OceanEdgeBlue

75 cents

2012-01-25T10:31:00.002-04:00

(The spell has broken, I am productive once again. I think perhaps it just takes two weeks to recover from the West Coast mentality. Haha)

MORE FIERCE

2012-01-16T14:05:00.001-04:00

FIERCE

2012-01-16T13:35:00.002-04:00

On my day-long paperwork slog, I've taken a short lunch break to peruse the Golden Globes coverage. May I just say one thing?

I have stylish-alien envy, because Tilda Swinton makes me feel totally inadequate at everything.

jubilance

2012-01-15T11:17:00.001-04:00

is a singing redhead with dimples

Bonne Fete

2012-01-15T01:08:00.003-04:00

Sent my 28th birthday looking for lighting options for the house, eating a boat of sushi (plus some more!) and hanging out with friends. Listened to this and drank a winter warmer at the local watering hole.

Good day for an eighties baby.

( I owned and loved one of these puppets when I was a kid. It's actually over two feet long.)

West Coast life

2012-01-10T00:10:00.003-04:00

I am in San Francisco, and I am feeling better. I hiked up this mountain today, had sushi for dinner and might go see an "old Asian guy" sing country and western. Tomorrow I'm going to go shopping and then to a music show in Berkeley. Two more days :)

update: travel with a head cold

2012-01-05T22:08:00.004-04:00

Got whacked with a cold yesterday afternoon, flew with dripping red stuffy nose and pounding sinus. Watched Contagion on the plane. Couldn't drink any free booze (well...I had a clamato) or taste the first class meal.

My mission tomorrow morning (upon waking up from the Nyquil haze I am about to induce) is to find soft kleenex. I'm missing the talks tonight and a bonfire by the beach because of the illness...I'm not impressed.

yes please

2012-01-04T13:32:00.001-04:00

California Thursday to Thursday. The wind was especially biting this morning, brr. Oh and I'm flying first class, by a strange pricing fluke on Air Canada. Maple Leaf Lounge here I come :)

retro-spective

2011-12-31T10:25:00.003-04:00

In 2011 Gotye released Making Mirrors, and some of it harkened back to the songs that were on the radio when I was a kid. I like it.

Old school Phil Collins.

Old school Peter Gabriel.

vacation kitchen board

2011-12-30T10:31:00.002-04:00

Contending with an assertion by my husband (while standing in the Home Depot aisle) that we lacked direction in our current renovation, I spent some hours yesterday gathering pictures related to my ideal kitchen finishes. Highlights include slate grey concrete counters with embedded sprokets, medium finish cabinet doors with gothic style mullions and a light finish plank floor. Back to real work on Monday.

Happy New Year

2011-12-28T09:16:00.003-04:00

I hope 2012 is full of awesome shots and tiny little fist pumps :)

MashedMush

2011-12-22T22:43:00.003-04:00

I wonder if those people who create beautiful mash-ups using three or more songs have brains that work like this ragtime piano player interviewed by RadioLab.

Christmas Cheer

2011-12-22T21:13:00.002-04:00

So what happens when you live in a tiny town, and you think of the perfect gift for your father-in-law but nobody within an hour's drive carries said item?

Why, you call up a friend from Grad School Days, who happens to be driving many hours from the city where I did my last degree to his village of birth (conveniently stopping in my current tiny town right off the highway) to exchange the gift he bought at a specialty store on my behalf.

Then I hand off the cup cakes I baked him as a thank-you, and send him off on his merry way.

I recently found a video I made of my old lab on my hard-drive while looking for something cool to post to my Google+ account (which failed, ps). The quality is absolute shite, otherwise I might post snippets of it. And last week I schlepped an entire box of thesis drafts and annotation rough notes from my attic to my lab....thinking it might be more useful there? I just can't get rid of it yet.

Oh Land choose your own adventure

2011-12-20T13:28:00.003-04:00

As a blonde with strings

As a brunette with beats

such conspicuous self improvement

2011-12-19T09:11:00.003-04:00

December usually prompts me to do the rounds for eyes/teeth/body check-ups that I've otherwise been ignoring all year long. I suppose this is lay-over behaviour from when I had a student insurance plan that allotted a certain number of dollars for each calendar year.

New eye exam, new set of contact lenses, teeth whitening regime and regular flossing. The gym is more-or-less a regular occurrence. Indeed the shower-only-at-the-gym trick is working, although I am feeling more grubby than I normally do in general because of it. Although my clothing is no looser fitting than normal, they aren't tighter than normal either...admittedly a feat during the holiday party season. The students are all gone, so I can go anytime of day to the campus fitness centre without sharing.

I contacted a local instructor for Aikido martial arts, since I might be getting even klutzier with age, and feel an eight week program might improve my body awareness. This past Saturday was a dress-and-dance party at a friends place, and at the end of evening I was speaking with someone so animatedly I hit his tumbler of red wine out of his hands (my husband explaining the next day "you're so French"). It went careening across the room, crashed to the floor and splattered red wine in a TEN FOOT radius in all directions. Floor, ceiling, next room over...the host kept saying over and over "I've never seen a spilled drink cover so much area". Of course the entire party stopped to observe the red wine massacre and laugh at yours truly for a few minutes as I was scrubbing frantically at the plaster walls in my party wear. It's lucky no one lost a limb.

2011-12-14T12:40:00.001-04:00

Reproductive Health Day

2011-12-13T17:09:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I bounced from clinic to hospital for a few hours, being manhandled in the name of reproductive health. Since I have to travel for such appointments, I try to bundle them on the same days. Convenient but also tiring. A had a follow-up MRI done and noticed this painting in the waiting room:

A close-up:

Somebody tell me why anyone in their right mind would put a macabre image of a ghost grey "after shot" rose with a blood red stem in the waiting room of an MRI? Oh thanks hospital peeps for making me ponder my mortality. Gold star to you.

Saturday Morning Tunes

2011-12-10T10:56:00.006-04:00

I woke up with this song in my head

Also listened to Q with Jian this past week, which featured both Bon Iver and The National. Check it out.

[I DIDN'T KNOW BON IVER WAS DATING KATHLEEN EDWARDS, HOLY CRAP AWESOME]

Tendrils of culture and science

2011-12-09T12:13:00.012-04:00

Ever since reading the book Sex at Dawn, I've been finding tendrils of it's tenets in several unexpected places. I think it's a good indicator of successful scientific writing when a reader easily amalgamates the information, links it to other peripherally related topics and then ponders those disparate topics more thoroughly. The book describes evolution of sex in humans, but the broader narrative is really how hunter-gatherer societies likely differed from our own and the scientific evidence supporting it. Unlike the terribly boring "Guns, Germs and Steel" (which I bought but couldn't even finish! As an interested scientist! I even tried twice!) that deals with many of the same topics (namely how our society changed when we adopted a settled agricultural lifestyle over a hunter-gatherer one), Sex at Dawn uses cheeky prose to address some of our culture's most rigid ideologies - patriarchy, monogamy, human brutishness.

So back to the opening sentence of this post, what tendrils am I speaking about?

The first was this video on human child rearing that I came across on some random comment board somewhere on the internet. I don't agree with everything (or perhaps, even most) of what Gabor Mate says, but he is nonetheless quite compelling. In the embedded video he mentions the old way of child rearing (the whole village) and contrasts that to the nuclear-family-in-a-suburb method we are using now (...guess what he thinks of each):

The second, nebulous instance of "tendrils" was in relation to this advice column on Salon about dealing with patriarchy. It basically admitted that one needs to remove oneself from society in order to get away from patriarchy. I'm a feminist, I meet with a group of female friends at least once a week to talk about women's issues/sex/books/etc and I'm still forming my opinion. It was the way that Sex at Dawn connected the (inevitable?) development of patriarchy with hereditary land ownership that struck a particular chord with me. These are things I think about now as a whole, and sheds a different light on many of the articles, online blog posts and other content I read on a daily basis.

Finally, last week we listened to about 8 hours of RadioLab science podcast while working on the house. The topic was "patient zero" & disease in humans. The case study was HIV, and how it spread from monkeys to chimps to humans, which was amazing in it's own right but it was the visceral description of hunting chimps that really brought me back to Sex at Dawn. Chimps are brutal hunters - they apparently eat their prey alive, searching for the tastiest organs to devour first while the victim screams, getting covered in blood during the whole process (and thereby aiding the spread of monkey-to-chimp SIV). SO. Sex at Dawn goes into compelling detail about how our OWN view of human nature may have been swayed by the early discovery of our closest relatives the chimpanzees (with all their nasty violent tendencies) and the comparatively late discovery of our equally related (but oft ignored) primate relatives the bonobos. Bonobos are peaceful little hippies compared to chimps, and it boggles my mind that how we view the inevitabilility of human brutishness might just correspond to what we thought (for a long time) was the inevitability of primate brutishness. Such fleeting, stochastic factors might have lead to justification for some pretty abhorrent human behaviour. Fascinating, hun?

I heart you

2011-12-07T21:58:00.001-04:00

CBC Radio 3 R3-30 line-up is particularly fantastic this week.

December Sixth

2011-12-06T12:07:00.003-04:00

One crazed man acting out our worst fears, our worst fears starkly illuminated on one horrible day.

Clarity

2011-12-02T12:52:00.004-04:00

I went to the gym this morning. When I get bored on the elliptical I start dancing (true story). I'll probably end up warping my knees from the wiggling motion, but whatevs. I'm still young. Then I went to the shower room and felt like an IDIOT when I couldn't figure out the nuances of the motion detector shower head.

Update: Then a I ate onion rings for lunch. /Groan

Update 2: I'm not showering at home therefore the ONLY WAY to get ungreasy is to get to the gym. Let's see how long this method lasts.

My name is Natalie and I have a problem with shoes

2011-11-30T12:46:00.004-04:00

Holiday season has just been an excuse for me to buy MYSELF pretty things. This has mostly revolved around shoes, although clothing and jewelry have also contributed. In the last two weeks I've purchased over $200 worth of shoes from online Canadian shops that offer free shipping both ways (due to Cyber Monday sales, etc..)

Most of 8 pairs didn't fit, or were cancelled from the order due to stock issues. The truth is I don't need any of them, yet I'm still having a hard time parting with:

Driven by Naturalizer in wine, with comfort 5 to stand all day at a conference. Goes with black and brown, only need to pack one set of heels.

Nuesca by Transit shoes in brown (to replace the ones my dog ate that looked just like these but only cost my husband $20 one particularly lucky Boxing Day. I could stand all day on concrete in them and still walk to the bar after a conference day....sigh)

Perlstein sandal (to replace the strappy jesus sandals my dog ate that only cost $8 at a discount store that I loved...stupid mutt)

A gem

2011-11-27T13:36:00.003-04:00

New album, little but lovely. Appropriately titled "slower, lower". Listened to it by the fire this weekend.

A fluff piece on faces

2011-11-22T13:36:00.005-04:00

As a teenager I hated my nose - I thought it was huge. Nothing like the little upturned whisps of noses seen in most magazines.

Truth is, I have big loud features - if I ever shrunk my schnoze I'd just end up with a weird face. Here are four ladies I think likely looked nicer before the too-skinny nose:

Kat von D - really pretty circa 2004, I swear:

Elizabeth Olsen, sister to the famed twins:

Jessica Biel, approaching Micheal Jackson territory:

AJ -still a face for the ages, but it would have been the case pre-nose job too:

Freaks me out every time I see them on the gossip blogs.

curses

2011-11-21T11:59:00.001-04:00

Saturday adventures

2011-11-20T10:06:00.005-04:00

Adventuring friends and I explored these places;

Abandoned warehouse with fancy photographer (note the fancy digital SLR)

Abandoned warf at sunset

Abandoned house with hastily edited out civic address post

Abandoned house full of stuff and wild animals

I picked cranberries, ate delicious sheperds pie & squash soup, and learned how to play Auction 45s. After driving a friend home, doggie and I went directly to a Blues concert in town where she stayed in the car to sleep and I enjoyed the music and beer. I left around midnight but the evening was so mild that I walked the dog around the neighbourhood in a light sweater before we headed off to home.

Made a fire and passed out.

HumpDay procrastination

2011-11-16T16:15:00.006-04:00

I've been very grumpy the last few days, shit is just not going according to plan and people are stupid.

Anyway, here's a distraction: I finished it in 17 attempts.

Update: I actually wore yoga pants and a t-shirt to work on Thursday, that's how crappy I was feeling. Today I got lippy with the facilities management people who might actually maybe possibly fix the fucking floor in my lab that is literally coming apart underfoot. Tonight I'm by myself, shopping online to keep my brain occupied, while husband is out all weekend adventuring with pals. Wreckage, generally. With a MSTRKRFT soundtrack:

Monday Confession

2011-11-14T17:33:00.005-04:00

Sometimes, when I have to call a supplier for an e-mail copy of the latest invoice to reconcile my university purchasing card, I throw the person's name (+ company) into facebook to see what the person on the other line looks like.

Creeper factor: 11

Anglophone Edition

2011-11-13T03:30:00.007-04:00

Travel plans at 3 AM - why is it ALWAYS the same?!?! I fall down these orbitz-rabbit-holes and can't get out.

But it feels like I've won the lottery this time: my initial budget for airfare was just shy of 1000 (or, 500 each way). Due to late night/early morning sleuthing, I got the return leg for 340, leaving 630 for the FIRST CLASS TRIP ON THE WAY THERE. I've hit the jackpot. And it looks like an Air Canada pre-fab meal with booze. Yess...

Pretend you're a rockstar/don't mind if I do.

Wait now

2011-11-10T13:28:00.005-04:00

If NABS changes it's name to SFS, how am I supposed to easily find last year's conference program?

(Can you tell one of my tasks this week is to find relevant conferences that I might be attending as a company representative in 2012? I love my job.)

Update: Can't get from YQM to BOS without at least one stop in middle Canada on a Sunday. Thus a 2 hour flight bloats to 7 hours - gah!

The Brightest Scientific Minds

2011-11-08T16:17:00.007-04:00

...write in Comic Sans:

Praytell, how could you possibly make this email opening MORE annoying?

2011-11-08T13:28:00.003-04:00

To: University Community

From: Lala Mistypants, Chair, Committee on Committees

Subject: Committee on Committees, General Call for Input

The Committee on Committees is beginning a review of the terms and conditions of all standing committees of Senate. The last comprehensive review was done in 2002. We have asked all committee chairs to solicit input from their respective committee members on the particular terms and conditions and operations of their committee. We are also soliciting input on more general issues from the wider community of faculty, librarians, administrators, and students...

.........*headdesk*

Friday Night Chillin'

2011-11-04T20:12:00.001-03:00

2011-11-04T13:54:00.000-03:00

Yawn

2011-11-03T13:07:00.003-03:00

I guess it's been pretty boring around here. I'll include some actual pictures in this post to cover that fact up.

National Chemistry Week = free chemical cupcakes. Most of the Halogens were gone by the time I wandered into the lounge, so I couldn't pick my favorite.

This is the costume-making workshop (with Mr.Tumnus in the background). My dog thought the faux fur was her long-lost mommy, so she curled up with it whenever we weren't actively cutting it up. We had some left over, so it went in her crate.

Harvesting some of our raspberries we transplanted in June:

And finally, a feel good note that I found in the Student Union Centre. I live in a place where this actually happens (I've deleted identifying information):

Good Intent

2011-10-31T20:50:00.002-03:00

Hmm...I wonder if I can pull off a short black bob? This lady makes me want one real bad.

Movember is Coming

2011-10-31T15:42:00.002-03:00

Hubby is clean shaven and I don't like it. His funny facial hair definitely contributed to his Halloween costume though.

Ten very good reasons why you should grow a giant beard.

Dreadful Lovely

2011-10-31T10:09:00.008-03:00

Halloween night!

Since we don't expect any children in our neck of the woods, I've removed most of the spooky decorations that littered the house during Friday night's party. Despite being far away from town, we had a good number of people show up - dancing, drinking and arguing by the bonfire ensued. We bought tons of liquor, and I was serving up yummy pumpkin-inspired drinks all night. I danced in high heels until 4 AM, and finally had to corral the last stragglers to bed at 5:30 AM. I think the crowing rooster was what finally convinced them to leave the fire. I suppose one of the by-products of being "rurally located" is that people ended up crashing at the house, so we woke up with about 12 people littering the floors. I was up (as always) after a short three-hour sleep, cooking our fresh eggs and potatoes on the woodstove for everyone to enjoy upon waking up. Super lovely.

It was a beautiful day on Saturday, so while some left for home, others stayed behind to kayak on the bay* or help with our chores. I wish I had some pictures to share of the AMAZING progress on the barn demo, but I've misplaced my dead iPhone (it was used as an mp3 player on Friday night) so no pictures today. We stacked tons of wood too, simultaneously clearing out the workshop that was housing the chopped up tree trunks from last fall.

Then Sunday we had blizzard-like weather. Mostly rain, but some fat wet snowflakes too. Perfect weather for sleeping in, puttering around the house, having a long bath (washing my dreaded hair...leftover from the costume getup on Friday), getting groceries and playing games with friends by the fire. So that's what we did :)

*The kayakers ran into Christine Fellows, who apparently gushed about the area and insisted she wanted to buy a cottage up the street. Hee.

Another One

2011-10-27T15:49:00.002-03:00

The new profs girlfriend is here from Toronto doing work in my old lab space, and GUESS WHAT? She has super elfin features and a cute, woods-y style. Gelfing!

Offshoot

2011-10-26T13:38:00.003-03:00

Hilarious consequence of multiple degrees and chem courses: when your mother tells you she has a chemical sensitivity to PPD, you can draw her the chemical structure.

He Dances to Bring her Back

2011-10-26T10:31:00.002-03:00

Hubby says I'm not a sap, but this video is still cute a decade later:

Higher Purpose

2011-10-24T14:38:00.001-03:00

Does that make me, like, an angel is this scenario?

Coast to Coast

2011-10-24T12:54:00.004-03:00

The trumpet is such a great addition, I love it.

More Statistics

2011-10-20T08:45:00.004-03:00

As I sit here staring at 19 furiously writing undergrads, I can't help but take note:

5 are boys, 14 are girls.
4 are lefties.
Everyone is wearing a hoodie (7), a t-shirt (5), a long sleeved knit shirt (6) or a tank top (1). Nobody has a shirt with a collar.
12 are wearing running shoes, 2 rubber boots, 2 ugg-style boots, 2 people with slip-on shoes and one pair of sandals (!).
Of the girls there is one braided hair, 3 ponytails, five top buns and five have loose hair around their shoulders.
12 are wearing denim, 7 are wearing athletic/yoga/sweat pants. No skirts.

This is excluding me of course, the freak with a twisted blue side ponytail, dress pants and high heels :)

Halloween party

2011-10-18T15:27:00.003-03:00

We are having a halloween party in our house and I want it to look like this:

No problem! Also I've been pre-occupied with spooky playlists and costume details. Instead of woodland animals we've decided on a somewhat related theme: characters from C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. I went so far as to order those crazy contact lenses...despite being a grouchy miser in real life, Halloween costumes get a pass. I have to make myself budgets before going shopping because it gets ridiculous. For example, I have no idea why I thought buying candy this far in advance was a bright idea, but I did. I can't stop snacking, and I've had fuzzy "refined-sugar" teeth for three days now, gross. Serves me right.

Muhaha

2011-10-18T15:14:00.010-03:00

Last night I dreamt of Halloween parties with drink-o Plinko and overweight superheroes. I bathed children not my own, and went walking in a midnight garden.

Frog the Dawg - Take Me Away [Flo Rida vs. Napoleon XIV] [mashupy.pl] by MashUp World PL04

I'm going mad! Life is beautiful all the time, flowers and chirping birds.

Familiar

2011-10-15T11:11:00.002-03:00

Herding Cats

2011-10-12T14:15:00.002-03:00

This is just the type of music I like to listen to when doing annoying-as-fuck paperwork. I love my bosses, and my job, but MAN are they lacking in some organizational skills; specifically as it relates to the business. They're just too busy teaching, writing grants and traveling to worry about corralling everything into a single binder or file.

Most pertinent information on the business' intellectual property is stored 1. in the brains of said bosses and 2. sprawled all over the collaboration software we've been using for five years. If our (small) collaborator across the ocean goes bankrupt, or looses their key employee, we are f*cked.

So that's what I've been doing for the past week.

red room

2011-10-11T17:42:00.004-03:00

Good timing - it's harder than it looks.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life

2011-10-11T14:23:00.008-03:00

On Friday before the Thanksgiving long weekend I asked a visiting scientist whether he was going to any special Canadian Thanksgiving meals. When he said no, I spontaneously invited his family (of three) to a meal at our house. Then later on that same day, while at a wild BYOB bowling party (yes, they exist in small towns with lax liquor laws), I discovered too many friends in the same predicament. So I started inviting people over to eat a Thanksgiving lunch at our house.

This is how I came to cook a Thanksgiving meal for twelve using one wood stove, one convention oven, one small hotplate and a slow cooker.

Two very late evenings later (2 AM bedtimes), the table was replete with local goods: four small chickens, gravy, two heaving piles of seasoned roasted potatoes, similarly high piles of fried green beans with cashews, maple-glazed carrots, stuffing, our own cranberry sauce, squash, turnip, pickles, kale chips, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, apple crisp, berry crisp, and apple cider to drink. Our guests had brought some bread and cabbage dishes, as well as one Tiramisu dessert.

Compulsive Natalie ™ was terrified we wouldn't have enough food. She was being crazy.

It was unseasonably warm this weekend, so we toured the scene of pastoral bliss (as one guest put it), and ate our dessert in the grass while drinking tea from our own mint plants. As a byproduct of compulsiveness, house projects that had gone unfinished for the last few months were frantically completed before our guests' arrival. It was a very lovely weekend, and I'm looking forward to going home to a clean house & a refrigerator full of left-overs.

As an outsider...

2011-10-07T09:31:00.003-03:00

...I wonder, is the Republican party full of incredibly vapid but pretty people who abuse the phrase "hard knock"?

Snowy Songs

2011-10-05T13:24:00.005-03:00

Not a particularly fabulous song by Kings of Convenience, but I was struck by the similarities to the classic Girl from Ipanema song. Less sun, more snow:

Anyway, I found the above video because I was actually looking for this song by Jose Gonzalez (also Nordic), which I would really like to learn on the guitar. It was the reason I wanted to pick up the instrument again after a long hiatus. Sadly, this hasn't happened...while cleaning my storage area a few days ago, I found my dusty guitar. Sigh.

MidweekSlump

2011-10-05T12:40:00.003-03:00

Rainfall warning, storm surges, high winds. I'm emotional and drained and just want to nap in front of a fire today. DFS.

2011-10-04T23:52:00.001-03:00

Overwhelming.Urge.To.Snark.On.Facebook.

(this too shall pass)

SERIOUS business

2011-10-04T16:28:00.010-03:00

It was still September, during the intermission of a live concert, where I first asked friends of mine:

"So, what are going to be for Halloween?"

I guess we take it seriously here at oceanedgeblue, and my husband and I have been trading ideas back & forth for at least two weeks.

My first idea, since I own a ridiculous pair of skin-tight faux leather leggings and have seen a perfect LadyGaga-inspired wig at the local hardware store (random, I know) - was Sandy from Grease. My husband could totally pull off the young Travolta look too:

In the end we decided this was too cliche, we both basically hate the musical Grease, and I'm not sure I'm confident enough in my ass to wear the pants with enough sass.

Second option was a inspired by a stuffed pink cat toy my husband found at a friends place. The crazy grinned Cheshire Cat! So if we stuck to the couples costume, I guess the logical pair would be Alice:

Cute, yes. Clever? Not really. He'd probably die of heat in the full cat costume too. Heehee.

The latest option is inspired by this picture:

Winner of a costume contest put on by a favorite online store, I think the face paint for the deer is adorable. If we continue with the Disney theme, then this is Bambi....and the partner costume could be Flower the skunk? A skunk costume is really cute, especially on kids!

Relive childhood innocence! Cute cuddly woodland creatures! No skanky costumes in sight! WIN!

Down for the count

2011-09-30T09:34:00.002-03:00

Wretched cold has me doing half days at work (albeit productive half days, at least). My kitchen is covered in a two foot pile of dirty dishes, and I haven't had a shower since Tuesday night. I just come home, crawl under a blanket and wait for someone else to make me food. None of the over-the-counter medications seem to be doing squat. Gross.

Twenty Days

2011-09-27T10:27:00.003-03:00

I invigilated a mid-term this morning for a cesspool of viral infections called "undergrads".

Their germs had already found me, though. On Saturday I felt yucky and made myself drink orange juice, Sunday I forced myself to relax in a hot bath for three hours and last night I tried to reduce virus loads by gargling with salt water/using a Neti pot and swallowing tons of Ginseng extract.

I guess I beat last year's count: this time it took a whopping 20 days to catch "the undergrad cold".

As an aside, it struck me just how homogenous my place of work is. Of the fourteen students I was overseeing this morning, there were:

two* boys: James & Micheal
twelve girls:
Two Jessicas
Two Sara(h)s
Two Kat(e)s
An Anna & a Brianna & a Cassandra
An Emily & a Haylee
One lone Lauren

* This still didn't stop my fellow invigilator from explaining that we would be recording their setting arrangement to guard against cheating, by using the phrase "looking at the guy in front of you". /facepalm

In Return

2011-09-25T22:55:00.005-03:00

In June I linked to Teri Thorton's version of Nature Boy....but I think I have found a new favourite version. Shara Worden for the win yet again!

So. Predictable.

Moralizing

2011-09-25T11:46:00.001-03:00

I really love this video:

Things seen and heard

2011-09-23T11:57:00.002-03:00

While re-writing and improving a section of my lab book, I found this exact sentence: "RT-PCR notes: First set of tubes should be a serial dilution to test the awesomeness of your primers"

While walking down the sidewalk this morning, I spotted a frail-looking undergrad struggling with four bags of groceries. Bitchily, I thought "Gimme a break, you don't eat food"

While re-assessing the need for my 14 departmental keys, I found a key I couldn't place. Clearly wasn't a university DO NOT COPY key so I tried it in my front door lock. Yup. I've lived in our house for two years and have never locked the front door once. Didn't even know I had the key!

divided by ten

2011-09-22T13:30:00.000-03:00

on the bandwagon

2011-09-21T12:54:00.001-03:00

Time Management

2011-09-20T17:21:00.003-03:00

The harvest season is upon us. I have bags of fresh kale to dry, tomatoes to freeze, cucumbers to pickle and berries to clean. My green beans and garlic and onions have already been dealt with. We've also stacked our winter wood, building a new structure to keep four cords dry at a time. The rain threatening right now will make me leave work early, but soon enough the winter weather will arrive (and with it my shared commute with my husband, which increases my word day by two hours).

So pictures for now. I'm off to work at home, then hopefully nap.

times ten

2011-09-16T17:20:00.003-03:00

The long highway in

With sunburned cheeks

Feels like warm hands

Couldn't see you working there

Even if I tried

Couldn't sound more like a lullaby

Even if I tried

TIFF top 5

2011-09-14T14:41:00.010-03:00

Perhaps in another life I'm an event organizer. In this other life, I would be on the organizational team for Toronto International Film Festival. I would have opportunity to rub shoulders with the celebrities that, in my current life, I just read about on the internet. Who would I throw my charm at during the 2011 TIFF festival? Oh well let me tell you.

The top three are stately (handsome) men, mentioned before on this very blog:

Spot 1: Jon Hamm, with his great comedic timing and hockey knowledge, pictured here with his slightly plastic-looking long-term partner:

Spot 2: Ewan McGregor, the free-wheeling (yet adorably married), ruddy Scotsman who always picks really cool roles to play and once toured the world on a motorcycle. Pictured here in downtown TO:

Spot 3: And of course Clive Owen, accented and rumply in his black suit at his newest movie's gala. He usually doesn't smile as much, but he's a devoted family man:

The other two spaces are more fluid and interchangeable.

Spot 4: For a long while, Ryan Gosling occupied spot number four, but lately he's not been doing it for me. He really bulked up for some roles, and I prefer them lean. He's also made the rounds with half a dozen young starlets, which dampens his allure. Time to replace his Canuck ass with another fellow countryman. So for this TIFF, in which I'm an imaginary organizational guru in stunning heels, I would probably follow Scott Speedman around like a puppy. He has actually toned down the bulky muscles and has great forearms (I am SUCH a sucker for nice forearms on a dude). Plus, to my geeky heart, he'll always be the good looking werewolf from Underworld (...I won't even link to a trailer, it's that cheesy). Pictured here spiffed up for a premiere and all smiles outside his hotel in Toronto:

Spot 5: might have been taken up by Ben Affleck IF he had attended the festival. But since he didn't, and I've met my quota for stubble-faced dudes, I think I would just try my luck with Olivia Wilde. She appears to have thoughts in her head, was married in the desert at Burning Man, has fantastic collarbones and played a doctor on TV. My standards are low I guess, because I would fling some flirt her way:

Now back to work. Real work. Not the imaginary kind.

Consumed

2011-09-13T11:29:00.000-03:00

Every time I look at the bookshelf overflowing with cracked CD cases, I curse myself for not just uploading the whole thing onto a single 8 GB USB drive (or two, one at the office for safekeeping) and selling the hundreds of CDs. I want to actively clear out my STUFF so that I have more room to LIVE. This article reminded me of that fact:

My $10,000 storage unit mistake

Head first into the waterfall

2011-09-12T15:36:00.003-03:00

I've had the same song stuck in my head now for...ohhh....three weeks. It hurts.

random photos

2011-09-09T11:11:00.004-03:00

('Cause the last post was text heavy)

Administrators, in all their lack-of-foresight, are going to tear down this building this year:

My cat looks like a cartoon:

Proof we aren't in Germany anymore (these cost $1.75 over there):

We ate so much bread, cheese, chocolate and beer when away, I couldn't wait to have actual vegetables again. Here are some of the components from our CSA package:

Once veggies from our own garden were added, plus some beans for protein, we had the loveliest looking stir-fry around:

Enough for two nights even! On the second night, we added even more fried green beans (with cashews) and seas scallops to round out the protein. Didn't want rice again, so our carb portion of the meal was fulfilled by a couple of beers (Clancy's for him, St.Ambroise Oatmeal Stout for me):

shirking

2011-09-08T12:05:00.006-03:00

Today marks one week back from vacation, which slashed my enthusiasm for regular life.

The timeline goes thusly:

Return midnight on Thursday, jet lag.

Wake up early Friday (jet lag), eat chocolate for breakfast, then nutella on a white bun. Deign to visit my lab for three measly hours from noon until...the bar opens downtown. Proceed to drink beer on the patio from 3-6:30 pm, vainly trying to recapture the Biergarten atmosphere. Fail. Fall asleep on the couch at 8 pm.

Wake up early Saturday (jet lag). Drag my ass to the market, yard sales, visiting friends. Basically do anything that keeps me from going home and actually being productive. Eventually come home to a giant pile of cord wood and an overgrown garden. Go inside on a sunny day, and watch TV/movies until I fall asleep on the couch at 9 pm.

Wake up early Sunday (jet lag). Lounge around doing nothing, watch some more movies. My mother, in a fit of pity, comes over to get my ass into gear. I reluctantly tackle the chicken coop with her help, manage to get it clean. My in-laws and nephew arrive for supper, which I don't lift a finger to help make. They feed me, and help my husband finish the wood shed so that we can start stacking wood. Visit with friends in the evening in an attempt to stay awake past 9 pm. Partial win, but only late at night.

Wake up Labour Day Holiday, drag my ass to the couch, start YET ANOTHER MOVIE. I am so lazy. I get a talking to by my husband. He says something along these lines: "it was okay to do nothing for three days, but honey, it's time to do something. Anything. Get off the couch." So I'm guilted into stacking wood in the sweaty heat, swatting mosquitoes who seem particularly adamant. Go to lunch with friends, and supper with more friends. Itty-bitty Win.

On Tuesday my new coworker started, so at least there was a given task-list: get him keys, a password for the computers, a soft copy of all the protocols, an email address, a tour of campus, etc, etc.

I still want to eat chocolate slathered in nutella for breakfast though.

Addendum: The Movie Review (out of five stars)

The Adjustment Bureau: 4.5/5

The Hurt Locker: 4/5

The Darjeeling Limited: 4/5

Adam: 2.5/5

Lord of War: 3/5

I Love You Phillip Morris: 3.5/5

Incommunicado

2011-09-02T08:38:00.003-03:00

The $3000 dress

2011-08-17T13:04:00.002-03:00

I've been looking for the perfect "little white dress" for TWO summers. I want something that would look nice in a formal setting or a casual setting. I've found something I might like, but it's a tad expensive:

Perhaps someone would be willing to make me a version for under $100?

middle america, translatlantic flights and a funny picture of chickens

2011-08-17T10:50:00.007-03:00

I was in Minnesota for the first time last week, and my impressions were thus: 1. sunny beautiful weather, as opposed to here where it's been dark cold and dreary for so long the farmers are starting to worry about not being able to cut their hay 2. ate the best poutine of my life at Vincent's restaurant (better than the poutine eaten in a restaurant in Montreal that only had poutine on the menu!) It only cost $4, and I washed it down with a $3 glass of local brew. Heavenly in the fattiest-sorta-way. Mmm. 3. Chatting with a neighbour exhibitor, it was apparent he was surprised by my degrees. He presumed I was a "booth babe", and told me so. I was visibly offended. 4. Don't bother with the breakfast buffet at the Hilton Minneapolis as the eggs taste like flour and the bacon tastes like freezer-burn. The pancakes were alright, but that's because they had half a pound of butter in each one, which ensured a crisp golden exterior (and tons of grease really early in the morning). The coffee was, predictably, horrendous.

A picture of my chicken, triple-stacked.

Tomorrow our flight to Germany takes off at 10 pm. I haven't packed yet for our two-week trip. We'll only be doing backpack carry-on only (almost, but not quite, too old for this). I'd like to hike in the mountains for days on end and go "wild camping". I'll let you know how this works out when I get back in September. Meanwhile at work, a paper windstorm has swept through:

PaperVomit, office-style.

Two evenings ago we went to see a wee little house right in town as a potential rental home. We've debated being landlords, the market is brisk, and the investment would probably pay off. We are lukewarm over the thought of jumping into a second house before the first is functional.

Here is an inspiration picture I took of a local house I was visiting. Same approximate age, but with tons of personality in the front entry. I need more curves in my life.

Vavavoom.

The last few days the ventilation guys have arrived:

Front entry alight with shiny new venting equipment.

And in the garden, things are starting to look a little overgrown. My arugula bolted. Turns out I don't like arugula enough to eat what I planted. My cilantro is doing awesome though, and has been used in multiple dishes the last week. Tomatoes are a few weeks behind which is good for us...perhaps we'll actually get to eat some of our harvest rather than leaving it all to the house-sitter :)

Country garden fare.

little gems, big diamond voices

2011-08-06T00:36:00.003-03:00

Tonight while listening to a great CBC radio 2 program called the Signal, they played a song that lead me to this lady:

Shara Worden:

Who is very clearly a talented singer. She also plays under the name "My Brightest Diamond":

EPIC.

On working with students

2011-08-04T12:14:00.003-03:00

55% Reactionary: "Don't worry! you can fix it. Just _____"

35% Pre-emptive: "Don't do that. Do ____ instead"

10% Too late: "That was dumb. You'll need to re-do it"

geek out

2011-08-02T23:10:00.001-03:00

This wall decoration.

These shoes.

Haloarchaea!

Make you Squeak?!?! Seriously?

2011-08-02T12:43:00.002-03:00

Dear Biolynx,

Please refrain from sending entirely stupid (and borderline offensive) marketing material to the lab. I don't think I will find a use for the limited edition rubber duck made up to look like a Bavarian beer peddler, complete with creepy cleavage. Thanks anyway.

Natalie

Entirely expected

2011-07-31T10:23:00.002-03:00

Samson's solo acoustic set. Despite 1000 people in the tent, it was just as quiet as the following video, and luckily I was much closer to the stage than this:

When my friend asks "are you getting teary-eyed?", I just put my arm around her shoulders and smiled.

job list

2011-07-29T12:25:00.003-03:00

I don't think I've been chosen to teach the class. That's OK by me, I have enough to do. Working 50 hours over the weekend during a music festival, working 12 hour days in the lab, trying to keep myself from getting ill by popping ginseng extract and drinking/eating tons of healthy food, no matter the budget. Also treating myself: getting my hair done/waxing/ordering make-up online. Finally ordering that piece of biologically-related jewelry I've been coveting for YEARS. Spoiling myself.

Next weekend I leave for Minneapolis. The weekend after that will be packing for Germany. Four weeks from now I'll be camping in Bavaria.

Life is grand, and I'm very lucky.

kickin ass

2011-07-26T14:40:00.006-03:00

lovely actress as a waif-soldier version:

real-life MMA fighter in the lead role version:

One of these two films has Ewan McGregor in it, so you know which I prefer.

Update: How would I organize the course?

2011-07-22T14:02:00.004-03:00

I am going to be "interviewed" by the hiring committee about Human Biology on Monday about 2 hours before I will be conducting interviews for the company position. How symmetrical.

Related, I wonder if this is worth it? I think it would be. Perhaps one of my requirements if I get hired as a lecturer is that the department cough up $400 for this unlimited science slide database.

hearts never heal

2011-07-21T16:21:00.002-03:00

If I were queen, I would ban oversized lettuce pieces in salads, terrible musak in elevators and the re-reading of old emails.

Dear Boss

2011-07-21T15:12:00.003-03:00

PBS means what:

Protein Solubilization Buffer misspelled?
Phosphate Buffered Saline?
Porcine Ball Sack?

I can't tell, please help.

-My fried brain

search terms

2011-07-19T09:28:00.002-03:00

Your mission, if you decide to accept, is to find protein extract belonging to a close relative of Chlamydomonas. Since you work in a sea of cyanos, it will be no easy feat. Good luck.

(For the geeks only: http://www.uga.edu/protozoa/education/chlamydomonas.mp3)

Dontcha know?

2011-07-18T15:26:00.004-03:00

VWR rep: 1, sanity: 0

Thunder and Lightning

2011-07-18T09:17:00.007-03:00

This summer morning I woke up chilled: sixteen degrees celsius outside, but curiously still in the midst of a thunder storm. How does that work? It was so dark outside my dog had no interest in the day, she was clearly heading back to bed as we left for work. Still tons of shit to do but I've been kicking ass on the productivity front so here's to another week of great science, meticulous paperwork and house plans.

WWPJ are playing in Germany two weeks after I leave and in America one month after my American visit. Jeez.

Update: Failing miserably on the productivity front. Come back motivation!! Come back!

Ramp Up

2011-07-13T09:43:00.003-03:00

The first half of summer was lazy and lovely. The second half is going to kick my ass, and it started this week.

So here's a cool video instead of a real post.

strawberry season

2011-07-09T16:59:00.004-03:00

Time to enjoy fresh local and totally delicious strawberries, then make jam for the freezer with the three flats (8 qrts each).

To live happily ever after on my (temporary) pantry shelf or my belly.

ivorykeys

2011-07-09T14:33:00.002-03:00

Lecturer?

2011-07-06T12:11:00.004-03:00

My university is desperate for someone to teach the intro to human bio class (for non-science majors) this upcoming fall. They've opened the search to M.Sc. holders, qualifying yours truly. If I were to teach anything, a non-science-majors course would be it I guess, that way the students wouldn't realize how horrible of a teacher I am. If the department doesn't hire anyone, all these other classes need to be switched around too. So if I put my name in, it would be considered. Thing is, do I want to teach? My answer was always no, but having lecturer on my resume would be pretty cool, I admit. Hm.

Update: I think I'll apply. Might be the best/only chance I get to stick my foot in the teaching door. The money's shit, but that is never the point of my career moves anyway :)

on her good side

2011-07-05T12:14:00.004-03:00

The New Faculty member just gave me a $25 gift certificate for all my hard work tracking his plasmid shipment from the States. Someone on his end screwed up the paperwork, and it was in customs limbo for ages, poor guy. I don't much care for the coffee, but the bagels make a nice snack in a pinch. Operations ingratiate = success.

We are such fragile things

2011-07-04T16:56:00.002-03:00

I always remember to check PostSecret these days, and I'm always surprised. Mirror mirror.

At the Water's Edge

2011-07-04T14:58:00.004-03:00

I think I might just buy a signed copy of his book because of the cool title :) Also, Zimmer's love for science tattoos.

Life lines and love lines

2011-06-30T19:23:00.004-03:00

I have crazy ugly hands. Old lady hands that are wrinkled and vein-y. Whatever, I'm okay with that fact, but I just wanted to show you what eating healthy meals consistently does to my finger nails:

Mega-super-keratin! Despite many hours of manual labour over the past month, I have really long nails that are begging to be polished up. With suncoat, even, which is water based. But it's expensive and I'm a cheap hippie so I'll just have to let the dirt "polish" them up.

cutting close

2011-06-30T13:02:00.004-03:00

Someone who has more readers should have a poll: Do you work in your science lab/let your students work in the lab alone? Do you actively enforce university safety requirements like "no open-toed shoes" or" no drinking" (tea/coffee) in the lab?

I just got my first lab visit from the new safety officer, and although in general our lab is exceedingly tidy/well organized/an awesome place to work, the shortcomings he identified were ones that I don't agree with personally so therefore I don't enforce. In particular, a student who's boss is my supervisor (and who works in an adjacent room), was in the process of pouring liquid nitrogen from a 5 L container to a 1 L container - in her flip flops- when the safety guy did his walk through. Now even I think this is stupid, and if I caught her doing it myself, I would have told her as much (I was in a meeting for this part of his walk-through). He told her to go home and change her shoes. Insisted.

This guy is conscientious and generally a very friendly guy. He is about my age and was a Masters student before taking up his new university position, filling a vacancy left when the same man who's done the job for the last few decades retired. NewGuy realizes that things were stagnant, and is looking to reinforce a "culture of safety" now that he is a position of responsibility. Obviously looking for allies, but...I couldn't help but retort his suggestions.

Basically it came down to this: Me No Babysitter.

I've trained the students (including said perpetrator), and have made it a point to tell them that handling liquid nitrogen while wearing inappropriate lab wear is dumb. They should get someone else to do it OR make an effort to keep appropriate footwear (at least) available in the lab. But I would never insist a student go home to change before completing their experiment. Never. But NewGuy would. And did.

And so I pressed him: Would you tell a post-doc who was wearing inappropriate shoes while doing an experiment to go home and change? A: yes. A faculty member? A: yes, the university is liable if anyone gets hurt, regardless of hierarchy and job position.

See for me, I say: You are a goddamn adult, start acting like it. If you want to risk your toes, as a 20-year-old, you can. But it's dumb, and I'll say that out loud to your face if given the chance. I'm not even in the same room as many of the students I'm supposed to be babysitting, which makes the idea of monitoring their practices closely kinda laughable. NewGuy says, "we need to create a culture here" and I say "I'll train them right, and then let them be". Which would you choose?

Figure 1: Don't be stupid. If you are, don't blame me.

Nominally related was NewGuy's question: Do you let students work after hours alone? This is a loaded question around here because as a primarily undergraduate school we have lots of young researchers doing lab experiments around a hectic class schedule. There are relatively few post-docs or other "round-the-clock" researchers in the building, so they often work alone. Yet because undergrads are who do most of our work, the expectation of output are pretty high. Last year one of the honours students in my lab cloned, overexpressed and purified a protein of interest from a rarely-studied picocyanbacterial species, then ran RTPCR on the transcipts in question over multiple time points and multiple environmental set-ups. This while she was studying for MCATS and excelling at class work, over a 12 month period. She'll probably get at least two papers out of her high-quality research, and everyone was fawning over her productivity.

NewGuy wants to implement a "buddy system", citing that no lab environment is safe enough to guarantee safety for students at all times. Basically rebuking my statements that unlike a chemistry lab, we handle relatively low-danger stuff. He wasn't having it. But the trade-off is: if we require our students to work in pairs, it will severely affect the amount of time they spend in the lab. The research quality will suffer, and so will the number of publications we put out every year. So the faculty have to be okay with that, and we need to change the culture there too. Anyway, I'm not opposed to restricting research hours for undergrads, but I can't do it unilaterally. Do other institutions have a "no lab work when you are alone" policy? Would this ever really work??

Dear Disgusting Me

2011-06-30T09:54:00.002-03:00

You've taken several microbiology courses and can accurately predict the outcome of leaving a travel mug of coffee sitting around for too long. It's a bitch to have to bleach that fucker before ever taking another drink from it, so please smarten the fuck up.

More, again, over and over and over

2011-06-29T13:59:00.002-03:00

Canada doesn't know how to make ugly musicians, apparently.

Quick! Distraction!

2011-06-28T15:50:00.003-03:00

A sale on dresses and retro swimsuits! I'm wearing their purple dress right now! And it's sunny and thrity degrees outside! I just need to get a cDNA synthesis on the go, and then I will allow myself to leave work.

But.I.Cannot.Concentrate.Worth.Shit.

Agghhh!!

Update: no PCR but I did buy these earrings plus a few more items, worked on my freebie five celebrity crush list (Ewan always wins), and started the planning of a two week trip to southern Germany. Sigh.

Pretty

2011-06-28T15:33:00.002-03:00

Dancing in the Office?

2011-06-28T10:36:00.003-03:00

I know you want to!

A playlist:

Fly away at 38 K.