Neuroses for sale

I just had a really odd experience with an esthetician. Since the place I like and normally go to is on the high end of prices around here, I thought I would save myself the $20 and go to the nearby, bigger spot that all the students frequent. Bad move.

We were talking about personal grooming habits. I have been carefully grooming my eyebrows for the last six months (don't laugh!) in order to retain a more natural, full look. My husband likes to remind me that I had pencil-thin & over-tweezed eyebrows when he met me. Not. hot.



And out comes this statement, while she is severely over-waxing my brows: "I think any hair is disgusting. But then again, look what I do for a living..." .

And my eyebrows weren't the only things she attacked with zeal.

I was at a loss - "stop! stop it!" I should have yelled. "Hair is totally normal and natural. Just because you think it is disgusting does not mean you can push your views on me!"

But wielding that strip of muslin cloth meant she was in the position of power.

She was cold, ruthless, calculating and sorta bitchy when I winced.

... I will definitely be spending the $20 bucks next time. Yeesh.

Come one, come all!

There. The house will be on the market this afternoon. After two weeks of scrambling, building, painting and utter lack of attention to my thesis, hopefully we can get this show on the road.

I am so nervous that we have overpriced, and that we will blow our chances at sales. I talked to three agents, and all three suggested in the 199-209 K range. We'll try at 206,900 with intent of accepting anything over 200, and see how that works.

Now onto gene analysis. Phew!

Expediency Required?

It looks like I may have overlooked the best way to get my thesis completed:

"Women in the late stages of pregnancy only acknowledge obstacles that stand in their way for as long as it takes to calmly analyze how to blow those obstacles to smithereens with the nearest buckshot-loaded rifle."

(From Salon article "Faster, pregnant lady, kill kill!"

Me too, me too.

Took this online personality test (300 questions). This is what it came back as:
Neuroticism: You scored 21 out of 50. This score is higher than 26.0% of people who have taken this test.
Extraversion: You scored 35 out of 50. This score is higher than 57.4% of people who have taken this test.
Openness to experience: You scored 42 out of 50. This score is higher than 52.9% of people who have taken this test.
Conscientiousness: You scored 29 out of 50. This score is higher than 21.4% of people who have taken this test.
Agreeableness: You scored 31 out of 50. This score is higher than 18.4% of people who have taken this test.

Not very neurotic (wha?), open to new experiences and somewhat extroverted. My conscientiousness is alarmingly low, suggesting I may have trouble following through on things, and I guess I'm sorta bitchy (or, as the survey explains, "hostile towards others") and do not strive for social harmony. Well, at least one of those things I understand. Hm...

Tiny House Update

Not much has happened in the last few weeks, since we are scrambling to prepare the big house for the market. I've acquired some salvaged materials from an old house being torn = a bathtub & some beautiful old wooden doors (including a glass insert door) are now shoved in the corner of our basement. I've called around to some spray foam insulators (like EnviroFoam, a soy-oil based + recycled plastic closed cell insulation product) and got really high quotes. For our 12' x 16' house it would cost $4000 to get an R28 rating around the entire building. The con (obviously) is that it is a huge part of our budget, and I'm not sure we could afford it. The pros are that with such high insulation, we would need only an in-floor radiant heating system (instead of a pricey wood stove) and we could cut our lumber costs by 1/3 at least, since we wouldn't need 12 inch exterior walls to fill with less efficient insulation batts. So in the end the increased cost may be worth it, especially since I'm not even sure we would have the floor space for even a tiny wood stove:

(There is an open loft above the bathroom/storage closet for a mattress)

I think double pane windows would be sufficient, especially if we orient the majority of the windows to the south side. With such high insulation in the walls though, I would hope the area immediately surrounding any windows wouldn't be uncomfortably cold (being much "draftier"). Visiting Happy Harry's, a used/discounted hardware store here in town, we have found windows in an assortment of really nifty shapes, some being low e/argon too. It looks like a vinyl window manufacturer has sent the store their "practice windows" because there are about thirty circular windows and the same amount of arched windows, all with slightly blemished or uneven vinyl casings. If you can get past the slight dings and wobbles, the window shapes themselves are all quite whimsical. We both agreed that we would enjoy having a house of arched & rounded windows, even if they weren't in perfect condition. The only problem is that the windows with the coolest shapes don't generally open, so we need to temper our desire for whimsy with the necessity for safety. There were plenty at the store with arched tops and casement opening, but they tended to be much bigger. Maybe there is something in between that we haven't found yet. I hope so. Yay for hobbit houses:)

Silence between the snow

(Found this in a pile of paper - it dates back to high school I think. Probably from a free-form writing assignment. I've quelled my compulsion to edit it just now.)

Sparkling snow dancing, glistening past me as I drive through swooping valleys and climbing cliffs. Winter waltz between the faeries of fall and the sentinels of spring. The trees are heavy with their icy frosting, between sky and snow there's only at ice to chip away at, to dig in, to mold. Somewhere there lies a treasure at the heart of every castle. Snow angels protect the weary, the cold-hearted, the chilled souls of the world. Few see the magic in morning mists but many understand when their eyes are closed. Silence between the snow.

Back now to organizing and de-cluttering the closet. Sigh.

(Update: Oh Lordy, it's from tenth grade. There are pages of them...)

"I'll miss you guys!"

Now that I'm on a tight writing deadline and have a nearly-discernible level of of enthusiasm, I've put myself on a strict writing schedule (complete with out-of-province "thesis support/nagging group" -friends in exact same situation all across the country). That ought to solve my problem of energy pretty quickly. But anyway, this blog post is about something else; I'm reviewing the literature and catching up on papers that were published since November and as I read the authors names, I recognize them. People I've met at conferences, or even colleagues-of-colleagues whom have garnered high praise. People I'm probably never going to get to meet properly/hang out with/drink with, now that I'm within finishing distance of a degree I don't plan on pursuing further.

And that made me sad. Bye Chuck D. I've never met you (that I can remember) but I'll miss you.

Random Shuffle Game

1. Police
2. Live
3. REM
4. Daft Punk
5. The Cardigans

Nothing newer than 1999. Hun.

Happy Monday

Well, I tried looking for a whimsical video to post this dreary Monday morning, but couldn't remember anything suitable.  So I just entered the search term "singing skeletons" in youtube and this is what popped up:


Oddly this works, so I kept it.

Can you tell one of the things I did this weekend was watch the entire Season 2 of "Bones" - the crime show? Lots of dead bodies, and lots of hot scientists. Some of the other things I did:

Baked an apple crisp
Made a menu for the week, went grocery shopping at the farmers market
Bought supplies for a built-in cabinet for a stacking washer-dryer combo
Knitted a toque
Made lots of apple sauce
Read the book "The complete idiot's guide to staging your home"
Tackled the downstairs living space, removing two boxes of books from the bookshelf to sell, and placing excess kitchen ware in large labeled tubs to go in the basement to 1) tidy up the living space and 2) test ourselves on our ability to live without those items.

It was too cold to fix up the roof's missing shingles or the vent that blew off, but we did start progress on the cabinet I want in place before we show the house. Now I need to focus on thesis stuff during the weekdays. Just as soon as I call the EnviroFoam people and email conserve nova scotia:)

It's On

The breakdown:

Write my thesis for April 1st (haha!), defend on April 14th, officially handing in the bound copy April 28th (or earlier, depending on corrections). Visit Vancouver February 28th through to March 8th, with a trip to Toronto April 29th to May 3rd. Move house contents during May, while cleaning up my lab stuff and polishing the thesis into a first draft of a paper. Sell the house for closing on June 1st, take off for Ireland on June 2nd for two weeks. Arrive from Ireland to hometown, and build the tiny house. Move into the tiny and start looking for a reno in town. Find a job with benefits, including maternity leave. Live in tiny house, reno city house, work until baby. Sell reno house, buy another house. Have baby. Live happily ever after.

I'm not the only optimistic one

Century 21 meeting went FABULOUS last night. It is a mother-daughter team that helped us when we were looking for land last year. Although the daughter seemed more pragmatic regarding the house & a listing price, I had to pretty much talk the other agent down from her crazy plans of listing the house for 10% more than what I think it is worth. This after she just spent fifteen minutes explaining the down-fall of overpricing in a competitive market. The surprising turn of events stems from the fact I think the house should be listed fairly low, while she was worried we would want to list it for a really high price (being n00bies and all).

They got in the front door, we did a tour of the house, they gave their marketing spiel, and then she gave me the price she thought was appropriate. The whole time she was talking prices, she was like "Is this shocking to you?", trying to gauge our reactions. I think she was worried we had our hopes set much too high after getting the tour, not realizing that we have a nice house because we are awesome "clearance-rack shoppers". The house is amazing, but we never went over our (really modest) building budget. We were like "No! this isn't shocking at all: www.mls.ca is my best friend, I know what the houses around here go for. I think you're nuts to list it above 200,000. In fact we had this __ (modest) price in mind". And then the game shifted, and she tried to convince us it was worth much more than what we had planned to list it for. She's convinced it would sell at a (way) higher price, since it shows so well.

"It's water-front!" she says

"It's industrial park!" I say

"It's got cherry cabinets!" she says

"There are two dead cars, a snow plow and a camper parked in our neighbours yard!" I say

She even told us not to bother making a cabinet to hide the ugly-ass stacking washer and dyer, nor finish the basement, nor put up the shutters we've already purchased. (Well, she thought it was just planned shutters when we were talking about it). She wants to list it, like right now. No finishing touches, no staging the house, nothing.

Given her ridiculous reaction, I'm going to take this meeting as encouragement that we have set realistic plans for selling the house. It is all going according to plan. Muahahaaa!!

clenched jaw

My teeth hurt- I forgot to schedule a dental cleaning appointment when they called the house ages ago, so it's been nearly two years since I've had someone chip away at my teeth. Oh Lordy, that'll be the last time I wait so long! My whole set of chompers are paining me right now - Veronica the dental assistant attacked my mouth with such zeal this morning she made my gums bleed continuously for the thirty minutes I was in the chair, choking back tears and copper-tasting saliva the whole time. Apparently, she wanted to teach me a lesson. No birthday cake for me today.

Schedule

On the top of my list of things to do this week: pin-point thesis submission & defense dates, then decide when to visit Vancouver for ten days in March, then decide when in April I want to visit some friends in Toronto and then decide when to GO TO IRELAND in June!

Since I was little, I've always wanted to see the Irish countryside. Magical, green and surrounded by the powerful sea; I got the tiniest glimpse of the awe I would feel when my family travelled to Cape Breton. Unfortunately I was a surly and ungrateful twelve year old, but what can you do?

Cape Breton Highands:


Just like when my husband and I went for our two week honeymoon, we want to plan this two-week trip between an out-of-the-province move, and a change in jobs. That way we just worry about money, instead of dwindling vacation days.

The plan currently is to buy an Escape Pass from Air Canada, which is good for two return trips in Canada (leaving anywhere in the Atlantic provinces, arriving anywhere else in Canada) for a flat fee of $885 (taxes, surcharges, fees and blah blah blah all included). Travel anytime between now and May 3 (a few weekend black-out dates around March Break 14-22 and Easter). Then you can choose to pay $200 plus tax for a round trip to Europe, for use until June 15th. Currently, a single return trip to Vancouver or to London will cost $650 taxes and fees included, so doing one trip to Vancouver and one trip to Ireland in June would actually cost more than a three- trip Escape Pass from Air Canada. Seems almost too good to be true, but it's perfect timing with my thesis wrap-up plans and our moving out plans.

The big variable of course is whether we can sell the house in time for a June moving date. We are meeting with a Century 21 real-estate agent this evening to discuss our options. I am optimistic (of course, I am ALWAYS optimistic!), and feel that this Escape Pass is really just the kick in the pants I need to motivate myself to schedule the next four months and then of course motivate myself to actually complete a good thesis.

Ireland, here I come! Woot!

Apparently I looked like I was concentrating on something important...

We have weekly lab meetings, which pretty much everyone on the floor goes to. They are nearly always held at a certain time during the day. This past meeting was postponed one hour, and being held in a different place than usual. I was working hard on my data analysis, headphones full blast. Ten minutes after the meeting had started (which I had obviously forgotten about), I looked up in the lab and realized I had been alone for a weirdly lengthy amount of time. I work in the main room where the experiments take place, just next to my boss' office (who is away) and people are always buzzing about. Then it struck me: the lab meeting was going on, everyone had left to attend, and no one had verified I knew when/where they were all going (something that we usually do for each other). I grabbed my bag & keys, and ended up entering the meeting room late (during a power-point presentation). The lab dynamics have changed alot in six months, and I miss the old (smaller, tight-knit) lab. Sniffle.

Yawn!
Nearly ten oclock, still in my PJs, gotta take that long commute today to get to work because I wanted to sleep in.
I love birthdays.

Happy 25th birthday to me!!

Finally!! Two months in the making at least (thanks to rearrangements, incompetence on my part, and a major holiday) my project goal as of late has materialized.


The end is nigh, but at least I'll have one complete genome to analyze for my thesis. Whew. It's a good day, a good day :)

shake it

My nouvelle chanson preferee
(will open sound bite)

http://radio3.cbc.ca/play/band/Beast/Mr-Hurricane/

Tiny House update

So, work on the tiny house idea continues. I've emailed the province regarding building codes and bylaws, and apparently for any structure under 50 square meters (about 600 sq feet) that is meant for overnight accommodations, although a permit is required, the permit is issued without an overview of detailed building plans. So as long as we stay under 600 square feet, we can build whatever we want (ignoring code where it is inconvenient) because the permit office will not be verifying plans nor visiting the structure for inspections. This is important because in many tiny houses, the sleeping loft is accessed by ladder, which takes much much less floor space than a code-approved set of stairs. The building plans I was working on last weekend were for a 500-ish square foot one room building, with a full set of 36 inch stairs. If we don't actually need those stairs anymore, our square footage can drop dramatically. In fact, the working plan right now is for an interior footprint of only 16 ' x 12 ' - truly a tiny house. Further, the by-laws require a full septic field only in the case of a building having running water. Since we planned on doing a compost toilet and collection of greywater for distribution on plants/garden, we didn't want a septic field. It costs a ton, and the installation is environmentally disruptive. Looks like as long as we don't have "running water", we can get around the need for a septic field. I feel I may prefer to interpret that caveat loosely...I would like simple plumbing to my sinks and bathtub fixtures, run by a Shur-flo water pump from a rain-fed cistern. I'm willing to risk some inspector coming around to our place, telling us that we need to remove the pump and haul the water from the cistern to the house by hand. Then I would just re-install the pump as soon as he left :)

So whereas my design from last weekend had all the amenities one would need, we are back down to the basics - which is actually what I had wanted to begin with. And with more flexible building requirements, we can actually do what we wanted to do for a tiny house.

The materials list, which we whipped up last night, includes about 5500.00 of material, not including windows or doors. This is high, but it is for a super-insulated building with 12" (staggered) exterior walls full of insulation, a post-and-beam foundation, using all new material. I don't even want to use fiberglass batts, but that's the only thing the hardware store carries so I just used that as a base price. Now that I know, I can compare it with wool/cotton/denim insulation or even spray foam insulation (Biobased doesn't have Canadian approval yet). I have also emailed a few ICF companies to get an idea on prices for that sort of building material too.

I've also started to scout for used/new but never used materials on some local websites. Reclaimed materials can be incorporated, provided they fit with the super-insulation theme we are going with. But bath fixtures, floorboards, interior doors, etc can all be re-used without a problem. This weekend I plan on visiting an old house being completely gutted by new owners (who happen to work in the same building as I do) to see what we may be able to salvage. There are gigantic beams available from a torn-down church just outside of town, and some mis-sized double pane windows from another construction job too. Exciting!

Delusions

The first step in getting my ass to work (when I don't get driven at 6:45 AM by hubby) is a walk to the nearest bus stop, about 20 minutes brisk stroll from my house. After the walk is a 1 hour bus commute, so the whole trip is lengthy and I try not to do it often. The road I need to walk along is a rural, semi-windy one-way without sidewalks. Inevitably, during my 20 minute commute, I get honked at by a passing car at least once. Sometimes it's worse than honking (ie lewd hollering) and once, a car (driven by some teenagers) even swerved dangerously towards me (I guess in attempt to scare me? Haha, so fun!...). Most of the time, especially in the colder months, I'm bundled up so much I'm not sure how these men even know I'm female. But not daunted, the drivers of the sedans/trucks/company vehicles (!) think it's okay to ruin my otherwise peaceful walk. Sometimes I catch their licence plates, but in this province a vehicle is required to have an identification plate on the back only, so that eliminates half the vehicles already. I thought about getting a camera phone to snap shaming pictures, but I'm broke. Even in the rare instances I get their licence plate numbers, what to do for revenge? Wednesday I got the six digit number of a passing sedan, where the male driver honked on his way by. The backseat of his car was covered in toys/pink blankets and so the rest of my walk was spent daydreaming of tracking his home phone number via his plates, and calling up his wife to explain my disgust. Especially as he apparently has small female children - like really, would he want someone being so goddamn annoying and inappropriate with his own daughter? The logic never ceases to amaze me. Do you really think I'll run after you, begging for a phone number?? That I'll take a loud, disturbing noise as a compliment somehow? Gimme a break.

So to you "CKN 269": Fuck off.

Resolutions Part 3

The kernel of things

"For money you can have everything it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money."

-Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

Innit silly?

I was supposed to give blood last night, but they won't take it since I've done some body modification (tattoo or piercing) in the last six months. It's not like I got the thing done in prison. I've tried to give blood now about four times in the last few years and have actually only completed the process once. Isn't that nuts? They are crying for my blood type, and yet travelling around the world, getting a tattoo and having low iron counts have thwarted me. I can deal with the low iron counts now by modifying my diet just before being tested (yummy spinach salad and steak) but the travelling and body mod thing is more difficult. How many young people (especially us scientists, who are regularly attending conferences or fieldwork in far off places and/or like poking ourselves with various needles) can really conform to their stringent requirements?

Shame. Makes me want to change fields so I can make insta-tests for all the terrible diseases I'm supposed to be exposing myself to during these absolutely normal but supposely "high-risk" activities.

the Agenda and the Ammunition...

Ah, charming video I've never seen before for Fiona Apple's song Not About Love. Stupid you tube won't let me embed though.

Enunciate

Going to Lunch at Trinity with this guy: http://www.betascience.blogspot.com/. He gave a good talk today but as always, I had two hundred questions blowing through my mind and was too shy to ask any at the end of the presentation. I will assume I missed something, read up on it on my own, and anyway - that's what lunch is for. He does use a program called Mauve that might be useful in the project I'm working on.

Unrelated: If I had to pick one song that's been "stuck in my head" the longest, it would be Apple's "Paper Bag" from the album released in 1999. That is my mind's default soundtrack. Also decided this morning on the bus ride that while Tori Amos and Fiona Apple songs are easy to hum, Thom Yorke and Tegan and Sara songs from The Con are not.

Poison Crazy Lush

What the hell happened to Gavin Rossdale?? I was listening to the radio this morning prepping for work when this song came on (Gavin Rossdale "Love Remains the Same"). Listen to it! It sounds like about 6 other, shitty emo "rock band" songs put out in the last few months. If you told me Love remains the Same was released by a winning contestant on Season X of American Idol would have fucking believed you. Gavin, you've let me down dude.

Vintage BushX ("Personal Holloway").

Ahh, I miss 1996 a bit. And reviewing the "Swallowed" video again after all these years sheds some light re: why I insisted on wearing so many retro-fitted, polyester shirts with gigantic collars and awful prints I bought at Salvation Army back then. Awesome.

But then something great happened. I got to work early (alone in the lab as usual) and turned my iTunes up, since I left it running last night. I left for five minutes or so, and upon my return I was struck by how lovely the current song was. And that I had no idea who it was. I sometimes get music from other people, upload it, and after a cursory run-through it remains somewhat untouched. But this Wayne Petti song called "Night Sky" was just what I wanted to hear. The rest of the album is quite a gem too, don't know how I missed it.

Jenn Grant

Hmm...excuse the poor quality. It's the thought that counts.

Monday Musings

Good morning New Year!

We have two new people starting in the lab today - they just arrived to scoot into my PI's office for an official welcome. They are both better looking than I had anticipated. And married to each other.

Friday night I hosted a dinner party for three girlfriends and it was an awesome bitchfest of epic proportions. The food was sooo good (if I may say so myself) and we were tipping back the wine until late into the evening. Everyone stumbled into bed/couches around 2 am, and at 8:30 am I made some smoothies for everyone before leaving for the Saturday market. The holiday season means it was far less crowded than usual, and we all picked up some excellent locally made foodstuffs (mmm...Old Growler cheese...)

This is how I spent the weekend:

Scheming. Again.

We went on a bowling date on Saturday night. I'm still sore this morning from the lunges.

Sock monkeys were on sale at Shoppers Drugmart for -50%.

And although my research is behind due to holiday absences, I'm not stressing too much. There are worse things that could happen than slow-ass writing.