decent points but, being a Native American, he maybe shouldn't bitch about the welfare system and maybe should pay attention to the fact that no, 7-year olds do NOT make choices about their education, their parents do. Yadda yadda. Free will and capitalism and all that BS.

He eventually sensed my growing annoyance and left me alone, as my washer cycle was drawing to a finish anyway.

Lesson: I need to learn graceful tactics to escape awkward situations like such.tg