Seriously?

Moving day was set for this Saturday. My stuff is in boxes. I was supposed to get the key and sign the official lease last night. But instead, I got a call about 2 hours before I was supposed to meet the landlord saying his wife (who takes care of this part of things) was at a meeting late and couldn't make it, she'll call tomorrow (Wednesday) and set something up with you. I said sure, no problem, I'll be around. Get a call from her this morning at about 10:30 saying that they are unable to rent me the room that I've been waiting for for the past MONTH because of some "new" law in Worcester about a landlord not renting a property to more than 3 unrelated individuals. The house has 4 rooms. 3 upstairs in the main house and the basement "apartment" (without a proper kitchen) that I was going to rent. Everything was set. Until 2 DAYS BEFORE I MOVE!!! Son of a gun...

I'm a pretty logical person. In about 10 minutes, I gave them two other very reasonable options that they could do... ie: raise the rent and then rent only 2/3 of the three bedrooms and call the 3rd an "office". Or, rent me the downstairs apartment and someone else the whole upstairs. Sounds simple right?

Well, after that, she had the audacity to suggest another apartment to me that they had on another property. It was nice, but a studio and not as close as I wanted it to be (at least for the hassle of moving etc. It didn't feel right, so I turned them down. She ended with saying that they are going to try to work something out... but it will take some time. No matter what, they are screwing me... intentional or not, doesn't matter. It feels the same to me.

Needless to say, I ended up in tears... following with one heck of a headache... followed by delirium and now just fatigue. I'm very upset, as I'm sure you can imagine. I only hope that this will not be a problem for me to stay in my current location for a bit longer. Aaarggg....

The Progression of a Bruise/Bite

Is it weird that I am posting updated pictures of this nasty dog bite I got? The bite part isn't even that bad... but the bruise is gross. Honestly, I've never had a bruise so bad before... I'm a bit fascinated by it. My roommate was disgusted that I was wearing shorts around the house this evening packing for my move on Friday... I think I forgot to tell her what happened and she was just worried about it. Sweet...

Dog Bite Update

Here's the update on the bite. It's still sore although it doesn't sting anymore. The bumps that were at the center of the bruises have gone down. The bruises were the worst on Saturday night/early Sunday and are now beginning to fade. No infection! I washed the wounds well with soap and kept triple-antibiotic ointment on them (the dog has had all his shots). Emotional damage is fading already... :)

Boston Night #2

Saturday Night I spent out in Boston again. I have a new friend, Farahana, who came to UMass to learn some confocal microscopy all the way from Cambridge England. She's been here about a month and in her last week here, she decided to spend it hanging around Boston and seeing the sights. So, on Saturday night, I drove into town and we went out to dinner in the North End, when then went to a club the Purple Shamrock in Fanueil Hall for some drinks and dancing. We were having loads of fun and the DJ at Purple Shamrock was really great. One of Farahana's friends who is a 1st year med-student at Harvard came and she had a birthday party for a guy Walter that she had to go to, so we crashed. We ended up in a dive bar out in Cambridge with a bunch of insanely nerdy Harvard med students (complete with NO social skills) and danced it up. The place was small and people were literally jam-packed on the dance floor... ah memories. I stayed at the hotel that Farahana and her friend Jee were staying in at the Hilton in Back Bay. I brought my sleeping bag and a foam pad to sleep on and we all crashed. We woke up at noon (no joke) and ended up at a 2:15pm brunch at Stephanie's on Newbury Street. It was such a lovely time.

I've now been invited to tour Italy with these girls, visit a summer home in Austria and crash in Cambridge (England) or London any time... I may take them up on that. :)

Boston- Night #1

Friday night should have started in the afternoon... but somebody didn't get out of work in time (uh- that would be me), then hit traffic and then only made it to the sailing pavillion 15 minutes before it closed. Boo. OK, so, I had way too much energy to go straight out, I needed to move around. So jumper-man and I took his dog Logan for a walk (who apparently doesn't play catch or even have a tennis ball. Boo. But the walk was nice and it got me moving around, which I totally needed. We then went to the North End in Boston and ate at a nice little restaurant called Mother Anna's... sooo good. I forgot my leftovers in his truck, but he sent a text to say 'thanks for the lunch' so at least it didn't go to waste. It was a nice night, so then we walked around Fanueil Hall part of town and went to a bar (somewhere between Purple Shamrock and Bell in Hand, but I don't remember the name of the actual bar we went to). There was live music and I honestly didn't know it could be so fun to go to a bar with just one other person and have a drink and do a little bit of dancing like it was our own private party. I've never done that before and it was loads of fun.

Got back to his place. Dog actually listened to me when I told him to 'sit'. Let the dog out, tried to get the dog back in. Dog didn't like that and bit my leg. It hurt and I was very startled (but I didn't cry)... now I'm a little intimidated by said dog. True story. Here's the proof:

This is even before it started bruising really badly!! It still hurts, but I'll live. No long-term damage... or rabies.

The end.

Don't Be Boring

From an article that I read this morning... thought it was great...

Don't be BORING.

Boring is the bastard child of Predictable.

When you are SO predictable that NOTHING is new
or different, then you are officially BORING.

Boring is also the lack of adventure, passion,
energy, humor, and attraction.

Unfortunately, most men are REALLY, REALLY,
REALLLLLLLLLLLLY boring.

I mean like shoot-yourself boring.

Like, if there was a "Boring Score" that took
into account everything from food to clothing to
interests to conversation, most men would score a
99.75 on a 100 scale.

It's a bad situation.

I used to be pretty damn boring myself, so
boring, in fact, that I could probably be
certified as an expert on the topic.

So take it from me, BORING is BAD.

I don't care WHAT you have to do to stop being
boring, but do it.

A few quick ideas:

Take up an interesting hobby. Think wine
collecting, not comic book collecting. Mountain biking,
not chemistry. Fashion, not X-Box.

You feel me?

Dinner in Boston

So, on Thursday night, I went out to dinner in Boston with a guy that I've recently started to date. We get to the place that we're going to eat at and sit down. I ordered steak tips and he ordered steak fajitas. It turns out that my plate had more meat and a giant baked potato. The waitress brings the food and immediately puts the steak tips in front of Dave. He looks at her and says, 'uh, no. That's her's.' We both look at my plate and think, wow- that's a lot of meat, and we laugh. He's becoming acquainted, very quickly, with my carnivore tendencies.

From My Front Porch

I'm getting dinner together right now. But I was drawn to open my front door because a pink glow was coming through the windows. I stepped outside into perfect 68 degree air. The moment I looked up, I saw a once-blue sky tinted pink with wispy clouds. A group of ducks flying in their perfect V formation headed south. The trees in the forested area across from the house turning red and orange surrounded by green. Perfect Peacefulness. This moment encompasses the greatness found in the region of New England. I only wish I had had my camera handy.

14 Septemner 2009

I don't know what to call this, so there it is. Today is Monday. I really don't like Monday's... especially today. I tried to go count colonies in the BSL3 lab only to find out that it is shut down until 11 am today. Apparently there were 2 e-mails sent out about this, but it seems that this didn't register in my cute little head so now I'm frustrated because I didn't pay attention. Ridiculous? Yes. But at least I'm not blaming someone else for what is clearly my own fault.

I'm also giving lab meeting tomorrow and haven't begun putting my presentation together. To be honest, I've been really busy with some other things so I haven't really been thinking much about work at all this past week. You see, in January I had a 2nd car go up in smoke (on the highway in the middle of a snowstorm) so I bought a new one thinking I would drive it for a good 15 years. But now it seems that it's quite possible that I will be going abroad for a bit of time and so instead of making a car payment, I'm saving up. Sold that car and am now looking for another "junker" to last me until I graduate. The reason I did very little for work all week was because I've been busy looking at and test driving vehicles. I think I found one. 1997 Honda Accord 75,000 miles. Manual transmission. One owner. In great shape if they fix the knob that turns on the heater.

As you can see, I'm really working hard on my lab meeting. Problem #1: I'm sooo not motivated it's insane. I want to sleep and cry and go surfing all at once. I don't care about work or my colonies or my project. I sorta just want to be done and leave. I'm tired of people and drama and more drama. Problem #2: I have so much to do over the course of the next month it is INSANE... and because I have SO much to do, I'm a bit paralyzed by it all. I just have to remember... one thing at a time.

I did do one fun thing over the weekend. On Friday I went sailing with a guy that I met recently. We had a good time. I almost capsized the boat because I cannot multi-task. I was trying to have a conversation and sail the boat at the same time... "try" is the key word. He made fun of me for that. He's a guy and even he could do both things at once. Well, what can I say... I'm a piece of work. But by the end of it, I was getting the hang of it. I really like to test the capabilities of equipment that I use. In order to do that, I had to see how far I could push the boat before it would flip. :-) (Although preferably without actually flipping it.) We decided that we need a bigger sail next time so we could go faster. Good times...

SkyDiving

On Friday night, my roommate Elaina and I decided that we were going to go skydiving. Originally the plan was for Saturday, but plans had been forgotten and we decided to go on Monday instead. As luck would have it, our other roommate Lynn could join us as well. So, around 12:45, we loaded up the car and went for a 50-minute ride up to Pepperell, MA to the SkyJump airport. There was a lot of waiting… it was a bunch of hippies running the place. We were told to expect to be there about 2 hours. That was a lie. We were sitting around waiting for about 2.5 hours and then we finally got to suit up in some really sexy Dickies coveralls.


We were paired up with a tandem instructor that we were attached to throughout the jump. I was paired up with a guy named Dave. He helped me put on my harness and showed me what to do as soon as we got out of the airplane and how to land properly without getting hurt.



I think that I was the only one who wasn’t nervous out of the three of us. I was stoked (as you can see by the goofy grin on my face)! I will admit that there was a moment of “oh crap, I can’t believe I’m doing this… too late to turn back now!!” as we stood at the door of the plane about to jump. No lie. BUT, as soon as we started falling, there was no time to think about it.


There was a little glitch with our parachute, which kept us from jumping at 10,000 feet, and there was a crowd, so we had to wait until 13,000 feet. This translates into about a full minute of free fall instead of 40 seconds. Dave mentioned that the free-fall felt like forever… and it did feel long. We did some 360’s to get a really good view, although the clouds got in the way of the Boston skyline.

At 5,000 feet, Dave gave me the signal and I pulled the chute (but his hand was there to pull it in case I didn’t make it). At that point, I experienced the most peaceful feeling in the world. It was unbelievable. Seriously. I even got to control the parachute for a bit while we were up in the sky (but I was much more comfortable letting him control this instead of me).


We landed and then it was over. But I am SOO glad I did it. So glad! I hope to do it again sometime!

Fall Breeze

As I sit on the couch drinking my coffee this morning, I opened the windows to let what I thought would be a summer breeze, flow through my house. Not so much. But this is good. It's like the weather knows it's Labor Day weekend and it should transition slowly into fall. This breeze is cool and crisp. It makes my heart scream, "lets go outside!" I love to be outside. I love New England fall. It is absolutely the most pristine weather you will ever encounter. I will admit, it is a season for being with someone you love. It's romantic and cozy. But, I try to do my best solo.

Scandalous

Today I was unbelievably giddy as I looked at the clock at 3:30 and realized that I could go home soon. It felt so... scandalous. Today was the first day this week I left the lab before 10 PM. You can imagine how incredibly happy I was when I left at 5. Ha Ha... can you believe it?!? 5 PM!!!

It's like my soul was screaming wildly happy thoughts... like I was 6 years old with ice cream and a slip-n-slide. I had the most ridiculous grin on my face... the way an outlaw might smile when he knows he's about to get away with robbing a bank. When I realized my work was done, I beat it. Got outta the lab so smoothly you would have never known I was there.

So, you know what I did? I laughed all the way to the YMCA, I hit the pool, I made an amazing Jalfrezi stir-fry, baked a cake and painted my toenails pink. Yup. And now I'm telling you about it. And I've still got that crazy grin on my face.