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September 22, 2004

a birthday, a new fall, and a lesson about life

For all you Tolkien geeks out there (yes, I include myself in that list), today is the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, the hobbits that started it all. They both took that first step into something larger than themselves, and prevailed. Let's hear it for the hobbits! :)

And today, in just a few minutes really, the autumnal equinox begins. aka the first day of Fall! Which seems amazing to me, since it absolutely can't be the end of summer already, but the weather is changing (evening temps go down in the 50s) so I guess I can accept it. Weird though, to think it's another season. Well, happy Fall everyone :)

My friend Meg sent this out to me, and you'll see it at my LJ too. It's a nice little forward about priorities in life. It's kinda long though, so...

Live life to the fullest and be happy!!!!
__________________
THE MAYONNAISE JAR AND COFFEE

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a


day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar ... and the coffee .


A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front
of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and
empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then
asked the students if the jar was full.. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the
jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas
between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was
full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of
course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar
was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and
poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty
space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, " I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the
important things-God, family, your children, your health, your friends, and

your favorite passions/things that if everything else was lost and only
they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other
things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is
everything else - the small stuff.

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room
for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend
all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for
the things that are important. Pay attention to the things that are
critical to your happiness.. Play with your children. Take time to get
medical checkups. Take your wife/husband/kids out to dinner. Maybe even
play another 18. There's always time to clean the house and fix the
disposal. Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really
matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee
represented.

The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that
no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of
cups of coffee with a friend."

But what if you don't like coffee? lol.

listening to  Rob Dougan: Nothing at All

file under: muses

stupid spam, stupid class

MT-Blacklist -> Adding Spammers Based On Email Address
So this Bob dude likes spamming. Every day it's a different email address and IP number. Blacklist keeps some of them out once you've banned a certain url, but NOW I HAVE THE POWER! Mwahaha. I can block regex email! Ha. Thank you Jay Allen.

Silly Cardinals, losing last night. Hope they win the next two games. Because while they're already in the playoffs it would be a shame to let themselves lose going into it!

Another long day ahead, must search for a serum sample then jump right into an ELISA. Then class. I actually brought my orgo text to work today. During those lovely long-ass incubation periods theoretically I could get the reading done for tonight and possibly even do some homework! Yeah.

Smallville and Lost (with Dominic Monaghan from LotR) as well as the latest entry from CSI (CSI:NY) premiere tonight. How exciting! I need a TiVo.

I'm not really that mad at spam or class...just annoying to have to do so much to make them bearable. Yeah. Later, peeps.

listening to  Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway

file under: rants

September 21, 2004

Cardinals clinch it, and some soap

Think you're registered to vote? Be sure. Please make sure you get out there and make your voice heard. And please let's get Bush out of office. Some stats from moveonpac.org:

We know this election will be incredibly close. The numbers from the 2000 election tell the story:

Official Bush margin in Florida 537 votes
Gore margin in New Mexico 365 votes
Margin of victory in IA, NH, OR and WI Fewer than 8,000 votes in each
Eligible 18-24 year olds who didn't vote 15.2 million
Total eligible voters who didn't vote 56.8 million

Sheesh. Exercise your rights. Vote.

And off the soapbox, the St. Louis Cardinals are now the Central Division champs, so it'll be a little crazy here as we prepare for the playoffs. Yay Cards! I have to make sure I watch none of the games so they WILL win. I'm sure you've heard how if I watch a game or pay any sort of attention to a radio broadcast, the team I'm rooting for loses. So I'll just root from the (far-away) sidelines and cross my fingers that the Cards do great things. Yahoo! Go Redbirds!

I can't believe I have an orgo exam on monday. I'm going to die. I still have all the actual homework problems from chapter 2 and I haven't even started on the ones from ch 3, which I'm not done reading yet. Argh! I hate this class.

But I might learn how to knit on saturday morning. After I go into work, of course. *grumble*

Alright, alright. I'm going home to do homework. And watch Father of the Bride.



file under: politics

September 20, 2004

have a little faith in me

Thanks to this post, I can give you the transcript of the speech Grace gave on Jack and Bobby last night. It started off a little odd, but someone out there became a pretty good writer, because it's rather inspiring as you get on. For those of you who don't know, Jack and Bobby is a new show on the wB about two brothers, one of whom will be president (running independently of a party, go fig) in 2041. It's an interesting premise, and the guys in it are cute, so I watched it...and then I watched the second ep even though there were some weird things I'm not so keen on...I'll reserve final judgement until it gets farther on in the season. Until then...be inspired.

Grace addresses the students and faculty of her university at the Moonlight Address, which she has petitioned the new uni president to reinstate, to which he agrees only if she does the speech instead of him, as it had been done traditionally.

"Good Evening,
I would like to welcome all of you to a renaissance.
For some of you it marks the return to your college life, for some a new beginning.
So on the eve of the tremendous journey upon which you all are embarking, I would like to offer you a thought to take with you.
Okay listen carefully, you..will...fail here, all of you.
College is not the culmination of your high school career, It is a beginning of your adult life.
Only it's a slow sweet beginning.
It feels nothing like what life and all its attending obligations will eventually bring.
So Fail here.
Be bad at things.
Be Embarrassed.
Be Afraid.
Be Vulnerable.
Go out on a limb or 2 or 12, and you will fall and it will hurt.
But the harder you fall the farther you will rise.
The louder you fail the clearer your future becomes.
Failure is a Gift.
Welcome it.
There are people who spend their whole lives wondering how they became the people they became.
How certain chances passed them by, why they didn't take the road less traveled.
Those people are not you.
You have a front row seats to your own transformation, and in transforming yourself, you might even transform the world.
And it will be electric, and I promise you it will be terrifying.
Embrace that, embrace the new person you're becoming.
This is your moment.
I promise you it is now, now not 2 minutes from now, not tomorrow, but really now.
Own that, know that deep in your bones. And go to sleep every night knowing that, wake up every morning remembering that.
And then...
Keep going...
Keep going."


And the title of this entry comes from the song by John Hiatt which played at the end of the ep when they chronicled Bobby's unsuccessful run for the Republican (!) nomination and his subsequent turn to the Independent ticket. It's a good song. Thank goodness iTunes has it. I need an iPod.



file under: muses

September 17, 2004

marathon

Wow. Yesterday was loooong. I was at work for 12 hours. Yuck. It's not entirely my fault, but on the other hand it is. See, I knew I was in for a long assay, but I didn't think it would be quite that long. And the person who was supposed to find the samples for me ended up not being able to do it, so once we established that, I had to go find the samples myself, which took longer than expected (of course). Then I had to wait for them to thaw, dilute them, acidify and neutralize them, and then, right about 1 pm, I was able to get started on the assay, which was 6.5 hours minus time to put in reagents and wash the plate and such. Ugh. All that plus having to go over to the CRC twice because I thought I would try going early just in case they were ready and I could get those bloods spun before I had to start the ELISA but noooo, they hadn't drawn them yet. Just about every other day they would have been ready but I'm just lucky that way. Eventually got them later, but I really hate making that trip. It's not that far away but it's up three flights of steep stairs with orange railings. Not sure that the orange railings really have anything to do with it, it just always makes me feel like I'm in some back alley.

Now, here's the part where it's my fault. Theoretically I could have just stuck the plate in the cold room and come back to do the rest of the assay today...or incubate it for three hours and finish the thing last night. I chose finishing it, since we've never actually tried out the cold room tactic. And Luigi pointed out that if I stayed late yesterday I could leave early today, which I will do, as soon as I make my trip to the CRC for more bloods. I'll be sure to wait an appropriate interval today.

So yeah. A bit boring while I waited and waited and muzzily came back to life when my stopwatch alarmed, telling me it was time for the next step. I played a lot of MSN games and chatted with Alex and should have brought my Orgo homework but didn't (and probably wouldn't have done it anyway). Didn't do any hogwartsch lessons either. I'm terrible. Read some of Fortress Draconis in my free time and made some bookmarks which I need to resize and maybe then I'll put them up on the gallery for your taking. Dunno. Working on it.

There's some sort of athletic field rededication at my high school tonight and they're honoring past athletes, so I guess I'll go. Wonder who will show up. The St. Louis Balloon Glow is tonight, and it follows that the Balloon Race is tomorrow, which is always fun to see. And also tomorrow my next-door neighbor Laura is getting married, which means that I've been to three weddings this year, and Alex points out that this is a lot. I guess so...there's another wedding that I know of next year, but really, we're reaching the sum total of my friends who could possibly get married. Whatever.

ugh. just realized I have to go into work next saturday. ah well. Guess it's time to head over to the CRC. Lovely. Then time to go...must remember to drop off the library book!

listening to  John Mayer: Daughters

file under: working

September 13, 2004

we almost went all the way

Well, I guess we did, in a way. See, the Drumsticks (my softball team) played the end-of-summer-league softball tournament on Saturday (and man, can I feel it...seems like soreness from the very first track meet all over again) and we managed to make it all the way to the finals. We didn't win, in fact we were pretty well out of it (don't know the final score but it was something like 16-9 or such) BUT we did manage to barely beat the team that won the tournament last year and in fact several years before that in the second round. The were on the top of the league, undefeated I think, and since they had a bye the first round we beat them 5-4 in their first game. They took it really hard, which we didn't understand until one of the other teams told us about their winning status. Whee.

We totally surpassed my expectations...I figured we'd at least make it to second round, maayyyybe the semi-finals, but certainly not the finals. Well color me wrong. It was a LOOOOONG day. First game at 10, then one at 12:30, then one at 3 and the final was at 5:30. All this when we normally play at 7 on thursday nights. Needless to say everyone got a little sunburned. I have a rather interesting tan since I wore a tank top and couldn't quite get the back parts of my shoulders. But that's ok. I think it was worth it, even if we didn't really 'win' anything...just the satisfaction of getting as far as we did. And we most certainly have a winning season under our belts. I like to think I helped out with that :) My only big bummer was that I managed to get the very last out of the game. I had a great hit, it just happened to go right to the second baseman who caught it. Ah well.

Dawn from the Cat's Meow (the team we beat) asked if she could play the rest of the games with us because she didn't get to play in the tournament last year and then of course this year, she was only in one game. She didn't get to play much but she was darn good at cheering. Whenever I would come up to bat she'd say "Let's go, Speedy!" The coach of their team was really serious about the game, she got our entire lineup and kept score for both teams. And she would keep track of what player did what last inning, like "He was a 6-1 last time!" (Which I think means he hit to shortstop who threw to first for the out). And when I came up to bat the first time against the Cat's Meow I beat out the throw to first :) So they said, watch out, she's got legs. Unfortunately there weren't too many breaks like that. We had to play hard against them. But haha, we won!

Per the email our coach just sent out, the scores were 12-1, 5-4, 16-10 (us) and 13-6 (the Ballers). Too bad we didn't win, but we went so far past everyone's expectations that you just have to feel good about it. Of course, my *body* doesn't feel good about it, but that's just the way it is. Gotta have a few times a year when you remind yourself how out of shape you are and that you really should get back into something athletic with some sort of regularity. We'll see how it goes now that it's approaching fall and the cold season...So that's the wrapup of the Drumsticks' season. Here's to next year!

And here's something to squee about for the next year or so: 'Lord of the Rings' exhibit will visit the Midwest... in 2005.

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And since at least one of my vote supporters loves me:


Growing Gift

listening to  The Lion King (Broadway Musical): Endless Night

file under: celebration , getmoving

September 11, 2004

Always remember.

I can't believe it's been three years. Man. At this time three years ago no one knew how life would be so different in just a few hours time.

I remember how my mom called me, waking me up about 10 am, frantic to know I was ok. I actually was sleeping in that day, I didn't have a class till 11 or so. I remember just standing in front of the tv with my pjs on, disbelieving. I actually did get ready and go to class (as did most of the other students), but of course we didn't get much done and the professor let us out early. There was a school-wide email sent out, all classes after 12 were cancelled. I went to my first-ever vigil that day. I prayed. God, I prayed. I felt so much grief for the people involved and silently thanked God that I didn't know anyone personally. There are times when I still can't believe it happened. And there are reminders everywhere. You can't say 911 without a moment of memory. And I'm sad I never got to see the Towers in person. RIP Twin Towers and all those lost on that horrible day.

Three years ago I was just starting my senior year of college. I didn't even have a blog.



file under: thoughts

September 10, 2004

grrr. argh.

oh my goodness oh my goodness. I know I'm really behind in this, but I just watched the series finale of Angel and HOW COULD THEY END IT THAT WAY!?!?!?! I mean, it was good and nice to see how some loose ends got tied up, and some characters came back for one last bit, but *lip tremble* WHYYYYY??? sniff. I really liked what they did with it this last season, it was a new direction for the show and of course the wB closed it down. Stupid wB. Someone once pointed out that if I hate what the wB does so much I should boycott them (I think this was after they cancelled Tarzan after only half a season). But they still had Angel and Smallville (which I also finally watched the season finale), and I still really like those types of shows. Sigh. Show what people want to watch, not what makes money. Yeah right. Like that's going to happen. Unfortunately for Smallville's finale I was a little spoiled on things that happened in the end which I wish I hadn't been, but we'll see if that's really the way things turned out.

I miss Buffy and Angel. And Roswell, of course. One of these days I'm actually going to get the first season of Buffy so I can see slayer/vampire romance again, haha. And one of these days I'll get to watch the eps from the fifth/sixth/seventh season that I never did get to watch. And I'll find out what happened in that mondo wierd second/third season of Angel when I totally missed most of the season. One of these days. When I can spare an extra $60 for each set. Yeah. Sorry for the fangirly-ness of the post...just had to get that out. Farewell Angel. We shall miss thee.



file under: rants

September 8, 2004

Way to make a gal feel old

Born Before 1986? Then You Are......OLD! And here's proof.

Gee thanks. Amazing to think that kids born in 1986 are now entering college...they're only six years younger but still. They seem so young! Some of the stuff on the list is really funny but thought-provoking.

Speaking of thought provoking, who wants to visit Milan? 'Da Vinci Code' Readers Flock to Milan's Last Supper. I shouldn't be suprised that the Da Vinci Code is still at the top of the bestseller lists...it's really interesting the things that it brings up. And it in turn makes you hungry for more of the same...hence me actually buying a hardback copy (gasp!) of The Rule of Four because I'm just that interested in it. Waiting for RoF to get better...it's still pretty good but haven't quite made it to the actual mystery plot yet. Soon, my pretty. And since Amazon was so obliging and told me I might like it too: I'll have to see if the library has a copy of Codex. Yay library. *side note: the library does. whoo hoo.*

The stuff after this is just to remind me of places to go.

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American Sewing Guild
Costume Society of America
Costume-Con which St. Louis will be hosting in 2007...

I need more friends into sewing.



file under: miscellany

September 7, 2004

writing. sewing. reading. egad.

Mustn't forget about NaNoWriMo this year. Perhaps I'll just set aside all that tripe I started on the little ficlet last week and wait until november and see if I can pound out 50,000 other words. Yay. Personally I don't think it'll be that hard for me *not* to write for another two months...being that I spent ten HOURS on org homework this past weekend. "What'd you do for Labor Day?" "Orgo homework." Guh. How on earth did those crazy pre-meds do it? When did they *eat*? When did they read? Something other than the textbook, I mean. Course, does it tell you anything that in between all the studying I managed to finish a book I checked out on saturday? Study breaks. That's it.
And I need to get sewing again. I don't want to put boning in *whines* ! Merph. It's going to poke me I just know it. But at least I'll have a bigger bodice. Gotta make a new skirt, yo, with ties. whee. One of these days.
Anime Emoticon Legend. Hah.

listening to  Dido: Take My Hand

file under: thoughts

8 weeks

Can you believe it's exactly two months until the 2004 Presidential election? Please please please don't let Bush be reelected. He just doesn't deserve it. He's done so many bad things to the country. And we need a more balanced voice in our government. I don't think Bush is capable of leading.
Here's what Kerry had to say about the 'misleading' shots leveled against him so far in the campaign...(from an email from http://www.moveonpac.org)

After one of the ugliest and most hate-filled conventions in recent history, John Kerry didn't waste a moment in answering President Bush's speech last night. He was on the air minutes after the President finished, delivering one of his boldest speeches to date to a midnight crowd in Springfield, OH.

"Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty," he said. "Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions of government contracts to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit. That's the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney. And it's not going to change. I believe it's time to move America in a new direction; I believe it's time to set a new course for America."

Doesn't that sound like a breath of fresh air?

On the other side of life, orgo sucks. Major wind. I don't know how any of those crazy med school students got through it while taking other classes. Over the course of the weekend I spent abotu ten hours doing homework, which may not sound like a lot, but that's how long it took me to get through one chapter...and I don't understand it that well. I can only hope that the teacher goes through some more stuff at the end. The sad thing is that most of this is review...I had it all before, oh, six years ago. Ah well. I honestly can't find any way to be optimistic about it. The book is pretty, I guess...but that's the only redeeming quality. Anyone know how to rank compounds in order of acidity? Yuck.



file under: education , politics

September 3, 2004

Abysmal, I tell you

Must remember to put a category tag somewhere so y'all can see how this also belongs under "rants" like the previous entry does.

So I had to do half an elisa today. First we had to wait for the antibody to come in, since the one provided in the kit had leaked and there wasn't even enough for half the plate. Then I had to wait until someone came back so he could give me the last two samples that I needed to run. So I didn't get started until around noon, which usually doesn't matter since the kit only takes about three hours to run. Mostly the actual running went fine, though I nearly forgot to save the extra solution for the time when we run the rest of the plate and I made up all the freaking washing buffer but it's alright cause it stores for a month. But then we get to the end and someone comes in from another lab and asks to use the plate reader. I say sure cause it doesn't matter, as long as I can use it in about 10 minutes I'll be fine. But I guess it messed me up, cause when those 10 (really 7 but who's counting?) minutes were up, I totally forgot to do the last step of the protocol and went straight to the plate reader. I've been doing elisas for the last week and a half straight, not to mention the other fifty or so that I've done in the past, and I've never done that before. So I get to the reader, read the plate, and wonder why the hell the answers are so wrong. So I realize the plate is blue and not yellow like it should be and therein lies the 'oh shit' moment.
I don't really know if the extra few minutes the plate had without the last step really affected it, or the results were just going to be bad anyway because of something else I did. Regardless, it didn't look any better once I went back and did that last step, in fact it almost looked worse. It was the second time running a few of these samples and most of them have been thawed until kingdom come already, so I'm sure they're losing somewhat of their usefulness. But still. The standard curve was all shot to hell before I messed it up, I think. So in this case it's good that we still have half a plate. We would have used it for something else because elisa kits aren't cheap, but we'll just have to get another one, which hurts. Some of them run upwards of $500. Argh. Thank goodness it doesn't come out of my paycheck. And Luigi was really sporting about it. Thanks to the italian. I feel awful that he can't get his results because I screwed up.
This is sort of going to ruin my weekend because now I'll ruminate on it all the weekend and wonder what I did wrong and pray to God that I get it right on Tuesday (thank GOD there's a paid holiday on monday!) because I don't think he'll be so sporting a third time. It doesn't feel like the weekend anymore.

But Part Seventeen of the Shoebox Project makes it all worth it. And I need to remember to head to the library tomorrow so I can pick up the next Elizabeth Haydon book, Elegy for a Lost Star.

listening to  Our Lady Peace: Innocent

file under: rants

huh. a student again

Well, Wednesday was my first day back in school. Organic Chemistry. I am insane. It went well enough I suppose...we just did review of general chemistry stuff like Lewis structures and resonance, major and minor species, etc etc, which is good since I haven't had any chemistry in, oh, five years. Why do I want to go to med school? Haven't the foggiest.
So the teacher looks at the roster and says, "I see a fair number of you are full-time students in the day school. So I don't know why you're taking the night-school version. Hopefully not because you thought it would be easier. I don't think it is." Bah. I'm going to die. Well, perhaps not die, but failing spectacularly isn't out of the picture yet. Especially since we won't actually have to turn in homework...it's just problem sets out of the book, and we have a solutions manual--

and how could I forget! The textbook and solutions manual (which are sold separately, of course) for this ONE class cost $200 (nearly exactly). I didn't even buy the molecular modelling kit (also sold separately). Thank goodness I get a staff discount, but still. $200. Why?!?!?!? How can the books possibly be worth that much? Ugh. One class. At least I don't have to pay the $1000-odd tuition. Stupid classes costing money. And damn the fact that the teacher neglected to let anyone at the bookstore know that we'll use the same books as the day-school class, so they didn't set aside any used books for us. Not that it would have helped all that much, but still. Ugh.

--so most of the time I'll probably start doing a problem, get confused, look it up in the solutions manual, and promptly lose any good that actually working the problem would do me. Frick. Bloody Hell. Anyone out there wanna give me tips? Please do. Mom wants me to get an A in the class. The teacher informed us that her average is about a C+. Great. She grades on a curve but I can just guess where I'll be on that bell...right smack dab in the middle. Stupid orgo. Why is it a requirement for med school? No one I've talked to says they use it. Shoot, I've been working for two years and haven't used nearly any chemistry that isn't basic math anyway. Ugh. Maybe I can draw some solace from drawing. Line angle structures, that is. Er. Probably not then.

Sorry about that rant. I could also tell you how my laptop monitor is flickering and that I really need a new one (esp so we can get dsl at the apartment) but that I still have to pay my cousin for the sewing machine and I'm trying to save something, anything...I can't believe with the job that I still have about the same amount in the bank as I did last year. Wanna give me a raise? Shoot. Someone out there who's actually making money with web design, please tell me how you do it and let me in on the secret. And maybe someday I'll finish the latest ficlet I started, about King Arthur reincarnated. An unoriginal idea if there ever was one, but hey, at least I'm writing. Let's see how long it takes to get to six chapters for that. Six or seven seems to be the magic number of chapters that I get stuck on. Both Moonstone and Decadence are hovering right around there (though of course Moonstone's chapters are quite a bit longer than Decadence) and back when I was writing (Human) Development I got through the first seven chapters pretty easily and they got up on CD, and then there was the lull while I figured out what the heck happened on Antar. At least it got finished. One of these days I'm gonna make a Roswell skin and a Moonstone skin and a Decadence skin so I can use the fictionary page as the actual story site. Someday.

Tired of the ranting and rambling yet? You're not? Too bad. That's all I got.

listening to  We Are, Ana (Spider-man 2 soundtrack)

file under: education , rants