If I came with a warning label, what would it be?

repost for yourself if you wish

I took my physiology exam this morning. While I probably did okay, I ended up being a few minutes late due to an iced up windshield and small child who was not okay with getting woken up an hour early.

Let me explain the ritual for those who never tried to wake up a child who doesn't do mornings: 10 minutes of general "wake up", turning lights on, knocking on the door and nudges/face touching. (I do about 1 minute on, 4 minutes brush my teeth etc). At this point I remove her pajamas and all of the blankets. Her room is nice and warm in the winter due to proximity to the furnace, so this usually doesn't work. If I've seen eyelid fluttering or a change in breathing to let me know she isn't in deep sleep, I'll pick her up and deposit her on the toilet by this point. This morning, she resolutely curled into a ball and I couldn't get a grip on her. So, I grab an icecube and toss it in the middle of the ball and go back to reviewing for my test. A minute later, I hear the toilet flush and find a bleary eyed little girl looking for clothes. Victory!

So the exam room is cold. One entire wall of the room is taken up by ceiling to floor windows and I'm seated right by it. I'm already cold from scraping the windsheild and running the defroster instead of the heater. It's a 3 hour test. By the time I pack up to leave the quicks of my fingernails are purple. There are people shivering and rocking in their seat. Neither professor giving the exam ever show up. If I can figure out where they are administering the floggings, I will finally be a real graduate student! Oh, and 2 of the 3 questions were fucking ridiculous.

I get home and I'm huddled up in my coat microwaving queso in an attempt to get warm. I'm packing up to head to the office, still cold and feeling pretty embittered towards life. (It's been a thing this last week, what can I say?) I finally have the realization that I don't actually need to go there. I had been planning on spending the winter break in the lab, but who says that needs to start today?

So, a hot bath later, my hands start to loosen (the claw!). For the hell of it, I took a nap--complete with cats and a sunbeam. I pulled Christmas things from storage and took the hose to the wreath (Singing fa-la-la! fucking la! la-ti-da! on the top of my voice to get back at the asshats next door who started running powertools and woke me up). I moistened things.

Came in to take a look at my neurons, and there is some potential there. (Get it! Electrical cells! Potential!) I may be on the road to having some experimental success after weeks of cell morbidity. It doesn't matter, however. I picked up a bottle of late season Argentinian Catena Malbec for tonight.

( wine snobbery )

The rest of the week will involve me trying to reset. I will probably try to wrap things, make things, and destroy things. Alcohol and chocolate will probably be applied in different ratios to see what works. Friday/Saturday am, we head to Yuma for the event and to hang with Bill's dad and possibly his less-than-impressive fuckstick. Next Tuesday, I have a final in statistics and then I'm done. One could even say I'm 50% done with finals, 100% done with classes and 75% likely to set something on fire!

"Leadership must be based on goodwill. Goodwill does not mean posturing and, least of all, pandering to the mob. It means obvious and wholehearted commitment to helping followers. We are tired of leaders we fear, tired of leaders we love, and of tired of leaders who let us take liberties with them. What we need for leaders are men of the heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers. Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away."

— Admiral James B. Stockdale

( Pumpkin joy! ) The night picture failed to capture the feather scrape work. It's pretty cool.

I've had no voice since Thursday morning. This has created some fun opportunities including:

-The Kurgan impressions. "Happy Halloween ladies", "there can be only one", and "I know his name" were the favorites. The last one had the bonus of "Cue the Queen" and then some air guitar.

-I just started at a new lab, and no one has tried to befriend me yet.

-Pho for dinner. (Note: I don't mind meat of questionable content in my soup, I just get a little disturbed when it doesn't even look like tripe anymore.)

-And my favorite: When my mom calls yesterday, I tell her I can't talk on the phone. She laughs at me and says "Tell your grandmother that". She has spent the last week in New York with my grandma, who you will recall has just had a stroke and been going through speech therapy. So, Grandma gets on the phone, and I croak out "Hi Grandma!" I hear her clear as day say "Oh, Sara" and then the snarky stroke victim laughs at me for my funny voice. I manage to get out "you're one to talk" before all three of us are laughing like crazy over the phone. (Well, they laughed, I sounded like I was clubbing baby seals.) Glad she is doing well.

Weekend was good. Lots of people recognized in good ways, and I lost a bet I was happy to lose. I handed out 5 shiny-new artist trading cards and Mistress Dairine, was tickled enough by the idea that she was making them and handing them out on Sunday. (Still has my brushes, though...) I got happy Bertana/Shanda/Corynne time and played things pretty mellow.

Now, I'm starting my Southern planning, doing my homework due tomorrow (no really, not blogging), and studying for a test on Thursday. Still feeling under the weather, but not nearly as stressed out.

http://www.tucsonzombies.com/

The 4th annual Tucson zombie walk is teaming up with Thrill the World to present the Totally Gnarly 80's zombie walk complete with the Thriller Dance.

Would anyone else be interested in going? October 24, baby.

Guess who has 2 thumbs and aced the neurophysiology midterm. *This guy*

I have my statistics test in an hour. Dogfishhead Punkin Ale is on standby in the fridge.

1:35 Edited to add: *Kfffshht* Ahhh.

Life has been a little stressed out lately. I rocked out (probably) on my physiology test this morning, so things are looking up. Some things I've learned this week for your consideration:
-Devoid of coffee and thrust into the world at 7:30, I will communicate only in fake Norse. I was cursing at the little cafe in Bio5 not being open before 8 so that I could grab a cuppa joe after running out at home. Near as I can figure, I said "Asgard foresake you!"
-Pulling one's gracilis hurts like a bitch. For days.
http://www.digital-doc.com/ptfiles/inner_thigh.jpg
-Not working out due to not having the time coupled with low mobility anyways makes me even more aggro/snarky.
-I hate, hate, hate pullups. I was happier when I didn't know I couldn't haul up my own weight. My performance is improving, but they just aren't getting any easier.
-I love bench presses. They make me happy in a way I can't even describe.
-Science is neat:
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=204317
-I have time to sew when I'm not wrapped up teaching everyone else. Of course, I'm not interested in sewing for myself right now since all I seem to be doing is taking in my clothes and doing repairs.
-Mudslides and cookies=Dude! Love.
-I don't like that I live in a world where you can give your all on something and see it not pan out. And then, I realize that in my world, I have a little girl that wants to hold my hand to walk to school, see what I do improve people's chance at life down the road, and have people in it that I like. It balances out. For the moment, however, I'm going to be a little more selfish with my time. Short term, I'm not going to Kingdom A&S. I'm not sure what it means in the long run yet.
-I'm thinking about putting together a butterfly costume for Faydra for Halloween. Feel free to give me really bad ideas instead.

I've officially canceled the rest of the Italian classes. I wrestled with this for days, but when only 3 people show and only 2 others talked to me about it at all, I can't keep spending 20+ hours of prep time per class. This is now 3 classes where I've put a lot of work into it and had nearly no attendance. I'm done for a while. I don't expect anyone to come to me for one-on-one, but I've posted the handout and made the offer.

Today I've given a presentation, started a new experiment, and had my parents in town for less than 24 hours. This weekend someone blew the back window of the car out with a beer bottle. I also went to Mt. Lemmon for a Neuroscience retreat and spent the day talking science, hiking, and drinking beer. I also went to my first Bris. I have a test next week and I'm in the terrible position of making arrangements (and trying to catch up on a lot of background information) to start a new lab rotation while trying to wrap things up in the lab I'm in now.

I'm starting to forget things like what day it is, where I put things, and what I was talking about. Stress is awesome, but not as awesome as finally getting the Footloose soundtrack.

Just like Rome, we have reached a point where we are about to collapse under the weight of our own decadence.

I just found out that wikipedia, the webpage dedicated to consolidating information in an easy to follow fashion with links to help fill in gaps in knowledge, has a 'Simple English' language option. For instance:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome

This particular article is mostly pictures and has a big warning tag at the top that it might not be easy for everyone to understand. Seriously? We had to dumb-down wikipedia?

After 2 months of training and a lot of time coming to terms with tournament mentality, I'm pleased to say that I made the semi-finals today at Queens Rapier Champion, before getting knocked out by Chance who ultimately won. I did this all with my honor intact and with a single 38" blade. I have some things I would like to work on now, but I have a good feeling about my fighting.

There were some moments where wonderful people were noticed for their hard work this weekend. I gained new insight on defeat. I am finally learning how to incorporate period and pretty. I got to stand by the side of a great friend as he introduced me as his inspiration for the tournament. (Ah, the curse of being Italian in a strange land.)

So, thanks to everyone who contributed to what has been a great weekend.

Kudos to scribe_ari for the design, calligraphy, and the mouse letter (especially the mouse letter. Cool!)

Edited to add: I want to thank Wander for her excellent Wordsmithing. I am in utter awe of how well this woman writes.

I have run into serious headaches today with nothing being where it should or totally out in the lab today. I have to abort this afternoon's experiment which means I will have to redo the original steps due to expiration time. Serious frustration! Not my lab, not much I can do. I am seriously glad that I did not try to come in Sunday.

This weekend was mostly spent melted with a book. Boo for swamp cooling mixed with monsoons. I needed an ice bath before bed last night. I spun on Saturday until I got a blister on the middle finger of my left hand.



Me spinning at the event.

Outcome uncertain for the rest of the week. Thinking about scribble tonight. A;so have a project of much doomy-doom in mind. Like 2-3 year timeframe for research and documentation, skill building, material creation, and then time-consuming final execution. It's super ambitious, but I'm excited by the challenge.

“The problem with Livejournal is that we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. Hence, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don’t know about you.”

( Yesterday was a good day. )

Today I'm doing another quick procedure that I can't start until the afternoon, so I'm reading up on the protocol and I may go to the library or out to lunch, just because. I'm currently searching for inspiration for the next, great, project. Whee!

I've started gradschool. It's been keeping me busy learning new procedures, working with the business office to make sure I get a paycheck (paperwork fubar, not mine), and researching classes. Whenever I get my vacation payout, I'm going to get a goddamned bicycle and glasses for Bill.

Faydra has returned to school after a bout of chicken pox. Yes, she was immunized, but got it anyways. Bill and I tried to limit our contact to people who might get it (mostly kids), so sorry we've been recluse.

I'm between projects right now. I didn't want to start something new and distract myself from the workshop this weekend. So, I've been puttering around with cleaning, reading to Faydra and practicing Tarot readings. I think I might play around with spinning. I want to do some dying, so maybe this will get me motivated.

( Recipes for southwestern black bean salad and saffron orange salad )

So the workshop is still a go. I've finished the handout, which is 12 pages of concentrated awesome. If you want one, let me know.

If you want to come, we will be at Roland and Mina's the 11th and 12th from 10-6. We will be doing patterning on both days so that the poor sods who have other things to do can still participate.

Did I mention that the damn handout is 12 pages? And that I'm finally done?

So, here I am at my last day. It would be awesome if I don't actually do any work while I'm here, but I don't really think that is going to happen. Something will pop up.

Speaking of, I'm not even in the door before Zhonglin asks me to come in next week. I'm so shocked that I can't even come up with a good 'fuck you!' response. I do mention that I will not have child care on Monday and Tuesday (I made the choice to spend my 'time off' with my daughter.) That seemed to work at least temporarily. Now to make a list of reasons why I can't and won't work past my last day in order of increasing rudeness. Suggestions are welcome!