finished

I ran around Target compiling rainforest-themed gift baskets, washed a bunch of bleached (but likely still alive) organisms down the drain, cleaned off my bench, had a final $5 burger and beer with my friends at Hot T's (minus the beer cause I drove) ... and now ... it's over. no more summer lab! It's a relief not to have to go in any more but it also means it's time for the dreaded summer phase II.

Whether or not I decide to face the beast this month or in five, my season of hibernation starts now.

big goals for the rest of my days of "freedom"
1. score > 37 on a practice exam
2. be tan
3. finish watching gilmore girls through season 6
4. website project

ok. off to commence work on goal #3, then tackle #1, and probably sleep in tomorrow. maybe this isn't so bad ...

i don't believe in time

Monday night half-priced margaritas at C.O. Jones -- amazing idea that we all should have had months (or maybe years?) ago. It's too bad State St. is so damn far away, though the minibus is a (somewhat) trusty friend. Over drinks we came up with the inspired idea of a road trip to Montreal this weekend, but unfortunately that plan was born too late as well. After this weekend, there are only two more days left in lab and there's way too much to get done. The summer is coming to a close and I'm freaking out.

So here is where I will be for the next month:

My little desk in my little dungeon of an office upstairs where I will determine whether it's possible to succeed at a six hour standardized test after only twenty consecutive days of study. I will emerge in late August, pasty and fat, because all I will be doing is sitting. and eating. and filling in exam bubbles. cheers!

Oh and speaking of fat -- Andres, if you're out there, I'm sad to say that your departure to Europe marks the end of our friendship. The NY Times reports proof of the damage your acquaintance might do to me. I'm sorry, but you understand, I really just can't put my figure in jeopardy by associating with the obese. guten tag! auf wiedersehn! :)

of road trips and red eyes and arrests

Vivek and I have been talking of a trip to White Castle (pilgrimage, really, for him) all summer and it was always "maybe next week" but on Tuesday at 1pm the time had clearly arrived. nice day, just enough work to avoid, and a recently fixed car at my disposal. Sun came along and it was generally a good time. Too far away to go to the Harold and Kumar one in NJ but we made it to the White Castle in Nanuet, a random New York suburb.

Who knew that their food was so awful? One $0.50 burger was about all I could stomach. Nevertheless, we got souvenir glow cups and convinced the manager (I think?) to take our picture in front of *the castle*. At first we asked the guy taking out the trash but he didn't speak English so well and thought we were asking to take a picture of him. Bewildered, he ran away into the store. ha ha, we're so menacing.

Fun times making fools of ourselves by acting like complete tourists at a mediocre fast food restaurant. The five hour mini road trip was the best part .. I love driving adventures. I took 84 there but on the way back followed 87 past the Tappan Zee. Naive little me didn't realize 87 connects to 95 in the middle of the Bronx, and at a certain point I thought I'd taken a wrong turn and was about to be dropped off in the middle of the city. My mini flip out was pretty amusing to my passengers ... oops ... made it out all right, though! Got back to New Haven and realized I really do like living in Connecticut. I get a nicer vibe than I do from New York. The state, not the city. I like the city just fine. Just not driving in it. Ever.



In other news, there's nothing like learning from a gossip blog that someone you see every day has gotten himself into quite a bit of trouble ... seriously, I woke up on Wednesday and found out about it on ivygate, of all places. I hate the internet. And all the negative media attention our school receives is stupid and unfair. Hope everything turns out ok because the person concerned is not nearly as horrible or threatening as the articles make it sound.

I was at home and not in lab Wednesday because sometime early in the week my left eye became extremely angry. By Tuesday night, it was so red and irritated that I couldn't sleep. Paranoid that I'd gotten some kind of fungal infection from lab, I went to the optometrist. I really was just paranoid though, because I was told there was no infection, just irritation from a contact lens. I was sent to the pharmacy for some overpriced prescription eye drops and sentenced to wear my glasses for six more days. So for now it's studious chic, what with my four eyes and still-boring/ugly hair. I actually am not too broken up about it; I just like to complain.

So it's the time of summer when I start worrying about next year. do I want to take research for credit? will I have to quit my job? will I take what may be my last chance to back out of a science major? am I "taking advantage of the opportunities" at school? help!

empty head

Usually at night I'll dream about people or things that are recently important in my life, situations that might be worrying or confusing me. Recently, though, the tables have turned. Last night I dreamt that there were no items on the jcrew.com sale page. There was instead a notice saying something to the effect that j.crew can't have items on sale all the time. hahaha. Then the other night I dreamt that there were holes in the Longchamp bag I overuse, and I was debating whether to buy a new one.

What's with the totally superficial dreams? I think it's symbolic of this weird plateau my summer has hit -- I am just going around following my routine but I feel kind of lost. Not bored but not very engaged? does that make sense? Anyway, it's another clue about why my updates are disappointing and scarce!

ps, In case you're wondering, there are actually some very nice items on the j.crew sales page right now and if I didn't have to head to New Haven one minute ago I'd be making some purchases.

i've been one poor correspondent

So my blog kind of died this week. I was either too busy with lab stuff, or couldn't put together a good update.

I am happy to report that my erratic and unhealthy college sleep schedule is back; after 6 hr sleep/48 hr total I went on a 5pm-1am sleep binge tonight and am going back to bed. :)

real updates and return to a normal life begin tomorrow ...

cliff notes on this week

Finally I have some free time ... I'm locking myself upstairs in my office to be a hermit for a night, it's actually what I do best.

So it all started Thursday at 4:45 am when I woke up to drive to New Haven. Call time was at 6am and the day lasted until 7. I mostly spent the hours being herded en masse from place to place, doing a lot of nothing. The highlight of the experience was making it into a small scene with Harrison Ford. We were filming with him for awhile, and Steven Spielberg was in and out of the room actively giving direction. Neat to see legends up close, and a lot of fun to work with Spielberg .. this brush with fame kind of made up for the misery of sitting in WLH in 90 degree heat on a muggy afternoon, with artificial lights bearing down on us and no AC. (consider that I was wearing six layers, one of which was thick wool. Makeup people were running around all day making futile attempts to remove the sweat from our faces. ew..) So, for the minimal contribution to filming that I made, I ended up being considerably exhausted by the end. When I finished, I managed to stay awake enough to bonfire with Dan and Tim for a little while, then passed out immediately when I got home.

Friday I ran around from lab to hospice, came home to set my hair in curlers, then woke up at 4:45 on Saturday morning to do it all again. Filming on Saturday was, in short, miserable. The weather was nice, but I was outside for around 15 hours straight, just standing around. Standing in these absurdly uncomfortable black flats, staring at the campus of my usually beloved college, for hours and hours and hours on end. I don't even want to look at High Street again until I go back in the fall, this is how sick I became of standing there. It wouldn't have been so bad had I been actively engaged in doing something, but they were filming maybe 5-10% of the time I was held captive on set. Additionally, I'm almost sure I was not even in the shot. Extreme boredom does become a bonding experience -- I made friends with a cute Marine and his friend -- but that was one of the few highlights of my day. Oh, and at the end I got to stand around with Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf for a bit, but at that point the novelty had worn off. I'm complaining too much, but I just felt like the whole day was a waste of time. I can only take so many hours of waiting around and doing absolutely nothing before I get restless and irritated. I would say fifteen is well beyond this threshold.

But! no worries, the story has a happy ending. After filming ended at 9pm, I transitioned from 50s schoolgirl to pink Powerpuff girl for Jocelyn's costume birthday party. Not surprisingly, everyone was happily wasted by the end of the night and I at least was able to numb my swollen feet and enjoy the company of friends.

Sunday I slept it off and worked on a lab presentation. And today life is back to normal.

So that's the summary of me and Indiana Jones 4. The casting people called me and asked if I could come back to film today and tomorrow, but my answer was an emphatic "no". I'm already behind in lab stuff and I don't have the energy or desire to do it again. I do have a bunch of more amusing stories about the experience, but you'll have to get them from me in person. :)