Tidbits
It's 3pm on Friday and I can't wait to get out of here. It's been a long week and I'm heading to London this weekend for some much needed time off.
Sunburn: Over the last week, I have covered myself in aloe vera gel like 10 times a day in hopes to minimize the horrors of sunburn aftermath. Good news is that the tenderness and pain are gone and although I've started to peel, it's not bad and it seems to be localized to the tops of my shoulders only.
Heat Wave: Apparently, this July has been the hottest July on record (since they started keeping records of temperatures in 1911) for the UK and August is predicted to be even hotter. Wheeee. I'm just glad I wasn't in Woodland Hills on that fateful weekend when the temperature skyrocketed to 119.
Lab Work: Overwhelming. I have two weeks left and about 30 things to do still. I think my dissertation will just have to do without.
Dissertation: I have to submit a form stating my intent to submit a dissertation and the Graduate Office wanted all of the MRes students to try and link their three projects under one all-encompassing title. Try as I might, I can't find the commanality between:
1) Mutational Analysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Gal3p
2) Wnt Signalling in Human Bone Marrow Stem Cell Chondrogenesis
3) Characterization of the Novel Human PH Domain Protein FAM109A
I guess I could submit a dissertation entitled "Molecular and Cell Biology of Many Different Unrelated Systems and Organisms" but I don't think that'll fly. I'm gonna leave all of those titles as is. Unless you can help me think of a better overall title.
Boyfriend: JP has returned from his week-and-a-half job-hunting trip to the U.S. and good news all around. Smart boy pretty much got job offers from all three institutions. Now if only I could find a job...
Random Link: Found this cool internet tshirt store,
Threadless, which features designs created by the public and picked by the public through online voting. I especially like the "Shakespeare Hates Your Emo Poems" one.
Make-up: I have been on a quest to find a good mascara ever since I was brainwashed by popular media into believe that thicker longer lashes were the way to go. I always had the hugest problem with clumpy lashes until I found MaxFactor Masterpiece Mascara (it's the one that endorsed in the UK by the make-up artist for Memoirs of a Geisha). It has these nifty rubber bristles and they never ever clump. It's pretty cool. But I still kinda wanna try that stuff where you have to put on that white fiber coat before the color to make your lashes really really thick. I'm such a sucker for new products.
Entertainment: Kim gave me a whole bunch of DVDs to watch before I came to the UK and one of them had the first series of Veronica Mars, a tv show set near San Diego about a high school super-sleuth . I finished all 20-some-odd episodes in a week. It's pretty good, so check it out if you're bored or in need of a new TV show to watch.
I think that's all for now. It's time to go and catch my train. Have a good weekend everyone!
Burn Baby, Burn
Yesterday, one of my labmates had a BBQ and her home became the scene an atrocious crime against the maintenance of healthy skin. Unfortunately I am the guilty one, having blatantly overlooked one of the cardinal rules of avoiding sunburn:
Even when it is cloudy, you can still get burnt, so wear sunscreen even on cloudy days.
I woke up Sunday morning and looked outside. It was very, very overcast, almost on the verge of raining. There was not a hint of sun. My labmates BBQ was scheduled to start at noon, and by the time I had my laundry finished and my room cleaned, I was running a little bit late so I decided to forego my intended detour to the drug store to buy more powerful sunscreen and go straight to her house instead (mistake #1). I did manage to slather on a bit of SPF 15, but it would sadly prove inadequate when faced with the challenge of 3 hours of fun in the sun. It was still really cloudy as I boarded the bus, but by the time I had arrived at my destination 20 minutes later, the sky had cleared. It was also blazingly hot so I ended up not wearing my cardigan (mistake #2). I thought after an hour or so, maybe I should head inside or sit in the shade or something, but then again, it didn't feel like I had been in the sun all that long and a little bit of sun never hurt anybody, right? (mistake #3).
At about 2pm, I started to see the unmistakable symptoms of sunburn. Right on cue. Sunburns apparently start to show up 2 - 4 hours after the damage to you skin has been done. My shoulders and chest were definitely pink. I freaked out because while I don't mind my arms and legs having a little color, I'm not too terribly fond of having a really dark face/neck, especially seeing how the skin here tends to show the ravages of age and sun much more quickly than the more robust skin of the rest of our bodies. I escaped into the refuge of the house and put on my cardigan.
But alas, my belated efforts were of no help because by the time I realized what I had done, it was far too late. I now feel radioactive, giving off and an excessive number of light waves from the infra-red, visible, and UV range. It looks like I'm wearing a pale flesh colored tank top over my tomato-red body (I don't even know WHY I was wearing a tank top that day. You guys know that I almost never wear tank tops and nearly always wear tshirts. That would have saved me from my horribly encounter with the sun... Maybe the gods are conspiring against me?).
On the bright (pink) side, I don't think the burn is as bad as I had orinally thought. Last night I was positively GLOWING red. This morning, it didn't look nearly as bad. My skin is a bit tender/sore, but definitely not in too much pain and it's not blistering. All day long, I have been sneaking into the lab bathroom to reapply aloe vera in hopes that I can at least ease the healing process. I'll probably peel, but I am SO lucky that I was born with tan-able light olive skin because had I been white, blonde, and blue-eyed, I'd probably be in excruciating pain right now.
Lesson learned. Never leave home without sunscreen. Even when it's overcast.
HOT
The UK is experiencing one of their hottest summers ever on record. Weeks and weeks of sunshine and not a hint wintery storms or rain. 90 degrees is hot, but after living in Japan and being raised in California, I should be able to deal with this, right? Wrong.
In countries where hot weather is expected if not guaranteed, buildings are designed to cope. In SoCal, there is A/C everywhere. Houses are spacious, painted light colors, and large windows are equipped with screens so that they can be opened wide to let in cool evening breezes without the fear of little children falling out or wildlife getting in. In Japan, A/C isn't nearly as ubiquitous, but it is there where you need it most. There are fans and large windows to generate refreshing air flow. However, in the UK, there is no A/C, no fans, and no windows to open. This translates to stifling heat at home, at work, and outside. There is no escape.
My dorm room is on the fourth floor of a building having large glass (untinted) windows that face directly east or west so that aside from high noon, the building is bombarded with direct sunlight for 18 hours a day. What's more, these windows don't open so the entire building becomes a greenhouse and is often much hotter inside than it is outside. Top that off with the fact that hot air rises, and my top floor room becomes a veritable oven.
At work, it's not much better. There is a ventilation system that doesn't necessarily cool the air, but by pure virtue of good circulation, the temperature remains comfortable most of the time. However, said ventiliation system has been BROKEN in my wing for the last couple of weeks and as we speak, my forearms are sticking to the desk as I type up this entry. Gross. The only escape is the cold room where we store things that need to be kept refridgerated. But I can't exactly sit in there too long; being only 39 degrees, it's a bit too cold for comfort. And oh, as luck should have it, my lab is also on the top floor, right underneath the sunroof-type thing which merely compounds the problem by letting in more unwanted sunlight.
Outide is actually not any better than inside today. The previous two set-backs were tolerable up until today because the weather, while hot, has remained dry. The lack of humidity kept the sun bearable and the evenings and mornings are actually pretty nice. Cool and breezy. Today, the day started off with some thunderstorms which did nothing but to make the air heavy with moisture. This is expected to keep up for the next few days.
Blargh... I need central air conditioning.
Friday the 13th
I have a little less than 8 weeks left in my MRes course and in that time I need to have finished a million different experiments, write up this project, compile all my project write-ups into one uber-dissertation, have one last dentist check up (while I'm still covered by the NHS), one last eye exam (again, while still NHS-subsidized), find a part-time job which will help me to pay for my trip to Eastern Europe, plan my trip to Eastern Europe, pack my bags and move out, and try not to have a nervous breakdown. Actually, I'm being melodramatic. Having had to make three international moves in as many years, I've become good at the whole packing/organizing thing. As for my coursework, I plan on starting to write up my current project sometime this week so that I will have PLENTY of time to focus on making all of the nit-picky detailed changes/formatting improvements on my actual dissertation. It's the culmination of 12 months of back-breaking, or rather, brain-breaking, work on my part and I want it to be as perfect as possible. There is, however, one thing that does have me a little worried. I found out earlier this week that I got a distinction on my second write up, so the chance of me getting a distinction in the overall course is a very real possibility. I'm happy, but that also means extra stress for me. Too bad I'm not just plain smart enough to get the higher grades with only a little added effort or apathetic enough to just not care. Oh well. I wouldn't be me without a little over-acheiver-related anxiety.
But I ramble. What I wanted to post was the (tentative) date of my return to California. I have a plane ticket booked for returning Friday, October 13. I might change that to the 12th or the 11th depending on how many loose ends I tie up before I take off on my trip around the Europe. But that's the news for now. Oct 13. Mark your calendars!
Fried Chicken, Biscuits, and Gravy... Oh My!
BoingBoing has posted this disturbing animated map tracking the
spread of obesity in the U.S. over the past two decades or so (using data collected by the CDC). The map covers data collected up until the year 2004 and one can only guess from how fast obesity has been sweeping the nation that the figures for 2006 must be much much worse. You can click on any state on the map and get more info on each particular state and how it's trying to battle this epidemic. Each of these pages also includes a BMI calculator, which is kind of fun to play around with. I know that I am not the healthiest person in the world. I could stand to do a little more exercise, eat a little less junk food, and eat a few more veggies. However, my body weight still falls easily within the normal range. Obesity is defined as having a BMI of 30 or more and out of curiousity, I tried to figure out how much I would have to weight in order to be considered obese. Turns out that at my height, I would have to be at least 180lbs (or nearly 13 stone for you British people) to be considered obese. That's a lot of extra weight to be carrying around and it's crazy to think that nearly a quarter of all Americans are classified as obese.
On a positive health-related note, a few weeks ago, inspired by a conversation with Eva the triathlete-in-training, I choked back my fear of failure and decided to start jogging again. I started out using the treadmill at the gym, focusing on maintaining a nice, slow, steady pace for as long as possible rather than starting out too quickly and burning myself out before I've even reached the half mile mark (which is what I usually end up doing, which I've found to be very discouraging). I started out with just one mile at a 12 minute/mile slow jog pace. Good news is that after a relatively painless gym regimen of about 2 - 3 times per week, I've managed to up that to three miles at a 10 minute/mile pace. I couldn't be happier! Who would have thought that a mere month could make such a difference?
BOXBOXBOXBOXBOX!
And so ends the saga of the winter-clothes-box. It's been around the world twice. It has spent the better part of 10 months in transit. It's been kicked around and beat down (the box was brand spankin new when I first placed it in the (in)capable hands of the Japanese and British postal workers). It's been through hell and back and I am really glad that it finally arrived in one piece.
Earlier this year, when I had given up any hope of ever seeing it again, I made a list of all of the things I had remembered packing in the box as a loss assessment. Here is what I came up with:
- red wool coat
- snowboarding jacket/pants
- snowboarding goggles
- snowboarding gloves/wristguards
- red fleece hoodie/pants
- purple fleece turtleneck
- fleece gloves
- hats x2
- scarves x3
- red zip-up sweater
- beige turtleneck
- tweed trousers
- boots
- copper-colored purse
- black satin purse
- red umbrella
- clothes iron
I would have been very upset to lose all of my snowboarding clothes/accessories, especially since they would have been the most expensive to replace. But no need to worry about that now. Yes, all of the clothes that I had packed were heavy duty wintery gear. Too bad I won't need any of it anytime soon. Doesn't mean I'm not excited to open it. It's like a really big Christmas present. Also, I want to find out how good my memory is and see how many of the items I guessed correctly.
A Little Piece of Heaven in Manchester
I finally decided to pay a visit to the Chinese grocery store that is down the street from where I work and look what I found!!!
My second favorite kim chi in the world (second only to my mom's oi kim chi--that's cucumber-based kim chi to the uninitiated) and a bag of sticky white rice. Guess what I'm having for dinner tonight? Mmmmmm... death by salt and carb overdose. Not a bad way to go, is it?
Communal Living
Having gone to school in the over-crowded UC system, I know what it's like to live in a communal situation. To have to share a dormroom with two complete strangers and a suite with 16 more. Later, to have to share an apartment with 3 then one other person, but at least in these latter cases, it was with people I chose to live with. Alternatively, I experienced the liberation--and often times the slight loneliness--of living on one's own while in Japan. For two years I could be as messy or as neat, sleep as late or wake up as early, fill my fridge or let it go empty exactly as I wanted it. At first I missed having someone with whom to share late night conversations or a homecooked meal, but with time, I grew to like the complete and utter freedom which is associated with roomate-less living.
And then I went to grad school.
This time, I no longer had to share a room with anyone, but I had to share a KITCHEN with three random people. It's one thing if the dishes you leave in the sink or the food you leave in the fridge is yours. You know what's there and when it needs to be cleaned/washed/eaten/thrown away. But when other peoples' mysterious messes creep out of the dark recesses of the back of the fridge, or the cabinet under the sink, it takes ALL of my patience not to go nuts and dispose of all offending moldy forgotten foodstuffs. Or what had once been food, now no longer fit for human consumption. How do I tell someone nicely that I've taken out the garbage 4 times this week already? Or that if you spill pasta sauce all over the stove, you need to clean it up? Or that if you steal all of my eggs one by one while you think I'm not looking, I will eventually find out?
If these people were my friends or family, it would be easier to communicate these feelings. I have tried doing things like making rotating kitchen cleaning duties, straightening up the kitchen in full view of my flatmates, taking out the trash way more than my fair share of times... but to no avail. Lesson learned: If I can help it, I am never cohabitating with random people ever again. Hopefully, this will be the last time I'll ever have to do this again.
Mmmmm... yummy lemons.
