prpl.net

I aboslutely ripped through this book in the last few days. Chiyo’s story begs for you to listen; I found myself completely wrapped up in it, at times forgetting it was fiction and not a true memoir. Sad but beautiful, it emphasizes the role of hope in helping us all survive our struggles. I hope the movie coming out soon isn’t disappointing…

If you like Pride and Prejudice, read this book. If you like Lord of the Rings, read this book. If you ever wished magic were real, then pretty please read this book. Enter a world where Jane Austin’s socialites find themsevles married to husbands who discuss the best use of magic to defend England from Napoleon Bonaparte.

This novel isn’t a short read, but it wouldn’t be the same otherwise. Like Tolkien, Clarke immerses you in an inspired society you never question despite its departure from reality. Magic is returning to England, and two practical (rather than theoretical) magicians fight to bring it back in a form each of them sees fit.

Mixed Signals







Nice Wheels

A week from now, almost to the hour, I have to be at the airport to catch my flight to Baltimore for the BMES conference. 24hrs after that I will be giving a 15 minute presentation on the effects of exercise on the subsequent in vitro behavior of bone marrow stromal cells. This wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that my advisor requested I submit the abstract at a time when I didn’t have the clearest data (but it suggested trends I could clarify with more work). Now I have more data, and it contradicts the old data almost as much as it supports it. As you can imagine, this makes presenting a strong, clear story somewhat difficult. Sure, lots of published literature is seemingly contradictary to other published work, but at least each article is self-consistent…

I need to somehow find a pair of pumps that don’t hurt my feet. Conferences and presentations -> essentially the only events that give researchers cause to dress up.

If you could spend your time doing anything, what would it be? The stress of school/research got me thinking about what life would be like if I could afford, in both time and money, to be a total slacker with a life of leisure. I’ve come to the conclusion that if ever given such an opportunity I would probably pursue several new hobbies every week with breathtaking zeal. Most of them would be forgotten just as quickly.

I’ve always been interested by the strangest things, and once I’m curious about something I latch onto the idea until I get a chance to try it. Then, once I’ve tried said thing out and the newness wears off, I typically lose interest. It’s only ever been a few things that really stayed with me as true loves for long periods of time (like piano).

I think what gets me fired up about new hobbies is learning how to do something. I love the satisfaction of creating things or making something work. A few years ago I was inspired to build a dynamic website from scratch. I taught myself PHP, MySQL and stylesheets so that I could build purplegiraffe.net with a database-stored journal. Next, I decided to learn flash so that I could spiffy up the Alpha Phi Omega website for Tau chapter (I used php to build the calendar/event system throughout the site, as well as flash to make the menu/titlebar). But, when the time came to rebuild my website in the form of prpl.net, I just couldn’t get motivated. I already knew how to use PHP, and I didn’t really want a flash site (though I did tinker around and learn how integrate MySQL data into flash). Alas, my fierce interest had died to complete apathy. The site is now run by wordpress. I did, however, spend a few days improving my Photoshop skills so that I could make the page header. In with the new, can’t be bothered with the old….

So, to answer my first question, several things come to mind as necessary pursuits given the opportunity to do anything. All of them are things I’ve thought about and wanted to do for years, but just haven’t had the chance. 1) Travel. Where? Anywhere, but definitely France, Ireland and Greece. 2) Play the cello. I wanted to do this in 3rd grade, but my parents steered me towards the (less expensive) violin. They know I’m still bitter. 3) Ride a unicycle. I have researched unicycles at least 3 different times in my life w/ the fantasy of buying one and getting good at riding it. Why? Because it would be fun.

I attended my first Michigan football game today, and it made me super nostalgic for Gator football. Yes, Michigan fans have fun and go all out, but their focus is more on tailgating than deafening the opponent’s offense every single play. In Ann Arbor, tailgating starts at 9am sharp, and eventually those individuals sober enough eventually find themsevles at the game in the early afternoon. The attendance numbers, upwards of 110,000, are astounding, but the shallow angle of the Big House means all that noise just sort of gets lost. The field is waaaaay over there, and it’s generally easy to find yourself distanced from the game by the distractions created in the stands. I miss my days of Gator football, where the crowd noise and the game are so in your face you can’t do anything but get just as worked up as the players. Gator football, where all it takes is 1 second of encouragement by one player on the field to suddenly have the entire student section roaring at their loudest, even between plays or during a TV timeout.

However, I’ll take Ann Arbor temperatures, and the Michigan Marching Band, over the Florida alternatives anyday. (No offense, UF band, but UM band kicks your ass.)

I think yesterday takes the cake as one of the worst I’ve ever had. I stayed up all Monday night trying to be ready to present data to my lab group Tuesday (yesterday) morning. The program kept crashing, stats weren’t working out right, etc. Not fun. I managed to get it done, and my presentation didn’t go too badly. I walked back home, looking very much forward to three things – a shower, food, and sleep.

I started the shower to discover….freezing cold water. I decided to wait a bit eat lunch first. I go back 30 minutes later…still only cold water. Getting frustrated now (and wondering if the water heater is busted), I walk into my bedroom and manage to stub the hell out of my right baby toe in the process. Now, this little toe has taken its share of abuse, but I’ve never felt such pain. After howling and cursing and almost crying, I gave up on going straight to bed and ended up, instead, on the couch w/ a bag of ice. I eventually decided that yes, I needed to go to the doctor, seeing as how I couldn’t walk or move my foot in any way w/o being in agony. Not to mention my toe was the size of its neighbor 2 toes down. However, I still hadn’t showered at this point, and I felt absolutely gross. I HAD to take a shower before I went.

Still no hot water. Ice cold shower balancing on one foot. It sucked.

Teeth still chattering, I was lucky enough to find Jin online and able to drive me to the infirmary. I managed to get down the 3 flights of stairs by myself to wait for her, and we got to UHS before they closed.

Some number of forms, nurses, doctors, x-rays, and prescriptions later, I hobbled out on crutches w/ a post-op boot, very much wanting food so I could safely take the tylenol-3 (with codeine) and naproxin in my bag. Yay for Jin sticking around to give me a ride, and Mike coming down so we could go get food at Pizza House.

After I got home, I propped my foot up on the couch w/ a bag of ice, and ended up crashing (no surprise since I’d been up for more than 35hrs). I woke up this morning super stiff.

According to what the doc could see in the xrays, my toe isn’t actually broken. I did, however, manage to partially dislocate the most distal joint. She didn’t seem to think that any ligaments were torn, but time will tell. I have to go back Friday for a followup.

Threadless is an awesome site/store where anyone can submit a t-shirt design idea, and the best are chosen to be printed and sold on the site. The decisions are based on ratings given by visitors to the site, so part of the fun is browsing submissions and putting in your 2 cents. There are some awesome shirts available, but everything is pretty much limited edition. That means if you see something you want, buy it right away. Oh, and keep going back, because new designs are constantly added.

I think “Predicament” (see pic) is one of my favorites, but it’s pretty much all sold out . Maybe they’ll do a reprint….

Neave Lab › Flash Earth is pretty freaking awesome. Here is where I live – the little + will be right over my bedroom. (Thanks for the link, Raf)