Mug Half Full: March 2007

alpha and omega

this is what I got:
puppy A : 2.25 lbs
puppy B : 2.00 lbs

this is what i gave back:
puppy A: 9.5 lbs
puppy B: 8.5 lbs

puppy perspectives

this made me happy

Abstract Enantioselective Organocatalysis using SOMO Activation, Teresa Beeson, Anthony Mastracchio, Jun-Bae Hong, Kate Ashton and David MacMillan

The invention of new modes of catalytic activation is essential for the continued development of the field of asymmetric catalysis. Here, a unique mode of organocatalytic activation is presented wherein a chiral amine catalyst reacts with an aldehyde to transiently generate an enamine that in turn undergoes a single-electron oxidation to yield a Singly Occupied Molecular Orbital (SOMO) radical cation that is subject to enantiofacial discrimination. While the parent enamine reacts only with electrophiles, the radical cation combines with SOMO nucleophiles at the same reaction site, thereby enabling a diverse range of previously unknown asymmetric transformations. As a first example, the direct and enantioselective alpha-allylation of aldehydes is reported.

taken from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070329145912.htm

this made my brain happy.

today is the beginning of my adventure

every time i start to get upset and sad today i have to repeat that out loud. i started the day with the phrase "today is the end of my happiness" but i have decided that kind of thinking will not help me. So on withthe new phrase:

today is the beginning of my adventure.

i am sending home the birds, the bunny and the mouse. i am giving the puppies back to little shelter. i am cleaning my apartment, dismantling the animal set ups and removing any trace of my babies. this saddens me. i feel like i am betraying the birds and it makes me sad thinking about how upset they will be at home without me. but enough of this melancholy wallowing.

today is the beginning of my adventure.

there are things i have to do to make my life move forward. one of them is the actual moving. this is part of it. i will miss my life here in NY but i will make a new life in PA. I will have new routines with the birds and the bunny and my other babies. i will have new routines because i will be alive and happy and routines are what happen.

things change. nothing stays the same. the crazy part is, i think things are getting better. i am uprooting myself from a temporary home, a nest i have made for myself that finally has friends in it but i am strong enough to try again. not just try, succeed.

i have a whole life waiting for me. and today is the beginning of my new adventure.

today is the beginning of my new adventure.

today is the beginning of my new adventure.

The river i've been floating down has reached its delta.
Denial flows into the sea.

quarter-century

in the countdown to my birthday i have found myself thinking a lot. because i've been eating junk food for three weeks and not exercising. because i'm moving home and going back to school and my life is changing. in really big ways.

i am always making resolutions and plans but seldom follow them. i shy away from new years resolutions because it's so cliche but this feels right. my birthday is one week from yesterday and i have decided to spend this week figuring out what i want. what i want from myself in this, my 25th year.

Some categories for me to consider in my goal making:

money/finance
food
exercise
clothes/makeup
beading/crafting
pets
volunteer work
actual job
school
living at home
friends/loneliness
confidence
self acceptance
satisfaction

money/finance

i think i need to work on my spending again. because i have no income in the near future and i have not been making a real effort on my cognitive therapy lately. i can do better. I need to remember: there will always be more lipstick/makeup/perfume etc... i do not need to buy anything to define myself and buying something will not change me in any way. I want to make money from crafting so i can spend money on beads.

food

i need to get back on the straight and narrow. but perhaps not so narrow as before. straight, yes. but not perilously narrow. i want to get back to fruits and vegetables and protein. i need to let go of this month long carbohydrate binge and purify myself. cause i feel stuffed and gross and who needs that? i sure don't. i need to put food into my body because it will nourish and sustain me, not because i'm bored and my fingers are stuffing it in my face. that is not to say there can not be pleasure in food because there should be, but pleasure should be more complicated than : which food has the most salt+fat+sugar in it. I need to rediscover what vegetables taste like. i need to clarify my thoughts and options.

exercise

i need to move my body. i need to incorporate exercise into my life in a meaningful way. i was thinking last night about rugby practice, how for 2 hours (non-continuous) i would exercise in a fun way--running, conditioning etc... and how i don't have anything like that any more. i don't know what i could put in its place. i don't want to play rugby again, my body can't take it. but just jogging or lifting weights or sit ups -- none of this has the fun in it the way rugby did. i need to find some fun again and have exercise that isn't tedious. i like the idea of biking to/from harcum but i need something more than that. i want to start jogging again. i need to do some weight work and ab/arm stuff. but i need to figure out a way that it will be fun, not boring. because no one does boring forever.

more later. i can't organize all my thoughts at once. luckily i have a few days to clarify it all.

thoughts

i am not an island.

margaret is visiting and she always makes me think and reminds me of parts of myself that i forget when i am alone.

she helped me (mostly just did herself) clean the kitchen so we could cook dinner and bake cookies and i realize I don't hate cleaning. it's just that when you live by yourself you have no one to answer to. and that's sort of sad because you have yourself to answer to and you're the most important person out there, really. But i have been really hard on myself and really worried about living at home cause i'm just so gosh darned dirty. but having margaret there makes me not want to leave dirty dishes in the sink. so my sink is clean now. and we baked cookies! yum yum. (i will post pictures later if any cookies are not eaten).

so i have been worried about friction at home because i am so messy. because if mom is always telling me to clean up she'll be annoyed at me and i'll be annoyed at her but margaret made me realize that maybe i won't need mom to tell me. maybe i just need to know that she would like me to clean the bowl instead of leaving it in the sink. maybe i just need that voice in my head. because i don't have that voice now.

people aren't meant to be alone. we're not hamsters. we're social animals. i can make a nest and fill it with stuff and make a home even but i have spent a long time alone and that has made me forget what living with other people is like. other people are important. because they keep you true to yourself. i have thought i was just really lazy but the truth is, maybe i am lazy. and maybe that's ok. maybe i can't keep on top of everything by myself. but maybe i don't have to. maybe living at home will teach me the cleaning and coping skills i need to keep a good house. because i have good study skills. but crappy cleaning skills. i get overwhelmed and i let everything go until until it is really overwhelming. it's how john used to be about homework (in high school). I just need to learn the ways to do things in pieces. how to plot and plan and i can do it.

i won't wallow in squalor forever. i won't. i will be ok.

puppies

checking in

i will put pictures up later (though none of poop, i promise). right now i'm listenign to the puppies chew up their newspaper. they are really growing up. they are 7 and 7.5 lbs (B and A respectively). They are so much fun but so demanding. i am glad i get to give them back next saturday because i just can't face three more weeks of evertnal newspaper changes! although i know i'll be really sad to give them up. but i'm so proud of hte job that i did with them. time for me to give them the cuddles i guess.

margaret is visiting which is fun. i don't know what we'll do today--i work and she has some homework but then we have the evening to play!

countdown until my home is de-pettified: 5 days :-(

mini retrospective

they've turned into puppies!

so today marks two weeks with the puppies. they have more then doubled in size, gotten teeth and are eating gruel. but something more important has happened in the last few days. they have started to love me. that is, they recognize me. when i walk by it's "oh please, please come in the cage" and when i climb in with them it's a mad scramble to climb into my lap.

so yes, it's nice to be loved. i raise nice puppies and i'm proud of that. i'm proud of my puppies. they're going to big rottweilers so it's very important that i make them nice. and they are. they are nice. they growl a lot but they're learning to lick my face which goes over big at the adoption center (i discovered).

so here they are: a lot bigger!

we're famous

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN1544262320070315

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=5BC0C40A-E7F2-99DF-3A7012C0EC8C51A6&chanId=sa022

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/03/16/gene_flaws_are_found_in_patients_with_autism/

on: the scale of things

Netra responded to my facebook friend request and so i got to cruise her profile and life etc... she's living a jet-setting art and musical extravaganza in india and as always it has made me and my life feel small. so i'm going to remind myself:

you can only live one life.
your life can never have as much in it as everyone else's life combined.
you must take the things you love, love them and do them.
you have puppies in the kitchen and birds at your back.
you can do this. you can do what you want.
your life is beautiful.

science!

so, bossman's paper is in the current issue of science. and there i am: in the acknowledgements! I'm famous!

final tally

i arrived home at 9:30 last night. it's now 10:17 am. i said i would go into work today. i have to shower and then go in and nanodrop samples and then come home and feed puppies and clean my apartment because DON is coming to visit this afternoon!

so: yesterday sucked. tomorrow remains unclear. but today and saturday are going to be good.

later dudes

the pies are rotten

so i'm trapped at work. trapped, like, never leaving. i arrived at 8:15 am because i was told to be here early to start early. the important package that was fedexed to us just now arrived. just now at 2:48 pm. that means i've spend 6.5 hrs at work waiting to start. waiting to start a process that we're not sure how long will take.

at around noon i realized i probably wouldn't make it home for tuesday night TV. that made me very sad. so i drove home and got running clothes and crafting equipment. i then did the following run:

it is about 2.3 miles. i came back in a much better mood. i ate pizza with my coworkers and then we had cake to celebrate patricia's birthday (arguably the worst in a while).

so then the damn package arrived. so we have to do something sometime and i'm so tired i just want to sleep.

but whatever. i have crafting stuff so during the 2 hr incubation i think i'll make bracelets. oh lord.

something for me to remember

what happened to my dangerous days?
i used to be so hot, so extreme
this year's been tough and i got so self-protective
now i'm the ice queen

so quiet
so inviolate
a castle wall without a gate
all i do is sit and wait
for my arteries to harden

middle aged at 25
imagination half alive
all alone friday night
walking in the garden

and even the trees
are disappointed to see me old
before my time

they say keep your roots above the ground
the years you lose can never be found
in evening shade there is no sound
like laughter on the merry go round

-joanna mcmeikan

i will keep my imagination alive.
i will look for friends.
i like people.
i can do things in life.
i can be in love.

they say keep your roots above the ground
the years you lose can never be found

new earrings

these are for patricia for her birthday tomorrow.

some new styles i've been trying out

puppies after eating

puppies while eating

baking pies

first: a note: the poop post has ruffled a few feathers and made people worry about my mental health. i thought i'd dispel any rumors of (increased) craziness on my end. for 2 days my puppies didn't poop and i was terrified. when they started eating they started pooping and now poop to me is a signal that all is well internally. so i took the pictures. a year from now they'll still make me laugh. but don't worry. i don't expect anyone else to find them interesting.

now, onto the title of the entry: baking pies. I'm going to talk about the shitshow of a training session we had today but instead of using oligonucleotide microarrays i'll be using the analogy of baking a pie.

so, we're these bakers here in g****lawn. we bake strawberry rhubarb pie. we have a recipe we sort of put together from an official recipe but it has been tweaked a lot. we're thinking about changing to apple pie. there's a different company that sells apple pie mix and they send 3 very important representatives ("chefs") here to teach us how to bake their pie. for 10 days preceeding the lesson emails fly back and forth

"do you have the ingredients?"
"yes, we have them all"
"are you sure, have you ordered everything?"
"yes, we're ready."

so... today the chefs show up to bake apple pie. turns out, we have been following old grandma's recipe for apple pie and not the recipe they sent us.
we have granny smith apples instead of macintosh.
we have brown sugar instead of molasses.
we have the wrong kind of blender.
we have the wrong filling entirely.
we have the right oven but we have the wrong bakeware.
turns out, we can't bake apple pie.
we're baking blueberry pie.
bootleg blue berry pie.

for a whole week we've been saying "yes, we have the ingredients you need" until today when the chefs arrive from their respective states (by plane, train and automobile) and we show them our ingredients. and they're all like "what the...!" and we're all like "huh?" and bossman's all like "i've been baking strawberry rhubarb pies for 10 years and this will work" and they're all like "we don't want to bake apple pie with your blueberry pie ingredients. we can make a tasty apple pie but we like to use good apples."

so we decide not to bake today. tomorrow the shit hits the fan. a set of baking ingredients is being emergency fed-exed to us from california. on the upside: we went out to east buffet on the apple pie company's dollar. so now i'm stuffed and ready to go home.

food comes out

i know this is gross. but i want a record of it forever. because this has been the major source of my interest in the last 7 days and 7 nights. it's really a beautiful thing. especially because the internet doesn't transmit smells.

yum yum dinner time

food goes in: puppy B (the runt) eating her gruel. while this was happening i was bottle feeding puppy A.

new weights:
Puppy A: formerly 2.25 lbs; currently 4.1 lbs
Puppy B: formerly 2.0 lbs; currently 3.0 lbs

status: rockin!

sooo big

so fast!

the puppies are growing so quickly it seems. i'm taking them to little shelter in an hour for a weight check and deworming. 1 week ago they were : A: 2.25 lbs; B: 2.0 lbs. I am excited to see how big they are this week. here are some updated pictures!

a bit of excitement

i noticed birdy's wing was bleeding this evening around 7:40 pm. I was unable to locate the broken blood feather (and thus stem the source of the bleeding). my nerves are a bit frayed... so i decided to take her to the vet. it's cool because the vet is 4 blocks from my apartment. it turned out that birdy was ok, she hadn't broken the feather off she had pulled it all the way out but i couldn't tell and it is so easy for birds to lose too much blood. the people at the vet said it was good i brought her in. i also scheduled a well-bird checkup for max for this saturday at 12:30. i don't want to short change them because i'm overwhelmed puppy-ing. and i want to get max checked out before i move home.

the truth is, i don't want to take any chances because i don't know what i'm doing and i adore her.

so here it it: Birdy's $70.00 broken blood feather.