Thursday, December 7, 2006

Life is much less interesting without fortune-cookie titles

I have this final paper to do for Bio, on... anything Biology related. Gotta love vague topics. So anyway, the trouble is that it's 7-10 pages. So I was going to do it on a disease like everyone else, figuring that would be easy to research, but fatal flaw- there's only so much you can SAY about a disease. Like, sure, the important ones can have whole books written about them, but your average non-epidemic disease is kinda limited. Besides, I kinda wanted to do something that someone who doesn't actually have a certain illness would care about.

So I figured I'd do it on x-ray crystallography. Here's my approach: If my mom can read it and say, "Oh, that's fascinating! But I don't really understand the science of it," then it's a good paper. For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about, crystallography is how they know what molecules look like. Molecules are too small for even microscopes, but yet scientists know how they are put together. They do this though crystallizing the substance and shooting x-rays through it, and measuring how the rays are diffracted. It's pretty cool and I only marginally understand it. So I'm going to try to understand it and then I'm going to write a paper on it.

And my doing a paper on x-ray crystallography has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the fact that my professor loves the subject and wants to try it before he dies. Not a bit. Nope.

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I discovered a new life form today! It was very exciting. I named him Moe and then Moe and I had a tearful goodbye before I washed him and his three-month-old jello-y home down the sink. Moral of this story: Basiorana ought to clean that fridge out more often.

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I actually look presentable right now, but believe me, it was not an easy ride. My skirt, for example, is safety-pinned so it doesn't slip down too low, not for modesty's sake, but because it's supposed to rest at my WAIST, as in, that part that dips in, not the belly-button or the hips. I'd complain a lot more if this didn't mean I was loosing weight.

Meanwhile, the only marginally clean blouse I could find stretches so tight across my chest that I'm kinda concerned that it will rip open any moment now and I will be forced to live out some kind of weird version of a trashy supermarket novel. Actually, that's a pretty bad description, since it doesn't sound NEARLY as problematic as my shirt bursting open would be. Suffice it to say, though, that just because a fabric stretches, does not mean it fits. I really need new shirts, and then, I need to THROW THESE ONES OUT.

And then, there's the hair. My hair is SO GROSS right now. It's also ridiculously long. Actually, some of it is. It's really all different lengths, so the last inch is composed of about 1/3 of the hair that is actually on my head. I started the day in a braid, but it quickly frizzed and worked it's way free to escape in messy glory. So I poured a gallon of hair gel into it and pulled it up into a bun on the top of my head. So there.

I have won this battle, Oh Wretched Hair. But don't think I rest easy, for I know that tomorrow will be a struggle of equally Biblical proportions.

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Okay, so last night was my last Chem lab ever, and after the INCREDIBLY SCARY moment when she was assigning groups and I swear I thought that the group doing methane with me consisted of Incredibly Hot Guy, shorter-but-still-hot Flirts With TAs, and this guy that hangs out with them who's also surprisingly attractive. Thank GOD I heard wrong, that would have ended oh-so-badly. I only wound up with Surprisingly Attractive Guy. You won't understand why I call him that unless you see him, and you won't see him unless I tell you his real name, and I won't tell you his real name unless I get a head injury...

Anyway, we were looking at methane because it's a greenhouse gas, and then we had to find ways to reduce methane in the atmosphere, and honestly, the best we could come up with is stop raising cows for meat, because that's where 14% of the atmosphere's methane comes from- domestic livestock. Don't think about it. So next time someone asks me why I don't eat beef, I'm totally gonna say, "COWS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING!" and whip out the statistics chart I happen to have in my back pocket.

We made posters and then graded each other's posters, based on content and "wow factor," how impressed we were by it. The most "wow" one had to be the one with the farting cow on it, and in the cloud was methane facts. Only it wasn't a "Wow, great poster" so much as a "Wow. You put a FARTING COW on your poster." But I said wow, so they got the points.

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The last Group session was today, with 3/8ths of us present- man. I'm the only one who hasn't missed a meeting since I started, which was after the first meeting. Anyway, not much accomplished, but I learned that the guy in Group that I refuse to admit is attractive because he's in Group and at least as messed up as me (that was going to be his name, or GIGTIRTAIABHIGAALAMUAM [pronounced Gig-teer-tay-ab-hee-gah-al-ah-moo-am] for short, but I thought that that was just unfair, especially considering the acronym is longer than most names I use) is going to do the Art Therapy group next semester, so if that works out for me, we might be in Group together again. Not entirely sure if that's an incentive, you know, familiar face, or not. Meh. Not that I'd make my choices based on one kid anyway. Hmm...

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I've been reading blogs, as in, blogs other than those of people I know, and there's this neat feature on the modestly named Bestest Blog Of All Time which picks out a random blog for you and notes the good ones. Some of them I found kinda boring, but there are these ones: Nate is a Blog, which is funny random, and Dating Profile of the Day, which amuses me in the "oh god there are people like that out there" sense.

One blog I found only mildly interesting, save this quote: "Nonetheless, it matters to me that Canada is fair and just, even if it doesn't jive with my jehovah." (Shanthology). Jive with my jehovah? I want excuses to use that phrase in everyday life.

Some other note-worthy blogs I've found include Kissing Frogs, a collection of bad dates, and Go Fug Yourself, which is like a Worst Dressed column in a news magazine only funnier. I'll put these all in my blog list later.

But if you're really bored, check out Bestest Blog of All Time and cycle through the random blogs. Seriously. There are a lot of bad writers in the blogsphere, but there's lots of good ones, too.

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Hmm. There seems to be something I should do right now... something... related to the fact I'm in college... and have my last day of class tomorrow... hang on, it's coming to me... OH YEAH homework. Damn.

2 comments:

Uspekhov said...

are you saying that you don't eat cows because they cause global warming, because that can be construed as you loving global warming :p

By the way--that note you left on facebook--I found a better t-shirt at least in my book

Basiorana said...

I don't eat cows because the CONSUMPTION of cows causes global warming.