Tuesday, June 26, 2007
and now,
a discussion question for the masses: does the concept of "sneaky" exist in the summer? (oh by masses I mean Jen, and now Andres, my only known readers and the only ones who know what I'm talking about anyway. blogging feels a bit too one-sided for my tastes, and I miss you guys!) Anyway, my take on it is that summer, second only to spring break, is the season to be sneaky. It's not quite as extreme as spring break, where nothing counts; still, it's pretty universally understood that whatever happens over summer carries less significance than usual. And with everyone scattered around the world, who's to know if and when one of us does something sneaky? Classic falling tree paradox. Discuss.
the game
Earlier this summer Dan's brother Andrew introduced me to "the game". If you think about the game, you lose the game. Now that you know about it, it's possible for you to lose. (20 minutes after you've read these words, at least)
I thought it was the stupid idea of one of his college friends until I googled it and found a website listing the rules in painful detail. Apparently there are tens of facebook groups about it too, so I've just been out of the loop.
I think this is ridiculous but ... I lost the game a minute ago and I wanted to bring more people down with me.
I thought it was the stupid idea of one of his college friends until I googled it and found a website listing the rules in painful detail. Apparently there are tens of facebook groups about it too, so I've just been out of the loop.
I think this is ridiculous but ... I lost the game a minute ago and I wanted to bring more people down with me.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Vineyard Vines raspberry patchwork skirt for $25, originally $125the price of fame
So while I was in lab on Thursday morning, I got a call from some guy at the casting agency wanting to schedule me for a costume fitting. Apparently I was actually chosen to be an extra in this movie. I was probably not as excited about it as most of the other people I told but I was pretty happy -- I like dressing in costume and the idea of catching a glimpse of Harrison Ford and the possibility of making it into a major Hollywood film. And I definitely wasn't expecting anything out of this -- I had gone to the casting call only because it sounded like a fun way to escape the hectic morning hours in lab.
The guy on the phone scheduled me for an appointment the same day, so I got to leave lab a little early (which ultimately is a bad thing, since now I have to go in both days this weekend). I drove downtown and, after filling out some paperwork, a costume person brought me clothes to try on until she had put together her vision of a collegiate 50's outfit. It is pretty cute. I could probably deal with living in the 50's. I had my picture taken in the clothes, changed out of them, and was sent off to "hair".
Yeah, hair... about that...
So my hair is naturally curly but I prefer to wear it straight when I can -- I think it better suits my personality and style. Lately though I've just been letting it air dry because I'm a lazy ass and nothing I've been doing has required me to look cute (sadly). When I went to see the woman in charge of hair, though, she loved my curls and gushed about how great my hair will look when I set it in curlers. She just needed to cut it "a little" to make it look more authentic. I expressed my hesitation -- I've held off from cutting my hair these past few months because I thought the length was perfect. Hair woman reassured me that she would only need to take off "two inches", and that I could say no if I'd rather not. She kind of pressed me to let her do it and I figured that two inches isn't that bad for hair that probably could use a trim, anyway. So I stood up to let her cut my hair, since they didn't have any salon chairs to use. I wasn't able to look in the mirror until she had finished, and when I did I was numbed with shock.
A visual demonstration:
me and my hair, a month ago
The guy on the phone scheduled me for an appointment the same day, so I got to leave lab a little early (which ultimately is a bad thing, since now I have to go in both days this weekend). I drove downtown and, after filling out some paperwork, a costume person brought me clothes to try on until she had put together her vision of a collegiate 50's outfit. It is pretty cute. I could probably deal with living in the 50's. I had my picture taken in the clothes, changed out of them, and was sent off to "hair".
Yeah, hair... about that...
So my hair is naturally curly but I prefer to wear it straight when I can -- I think it better suits my personality and style. Lately though I've just been letting it air dry because I'm a lazy ass and nothing I've been doing has required me to look cute (sadly). When I went to see the woman in charge of hair, though, she loved my curls and gushed about how great my hair will look when I set it in curlers. She just needed to cut it "a little" to make it look more authentic. I expressed my hesitation -- I've held off from cutting my hair these past few months because I thought the length was perfect. Hair woman reassured me that she would only need to take off "two inches", and that I could say no if I'd rather not. She kind of pressed me to let her do it and I figured that two inches isn't that bad for hair that probably could use a trim, anyway. So I stood up to let her cut my hair, since they didn't have any salon chairs to use. I wasn't able to look in the mirror until she had finished, and when I did I was numbed with shock.
A visual demonstration:
me and my hair, a month ago 
me and my hair today
More than two inches? I report, you decide. (hint: yes)
ughhhhhhhhhhhh. I have been bitching about it a lot and all the responses have been "come on, it's not that short", but to me it is that short. It barely touches my shoulders. I would never cut my hair this short by my own will and it's probably going to take about four months to reach a length I like. It's something I'm going to have to live with for awhile.
This had better be a damn good movie.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
the last crusade
If you go to Yale or live in the area you've probably heard about the filming of Indiana Jones 4 in New Haven later this month. They're shooting a car chase between Branford and Saybrook which will end in the middle of Commons. It should be amusing to see on the big screen, though it will probably be really annoying to drive around while they're filming.
So we've been talking about the open casting call for extras in lab for the past week or so and when I came in this morning three of my labmates had already been. Armed with 'secret' info that the casting call had started earlier than 1pm, Michelle and I made the spur of the moment decision to abandon work and pursue our shot at fame and glory (haha). We needed headshots so we took digital copies of our senior pictures first to SML, where apparently they don't have any color printers, then to Tyco for a glossy printout. We got to the Omni early enough that there wasn't a substantial line so we walked right into a room where they made us fill out an application of sorts. They asked for like every possible size and I had no idea what my measurements were (I tried to think back to the hip-to-waist ratio experiment in our suite but couldn't recall the numbers!) -- so I ballparked it +/- 8 cm. oops. After that we waited in line for awhile. At the end some guy took a picture of us holding our applications, then took our applications. The casting call took around 40 minutes, and it was 2 hours round trip to and from lab.
We probably won't get cast but if we do I am making
every
single
person
I know watch this film! haha, watch out!
So we've been talking about the open casting call for extras in lab for the past week or so and when I came in this morning three of my labmates had already been. Armed with 'secret' info that the casting call had started earlier than 1pm, Michelle and I made the spur of the moment decision to abandon work and pursue our shot at fame and glory (haha). We needed headshots so we took digital copies of our senior pictures first to SML, where apparently they don't have any color printers, then to Tyco for a glossy printout. We got to the Omni early enough that there wasn't a substantial line so we walked right into a room where they made us fill out an application of sorts. They asked for like every possible size and I had no idea what my measurements were (I tried to think back to the hip-to-waist ratio experiment in our suite but couldn't recall the numbers!) -- so I ballparked it +/- 8 cm. oops. After that we waited in line for awhile. At the end some guy took a picture of us holding our applications, then took our applications. The casting call took around 40 minutes, and it was 2 hours round trip to and from lab.
We probably won't get cast but if we do I am making
every
single
person
I know watch this film! haha, watch out!
Monday, June 11, 2007
laughing my way to disaster
Great weekend of doing nothing on the cape with friends. Josh's family house in Wellfleet, MA fit 14 or so of us comfortably for a few days. So relaxing -- all we did was eat and drink and lay on the beach, read and hang out.
highlights include ... the endless Sean Connery jokes, comments about 'sharing', killing time in the bookstore, sharing finds from said bookstore (readings from The Breast in the SC voice, special tortillas), almost getting busted by the cops for our bonfiring activities, Vivek running us off the road after our escape, learning to play Risk (the Old Campus game makes sense now... I guess), and of course, spending q-time with my new Scottish boyfriend, Rory. mmm.
The weather was fair -- Saturday it was cool and cloudy, Sunday it was sunny but windy. I spent a lot of time laying on my stomach on our last day, because when I laid on my back and tried to read holding my book up, the wind got at my arms and I froze. Consequently, I have a brutal, spotty sunburn all over my back and shoulders. ow. It actually looks worse than it feels so I will give it a few days and hopefully I'll emerge with some kind of blotchy tan.
...all good things come to an end and today it was back to the dirty have and the lab routine.
(way bored in traffic, I took this from my car)
What could be better?
highlights include ... the endless Sean Connery jokes, comments about 'sharing', killing time in the bookstore, sharing finds from said bookstore (readings from The Breast in the SC voice, special tortillas), almost getting busted by the cops for our bonfiring activities, Vivek running us off the road after our escape, learning to play Risk (the Old Campus game makes sense now... I guess), and of course, spending q-time with my new Scottish boyfriend, Rory. mmm.
The weather was fair -- Saturday it was cool and cloudy, Sunday it was sunny but windy. I spent a lot of time laying on my stomach on our last day, because when I laid on my back and tried to read holding my book up, the wind got at my arms and I froze. Consequently, I have a brutal, spotty sunburn all over my back and shoulders. ow. It actually looks worse than it feels so I will give it a few days and hopefully I'll emerge with some kind of blotchy tan.
...all good things come to an end and today it was back to the dirty have and the lab routine.
(way bored in traffic, I took this from my car)
What could be better?
Thursday, June 7, 2007
science hates me
I don't have pictures of anything I've been doing lately besides lab stuff, so here is a photo of my sweet bacteria inhibiting fungal growth. rock on, streptomycete
ok, one's enough. I came into lab this morning ready to do PCR and realized that I'd inadvertently thrown out all of yesterday's work. I was not pleased with my ridiculous absentmindedness (jz caught me in this mood when I went out to return her sweater!). ugh.. well I got it done and redid all my work. Blasting Simon & Garfunkel's greatest hits on our side of the lab helped a lot. haha. So I'm behind a few days which is frustrating but life goes on. Plus a bunch of us are heading out early tomorrow afternoon for a weekend in Cape Cod ... looking forward to an escape from all things science-related! updates when I get back ..
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
i think this blog idea is misguided.
j.yang: link me!
me: the link's in my profile
me: but it's so bad, i don't want readers
*pause in conversation*
j.yang: lol
j.yang: its only bad if you misspell
j.yang: aites imma go now
j.yang: later
me: the link's in my profile
me: but it's so bad, i don't want readers
*pause in conversation*
j.yang: lol
j.yang: its only bad if you misspell
j.yang: aites imma go now
j.yang: later
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
when the cat's away ...
With our "supervision" tied up in meetings and our professor away for the whole week, lacking liquid nitrogen or magical fast-growing organisms ... nothing was going to get done in lab today. Most of our group sat outside for over an hour eating and watching familiar faces from our science classes walk down the hill (oh, summer school, so glad I'm not playing that game). Then three of the girls and I shipped out at 3pm for the mall. Sweet life.
Hit up the sales ... super cheap v-neck cardigans at "urban behavior", and 2 cute tank tops, a t-shirt, and a 3/4 cardigan at Target for under $20. Not high fashion but cheap basics make me happy! I think I officially have a cardigan obsession. Given this and my devotion to g&t's, I have no worries about making a smooth transition to old age.
So I'm 2 for 2 with the physics lab TA sightings in the past two days. What? As I was busy collecting a total of five free chicken samples from the food court (heroic), I noticed a familiar geeky-looking face pass by. Thankfully my first semester TA doesn't recognize me anymore, if he ever did. physics, get away! I never asked to be haunted like this.
long day in lab tomorrow to make up for slacking? ...we'll see.
Hit up the sales ... super cheap v-neck cardigans at "urban behavior", and 2 cute tank tops, a t-shirt, and a 3/4 cardigan at Target for under $20. Not high fashion but cheap basics make me happy! I think I officially have a cardigan obsession. Given this and my devotion to g&t's, I have no worries about making a smooth transition to old age.
So I'm 2 for 2 with the physics lab TA sightings in the past two days. What? As I was busy collecting a total of five free chicken samples from the food court (heroic), I noticed a familiar geeky-looking face pass by. Thankfully my first semester TA doesn't recognize me anymore, if he ever did. physics, get away! I never asked to be haunted like this.
long day in lab tomorrow to make up for slacking? ...we'll see.
Monday, June 4, 2007
the glamorous life (or anything but?)
I'm listening to Fergie, obviously. Well, right now it's only playing in my head because I'm sitting in K2 and it doesn't really seem to be the place to blast this song on my laptop. Just overheard to my right: "She doesn't really think we're lesbians, does she?" Guy wayyy to my right is seriously attractive AND has some sort of Scottish/British(?) accent .... but he's seated with two little kids. Ugh. Guy to my left has a definitive Irish accent, but is seriously unattractive. What's going on here?
So Jen started a summer blog and has inspired me to put some kind of effort into doing this instead of these lame bullet points. Today at least I'll try to string actual sentences together.
The weekend was really low-key as far as weekends go; Saturday I had a 7 hour law library shift, after which I babysat for four hours. The dog didn't eat my phone this time, though she did chew up one of the little boy's books and some foam letters. I seriously can't tear stuff away from her mouth fast enough. Basically, by the end of the day I went crazy from sitting by myself so many hours in front of books. In general, I don't mind being alone but twelve straight hours of it was excessive. I finished Summer by Edith Wharton (I kind of skimmed the last fifteen or so pages because I got fed up with the plot, predicted what would happen, and decided if I read anymore I'd get too depressed), did some MCAT orgo (minimal), and started Prince of the Marshes. Also read most of the NY Times Sunday magazine ... I liked the article about red-shirting kindergarteners (It is true that Connecticut has the latest birthday deadline of all the states for starting kindergarten, confirming my assertion that I am not young for my class year; everyone else is just old !)
(update -- Shit shit my physics lab TA is sitting right across from me; there is no way he can NOT see me ... will not look up ... Hey, would it be inappropriate if I cornered him and demanded he explain why the hell I got that grade in his class?? hah, how uncomfortable would it be if I emailed him about it right now? ok, going to pretend he isn't there ... I'm really good at this...)
Continuing with my weekend narrative -- Sunday morning I went to church with D, which sent us further down the path to hell with our inappropriate running commentary on people's clothes, the atrocious music selection, and the old woman next to us who may or may not have been dying. When I came back I tried to work at Starbucks but I ended up driving aimlessly around Litchfield County for about an hour before I finally made myself study. At night I went back to D's house to watch the rubber match of the Boston-New York series. Four hours of baseball excitement concluded my weekend.
Lab today needs no further explanation ... tediummmmm ... know the classic explanation for not wanting to do research -- "I don't want to sit hunched over a lab bench all day" ? -- well that is exactly what I am doing, hunching, because lab stools have no backs and it's killing my shoulders a little bit. I can't complain too much because I took almost a 2 hour lunch today at Moka with M & J (friends from high school) who are working in New Haven at a psychology clinic and a law firm this summer, respectively. It still wasn't enough time to catch up so hopefully this will happen more often.
Last tutoring session tonight and maybe I will try to cut back on the work a little bit and enjoy life ... thank God I no longer have to feign a thorough understanding of geometry ... I feel almost free.
So Jen started a summer blog and has inspired me to put some kind of effort into doing this instead of these lame bullet points. Today at least I'll try to string actual sentences together.
The weekend was really low-key as far as weekends go; Saturday I had a 7 hour law library shift, after which I babysat for four hours. The dog didn't eat my phone this time, though she did chew up one of the little boy's books and some foam letters. I seriously can't tear stuff away from her mouth fast enough. Basically, by the end of the day I went crazy from sitting by myself so many hours in front of books. In general, I don't mind being alone but twelve straight hours of it was excessive. I finished Summer by Edith Wharton (I kind of skimmed the last fifteen or so pages because I got fed up with the plot, predicted what would happen, and decided if I read anymore I'd get too depressed), did some MCAT orgo (minimal), and started Prince of the Marshes. Also read most of the NY Times Sunday magazine ... I liked the article about red-shirting kindergarteners (It is true that Connecticut has the latest birthday deadline of all the states for starting kindergarten, confirming my assertion that I am not young for my class year; everyone else is just old !)
(update -- Shit shit my physics lab TA is sitting right across from me; there is no way he can NOT see me ... will not look up ... Hey, would it be inappropriate if I cornered him and demanded he explain why the hell I got that grade in his class?? hah, how uncomfortable would it be if I emailed him about it right now? ok, going to pretend he isn't there ... I'm really good at this...)
Continuing with my weekend narrative -- Sunday morning I went to church with D, which sent us further down the path to hell with our inappropriate running commentary on people's clothes, the atrocious music selection, and the old woman next to us who may or may not have been dying. When I came back I tried to work at Starbucks but I ended up driving aimlessly around Litchfield County for about an hour before I finally made myself study. At night I went back to D's house to watch the rubber match of the Boston-New York series. Four hours of baseball excitement concluded my weekend.
Lab today needs no further explanation ... tediummmmm ... know the classic explanation for not wanting to do research -- "I don't want to sit hunched over a lab bench all day" ? -- well that is exactly what I am doing, hunching, because lab stools have no backs and it's killing my shoulders a little bit. I can't complain too much because I took almost a 2 hour lunch today at Moka with M & J (friends from high school) who are working in New Haven at a psychology clinic and a law firm this summer, respectively. It still wasn't enough time to catch up so hopefully this will happen more often.
Last tutoring session tonight and maybe I will try to cut back on the work a little bit and enjoy life ... thank God I no longer have to feign a thorough understanding of geometry ... I feel almost free.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
i have seen all the fuss, and it's no big deal
hootie is a key part of any morning commute.
Anyway. Yesterday dragged on.
-stayed up late not doing my presentation, got up early to actually finish
-got very little done before lab meeting
-took a caffeine pill at lunch just to see what would happen .. it just felt like a cup of coffee that hit all at once
-lab meeting lasted for three long long hours after which I couldn't stand to be in lab anymore
-as I was driving home, my gas light was on from the depths of New Haven to Oxford, where I filled up at the most expensive gas station in town just because I was afraid I wouldn't make it. fifty. effing. dollars. But today I checked my bank account to find a pending transaction from Exxon charging me $1 ... huh?
-got home, was exhausted, but too wired to go to sleep
-went over D's to watch the Yankees beat up on the Red Sox -- I promptly passed out on the couch ... D and J kindly woke me up when Scott Proctor got thrown out of the game ... I fell back asleep ... D finally kicked me out when he was going to bed himself. haha. how embarrassing!
law library shift is boring and I've gotten nothing done. need coffee or something to wake up! help!
Anyway. Yesterday dragged on.
-stayed up late not doing my presentation, got up early to actually finish
-got very little done before lab meeting
-took a caffeine pill at lunch just to see what would happen .. it just felt like a cup of coffee that hit all at once
-lab meeting lasted for three long long hours after which I couldn't stand to be in lab anymore
-as I was driving home, my gas light was on from the depths of New Haven to Oxford, where I filled up at the most expensive gas station in town just because I was afraid I wouldn't make it. fifty. effing. dollars. But today I checked my bank account to find a pending transaction from Exxon charging me $1 ... huh?
-got home, was exhausted, but too wired to go to sleep
-went over D's to watch the Yankees beat up on the Red Sox -- I promptly passed out on the couch ... D and J kindly woke me up when Scott Proctor got thrown out of the game ... I fell back asleep ... D finally kicked me out when he was going to bed himself. haha. how embarrassing!
law library shift is boring and I've gotten nothing done. need coffee or something to wake up! help!
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