Christmas?

Apparently Christmas is coming. This year, I feel completely unprepared. Not that there is that much preparation that needs to be done on my end. I actually got most of my shopping done on "Cyber Monday," though I didn't get any actual deals, but still, that was easier than going out with all the crazy people the day after Thanksgiving. I don't like crowds...or driving...or shopping, really.

But since I did some traveling in November, I've arrived in December completely unaware of the passage of time. And here we are, halfway through the month.

I have a week to finish some things up, and then away we go. We're driving again, which I am less than thrilled about -- but if I'm lucky, this will be the last time we have to drive from Colorado in the winter.

I have to write a 10-20 (I'm shooting for 12?) -page paper on the philosophy of science. Ideally, I would finish it this weekend. Realistically, I will start it this weekend.

My research paper is UNDER REVIEW. It has been UNDER REVIEW since Nov. 25. In case you couldn't tell, I am pretty excited about the fact that the paper is UNDER REVIEW. I'd be even more excited, though, if they would actually finish reviewing it.

I used to get really excited about Christmas. And don't get me wrong; I'm still excited about it, but it just seems like every year it sneaks up on me more and more quickly. I spend too much time worrying about the time that I have to take off of work, and not enough just being content in the season.

Maybe I should put up some decorations or something.

Still alive

No, I'm not dead. I've just been really busy. Between lab work, paper writing, class, helping the TAs, and helping run a seminar series, stuff has been a little crazy.

Paper update: Submission #3 was a no-go. At least these people were a little more specific about what they didn't like about it. I didn't really agree with what they said, though. It's like they missed the entire point of the paper. Well, whatever. We reworked the paper, tried to make it sound even more awesome. And submission #4 is ready to go.

Which leads me to the question: When the heck am I going to graduate?

The things that I need to do are:
Get this paper published
Finish the second half of the project (currently in the works)
Get that published (not required for me to graduate, though)
Possibly extend the work in a third direction (which the undergrad may be able to help with next semester)
And oh yeah, write and defend my thesis

My initial hope was to get this done in the spring. But now I am wondering if that is too optimistic. I guess it's going to depend on how the experiments treat me (which was not well last week, but that's how it is sometimes). It will also depend on whether or not I can just blast through another semester without getting too distracted/jaded. Next semester should be a little easier, since I won't have a class, and my other commitments should go a little more smoothly.

I have my departmental talk in a couple weeks, which I'm not too worried about. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that a lot of my classmates won't be there, since there is a wedding the next day that some of us are attending. I myself will have to hop on a plane that evening. I'm looking forward to the wedding, though. J is coming too, which is nice, because we don't get to travel together that often.

Well, I'm off to try to have a relaxing Saturday.

Brief update

A brief update:

Paper was rejected by journal #1; have submitted to journal #2. We continue to aim high.

Last night I dreamed I was watching Urban Cowboy.

See, I told you it was brief.

The Waiting Game, and BREAKING THE LAW

We're still waiting to hear about the paper. *However*, we have not yet received a rejection letter, and it's been over a week! So that's good!

I've been exercising a lot, and feeling much better in general. Well actually, I had a pretty crappy day yesterday.

I was riding my bike home from orchestra and I got a ticket for not stopping at a stop sign. Some people have been surprised to hear that you can get a ticket on your bike. Well, you certainly can. And I'll admit: I broke the law. I know you're supposed to obey all traffic laws when you're on a bike. And that's why I always stop at traffic lights, stay in the bike lane (which apparently you don't have to do, given the excessive number of people who ride on the sidewalk here -- this still baffles me, especially when there is a bike lane RIGHT THERE), and put lights on my bike when I ride at night. I also don't listen to headphones while riding (which is illegal) or zoom through intersections without even slowing down (which I saw someone do last week). I also don't wander into the middle of the road and stand there and almost get hit by bikes (something I encountered literally one minute before I was "pulled over").

So I think I'm a pretty safe rider, but yes, there is one stop sign on campus that I typically *pause* at instead of stopping, particularly at night when there is hardly any traffic. Is that okay to do just because I think it is? Well, no. Am I still pissed that I have to pay $80 for a 2-second mistake? You betcha!

I don't blame the police -- there are certainly a lot of people around here who truly ride like idiots (see above), and hopefully some of them will be caught, too. Unfortunately, most of them have trust funds, so the fine probably isn't much of an incentive for them not to do it again.

I find it kind of funny that while my ticket was being written, the police pulled over another biker for doing the exact same thing -- and today I witnessed two other bikers cruising through the stop sign.

This also made me wonder where the money for traffic violation fines goes -- those guys probably made a killing last night.

I just saw Watchmen and it was awesome. From what I remember, it was pretty true to the book (which was also awesome). The story has some very deep ideas behind it. And the movie has stunning visuals and great action scenes. It's very graphic, but if you don't mind that, then you'll probably enjoy the movie. And there's my four-sentence review. Anything more than that, and I start to feel like I don't know what I'm talking about.

Speaking of not knowing what I'm talking about -- I'm taking a Philosophy of Science class. In fact, I should be reading for that class right now, but the reading isn't exactly...Harry Potter? I typically have to read every paragraph about 3 times before understanding what these old dudes are talking about. I would have been a hopeless, and I mean *hopeless* philosophy major. Where are the facts? Where's the data? I need some PICTURES, dammit!

So, considering the fact that the readings frequently contain words like "epistemology," "holism," and "ontology," all of which may as well be Chinese to me (although I've found Wikipedia to be slightly more helpful than, say the dictionary in these cases), and also the fact that I only need to get a B in the class for it to count for my astrobiology certificate, I won't be that upset if I don't quite finish the reading for tomorrow. We have a paper due in a couple weeks, which should be interesting. I haven't written an "English" paper since....2004? I don't even remember how to use quotations, since we always paraphrase in science.

Well, I may as well take another stab at Laudan. If you're lucky, I may brainstorm my thoughts on Thomas Kuhn on here before I write my paper. I'll bet you can hardly wait.

Yipe!

The paper has been submitted! I feel much better about things. I am tired and busy.

Lack. Of. Motivation.

So, I'm writing my paper. For *real* this time. But why am I not immensely motivated and relieved?

I am not as happy about this as I was about the original paper (the one which, it turns out, had issues). This paper has fewer issues. But is it less interesting?

We have some data that is confusing. We don't have time to write about it now. We will write about it later. It does not refute anything we are presenting here, but still:

*Is that bad?*

I am more apprehensive, and less proud of, the current work. Maybe I am just worried that this won't get submitted either, that there is going to be something else at the last minute to delay it.

In any case, I am extremely unmotivated right now. Also, I'm hungry. And I want coffee. But I've been spending too much money on food and coffee lately, so I should just wait until I get home.

It's a little after 3:30. I got here at about 11:00 today, and already I want to go home.

I guess that's a disadvantage(?) to this kind of job. If I really want to, I can go home whenever I want. But that also means it will take me longer to finish this.

I kind of wanted to go for a walk. But if I walked somewhere, I'd end up buying food.

I can't concentrate when I'm hungry.

I want to go home, but I don't know what to do when I get there. The apartment needs cleaning but I don't want to do that. I don't even want to expend the energy to walk home.

What's my problem?

The semester just started yesterday, and already I'm freaking out. This is not good.

Okay, here's what I'm going to do: take things that seem insurmountable and make them surmountable.

1. Go home
2. Eat food
3. Practice violin (audition tomorrow???)
4. Work on paper
5. Do dishes

Yes, this is incredibly lame, using my blog to make to-do lists, but that's what's happening.

Mulholland Drive

I recently watched Mulholland Drive for the first time. Since I'm at work right now, I can't really go into an analysis, as I don't have enough time. Okay, honestly, even if I had time, I wouldn't tackle it. There's just too much weirdness in there, and I don't know anything about film study anyway. I'll just leave you with this question:

Does David Lynch realize that he's making things that don't make any sense? I mean, does his work make sense to him? I wonder if I was to ask him, "Seriously, Mr. Lynch, what was with that random cowboy?" he would reply, "Oh, yeah, I just put him in there to f*ck with people." The same thing with the guy behind the dumpster. And the entire plot of the movie.

But I'm glad I watched it. I try to read/watch things that I think are (pop?) culturally relevant, or just complete mind jobs. I guess I'm a bit of a film sheep when it comes to award-winning films. But I'm okay with that. I think I need to be a little more careful of the Independent award winners though, because they are either on a different plane of existence than I am, or I'm just not getting the "message" with many of them.

I liked:
Amores perros
Y tu mama tambien

I did not like:
Bad education
Mulholland Drive
Volver

I guess working on my Spanish has led me to watch quite a few Independent films.

Even Gael Garcia Bernal (sp?) couldn't save Bad Education.

Okay, time to stall until 5 PM...

Yikes.

I was close, so very close, to submitting my first paper, and then M had another look at the data.

M: Hm, maybe this is not what we thought it was.
Me: Huh. You may be right. But maybe what we initially said is right.
M: Okay. Well just to be sure, I need you to do like 10 more experiments.
Me: Uh, okay.
M: And also re-do the experiments that were going to go in the paper.
Me: @&%*$!!!

Now don't get me wrong -- I don't want to publish something if it isn't correct. And it's better to work these things out now, rather than have them brought to light by the reviewers (and thus risk having the paper rejected).
*But* the thing that bothers me is, I was ready to have this part done, out of the way, and possibly published, and now I have to wait even more. And it always takes longer to do things than you thought it would. I just don't want to have to wait another 6 months to get this out.

Crap. That's what I get for getting my hopes up.

The Waiting Game

The first draft is circulating. I had given M what I had written, and he then took it and contributed what he thought. I guess I was surprised that he changed it quite a bit. But I suppose that's what happens when you work with someone. I still like it, but there are a lot of big words in there now that I wouldn't have thought of.

Did you know it's actually spelled "minuscule?" I always thought it was "miniscule."

Seattle was great. Everyone needs to check out the Astrobiology Rap on YouTube. Oh wait, I'll bet I can put a fancy link in here, to save you the trouble of having to search:
Astrobiology Rap

I met the rapper in the video, and he was pretty great. I'm not sure how much his material helps people to learn, though. I think his objective is more to raise awareness, but I don't know if a non-scientist would get too much out of his rap, other than curiosity. Thoughts?

Now I have to wait a while for the paper to circulate through the lab. And then once we submit it, I'll have to wait for them to get back to us. I hope they don't want me to do more experiments.

In the meantime, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. But for now, I think I'm going to cut out early and enjoy the sunshine.

Bastille Day randomness

I've been typing typing typing, and making figures, and not doing lab work, and I feel weird.

I finished my work for the day and came home and watched a movie, and it's only 7:30.

I suppose I should do the dishes or something.

I should also write the presentation I'll be giving on Friday in Seattle(!), but that can wait until tomorrow.

I am content and fortunate.

Last night I had a dream that I went to a friend's house and wasn't wearing any pants, and I thought, "Wow, this probably would look really bad to someone coming in, but really, I just forgot to wear pants!"

That is all. This is what happens when I force myself to blog for the sake of blogging.

Big, important decisions

I'm back, and I have a lot to do. The Spain trip has already merged itself into one big memory, so here I will offer some bullet points:

We had wine with lunch and dinner every day. Since I'm normally surrounded by beer drinkers, I felt very much at home.

My Spanish is not as bad as I had thought.

Paella is awesome, even when the shrimp still have their heads attached (It's smiling at me!).

I got to stay in a palace.

Red wine + coke = surprisingly not bad.

I went out almost every night; the last night, the bar we were at played Like A Prayer twice and it was awesome. I still haven't gotten the song out of my head.

On the "last day of school," my group was giving our presentation on Titan and I saw that Michael Madigan(!) was taking notes. I think that was the best part.

So, perhaps needless to say, I really enjoyed the trip. I got to meet the director of the Centro de Astrobiologia; he was really nice. And I started to think: maybe I'd like to live here for a while. Maybe I could do a postdoc at the CAB. They do science that I'm interested in, and I love the country. I'm not sure if I'll be able to live outside the US as easily in the future. So why not?

Well, there are a few issues:
1. I don't speak Spanish that well. I am 100% sure I would do fine just getting around, but doing science in another language might be too much to handle. Luckily, it seems that words like "astrobiologia" are pretty easy to translate...
2. I'm not sure that the CAB has the best possible credentials. But honestly, I have no idea, they might be very prestigious -- I need to see where they have published. But I thought about it, and I'm not even sure this is a big problem. I think the NASA Astrobiology Institute would be happy to see that I worked at the CAB. And I don't really care about anyone else. Of course, I want to have a job, and a good one, but I think being happy with your life is more important than making tons of money. And if Spain = happy, then that's what I should do.
3. I have no idea about funding. I have to look into it.

This isn't to say, of course, that I'm only going to look for jobs in Spain. I'll certainly be looking for positions in the States, too. There is one person at Harvard who I'm pretty interested in working for, but Harvard is really the opposite of Spain for me (I'd be very comfortable there, which I suppose isn't a bad thing either).

Granted it will be at least a year before I graduate, but it seems that M is really trying to get me out the door (maybe this makes me lucky?), and multiple people have told me that you should start talking to people about the possibility of working for them about a year in advance. So I think I'm going to try to crank this paper out, and then really get on it. But I'm thinking about it...

Does this mean I'm a grown-up?

Yipe!

I'm going to Spain at the end of the month!

I am also ridiculously busy!

So much for a lazy summer...but I'm not complaining.

Wedding dream

Last night I dreamed I was having my wedding. Since my subconscious is much more creative than my conscious mind, I thought I'd write down some of these ideas before I forget them.

Here are some things that I liked:
Mozart playing while people were sitting (but where am I going to find an oboe player?)
I didn't have to plan anything. Somehow it had all been done for me.
I looked pretty awesome. I was wearing a purple dress for some reason.
Courtney and Thad were there. Their outfits were pretty awesome, too. But Josiah was late for some reason.

Here are some things that I didn't like:
It was inside.
Everything felt rushed.
I didn't recognize any of my bridesmaids.
I forgot to write my vows.

Hm. Maybe this dream wasn't really about my wedding. Oh, well. I liked it, and when I woke up I was happy. Then I remembered that I probably didn't get into the Spain program, and I don't know if I can be in today's dance performance because I missed the rehearsal (not my fault -- I was locked out of the building!). So it's back to reality. It kind of made me want to start planning my wedding, but I think I need to get this paper published first. Maybe if I don't get into Spain I can go to NH and look for some good spots this summer.

I wish the sun would come out. These clouds are getting kind of old.

Stolen seafood and dying hair dreams

There was a vending machine that gave out bags of frozen food. I put in the last of my money and selected some frozen scallops or something. Then I turned away for a second, and some guy came and got some food from the machine, and when I turned back, my scallops were gone. I got really mad and found the guy (he was already eating) and asked him if he had seen my scallops. He said no, but I could smell that he was eating seafood. I was really hungry, too.

***

I went to a hair salon with my sister. They were having some kind of special where you could try all kinds of hair dyes (I've never dyed my hair, so I don't know how this actually works). In this place, though, they had a bunch of containers of hair dye and paint brushes, and you painted the dye onto your hair. First I painted mine bright yellow, which I didn't really like, so then I painted it blue. And for some reason the blue canceled out the yellow and left it looking brown again. Then I got the bill and it was something like $100, and I didn't know how I was going to pay it.

***

These seem to indicate that I'm worried about money right now, but that isn't really true. Hm. Maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happened.

Wanted: Science Monkey

Position open for enthusiastic, motivated monkey able to perform simple scientific tasks. Tasks include: staring at HPLC computer screen, staring at mass spec computer screen, freezing things, and evaporating things. Humans need not apply. Payment in bananas.

I put the "con" in confrontation.

I have to talk to M this afternoon about conference attendance and I DON'T WANT TO!!!

I can't get into the details right now but in a nutshell, I want to go to something, and he may or may not be okay with it.

I am not a happy camper.

I doubt I will be able to concentrate for the rest of the day.

Taking criticism is hard.

I got an 85 on my Mars sugar paper, and an A- in the class.

That's good, right?

I received comments from both my professor and my classmates on the paper. Unfortunately, I think my professor was a little disappointed in it.

Or maybe I am over-emphasizing the constructive criticism.

What kind of ticks me off is, I agree with most of the comments that were made (and knew that they would be made even as I was writing it), but I just didn't have enough time to fix it. I wrote the paper in a hurry and thus didn't produce my best work.

I think the reason that it took me so long was because I was treading in largely unfamiliar territory.

I guess one thing I learned was, if you're going to write a real grant proposal, you should have someone else take a look at it before you submit it. And of course that means finishing the first draft well in advance.

I've been doing quite a bit of self-reflection in my teacher training this week.

I need to try to be more confident in my own ideas.

Someone today suggested that I try practicing some confrontational-type situations with other teachers to get over my fear of confrontation. I thought this was a pretty great idea, but I don't know if I'll do it or not. It would be very, very hard for me.

Maybe there is some kind of seminar I can take on that subject...and I don't just want to get one of those self-help books...

At least I don't have swine flu.

I got hit by a nasty cold this week, and given that I had hung out with people last weekend who had been sick (and may or may not have been on a plane with a sick person from Mexico), I freaked out a little bit. Only a little bit, though, since I didn't have a fever. And wouldn't you know it, I went to the doctor just to make sure I didn't need antibiotics or anything, and they said it was just a cold. My sinuses are still kind of bothering me, but other than that, I feel okay.

I have a week-long training session this week for my teaching-leader-type job next year. I looked over the schedule and it looks like a lot of "What does the word "team" mean to you?" kind of crap. I'm trying to be positive about it, but I'm not sure how I'm going to get through the week. Maybe the reason I don't like this stuff is because I'm not very good at it. I've discovered recently that I'm really bad at articulating abstract concepts. Maybe the better you get at science, the worse you get at abstract thought.

At least I get to go to California next weekend.

Why is my Phe-UMP solution chunky? It's not supposed to be. This is worse than trying to cook.

Yup, I'm at lab again. I decided I need to work this weekend since I'll be at the training thing next week.

Everything will be better in June.

Almost done...

I'm looking forward to summer for so many reasons.

Even though my astrobiology class was awesome, it will be nice to not have to be in class at 9:30 AM two days a week anymore. I like to maintain a relatively early schedule, but some days, I could really use another hour of sleep. After our mock proposal review on Monday, and a one-page summary (which is nothing, after the paper I just wrote), I'll be done.

I'll be going to Seattle for an astrobiology grad student conference. I'll also be giving a talk there. I'm still waiting to hear about Spain. Hopefully, if I am accepted, I'll be able to go to both things, but I'm not sure if M will let me. He can be kind of weird about giving people time off sometimes. I think it will depend on how much work I can get done in the meantime, but unfortunately these decisions have to be made pretty soon...

I like the warm weather. I like riding my bike to school and not having to wear a jacket.

I look forward to dancing as much as possible, since I won't have much else going on besides lab work.

Right now I have to get as much work done as possible, since I have a week-long training session in a couple of weeks. I haven't reminded M yet. I wanted to get some good data first. This is probably not the best idea, but it's what I'm doing. The timing for this training session could not be worse; I need to try to finish this project before I go to a conference at the end of the month.

And on that note, it's off to work...

Just keep swimming.

I'm currently swimming in a sea of papers about Martian meteorites and GC-MS characterization of carbohydrates. Those things might not seem directly related at first, but what if I told you that no one's been able to figure out how ribose could have formed under the same conditions that formed the *rest* of RNA on Earth, and what if I reminded you that meteorites have been going back and forth between Earth and Mars for as long as Earth and Mars have existed? And what if I told you that no one's bothered to look for sugars specifically in the Martian meteorites that we have found?

This is a whole different paper from the previous assignment I was talking about, even though they both have to do with Mars. This one is much more massive. It isn't due until the week after next, but my weekends are filling up pretty quickly with dancing and other events that are supposed to be keeping me sane, but I have a feeling will leave me more stressed out in the end (in particular if I don't get going on this paper).

I don't really mind swimming in this particular sea of papers; after all, I chose the topic, and I think it's interesting stuff, and this will be a good exercise in writing a proposal. You could say that the water's just fine. But like real swimming, I do get tired after a while. Hopefully, I won't drown.

I had a chocolate Easter egg for breakfast today. Is that bad?

All this work would be less daunting if I were not already under a lot of pressure with my research. I was just accepted to give a talk at a conference in May (!), so M wants me to try to get our paper submitted before then. I don't know how serious he is about that deadline, but it's going to be *difficult*, to say the least, to meet it. It would be less difficult if:
a) The weather wasn't ridiculously gross outside. We're talking rain, then snow, then rain, until it's just a complete slushy mess. I don't mean to be a wuss but I just can't bring myself to walk a mile (each way) through that this weekend. And forget biking.
b) I wasn't training an undergrad. When M asked me if I'd be willing to be in charge of an undergrad in the lab, I didn't hesitate, because I remember how important that experience was for me. He's doing a good job, but it just takes him a long time to do everything, because he's just learning. And then it takes longer for me to do my stuff.
c) I didn't have this week-long training session coming up in May, which I have to do for this "leadership" job I'll be doing next year. The job itself shouldn't be too much work, but the training is absolutely required. I told M about it a while ago (I think), but I'm not looking forward to reminding him of it.

So I'm going to be ridiculously busy until...June. But usually I function best this way.

Easter procrastination

I'm supposed to be doing my homework right now. But it's not due until Tuesday, so technically I don't have to do it tonight...

But I always have a hard time concentrating when I'm in the lab, and I have my orchestra dress rehearsal tomorrow night. So it would probably be better to do it now.

Wait, I know -- if I do it in blog format, maybe I can trick my brain into thinking I'm not actually working!

Also, I'm not going to make any effort to make it sound good...

Okay, here goes:
1. Where on Mars should we look for extant life?

I'm just throwing this out there, but...how about underneath where they found all that methane in the atmosphere? It's probably not biogenic, but you won't know unless you look.

How would you look for it?

Uh...well it would have to be in the subsurface. So I guess we could drill down and take out a soil sample.

Then what?

Uh...look...for...life...in...it.

That's not very specific.

No kidding. Okay, well you could look for morphological stuff. This would probably involve sample return. And/or you could analyze the carbon content using mass spec.

Which would tell you what?

Well they would need to make some kind of biomass, right? Even methanogens need higher order carbon molecules.

So does thermal decomposition of rocks.

Fine. But maybe you could also look for enrichment in light carbon. Most of the carbon on Mars should be heavy due to escape.

2. Where on Mars would you look for extinct life?

Somewhere that clearly had water.

That's a lot of places.

Yup. Maybe Meridiani Planum then, since we talked about that in class. I need to read that paper to see if one place there is better than another (it's a bigass planum). We should probably go somewhere with hematite, which is a pretty good indicator of water.

Okay, well assuming you figure out where specifically to go, how do you look for life there?

Well this would not necessarily be in the subsurface, but it would probably have been covered by dust (which could then become rock), so you'd probably still have to dig a little bit. Then I guess you could do the same stuff that you did for the extant life. You'd probably be looking more for stromatolites than intact cells.

Well this makes your first approach seem kind of dumb. Shouldn't there be a difference between the treatment of things that are living and things that are dead?

Probably. And now I'm not sure that living organisms would survive the trip back to Earth.

How do you know that Earth life is alive?

Well, you can try to grow it. You can stain it for ATP production.

You can look for its DNA. You can look for RNA, or any number of proteins. But actually the presence of these things doesn't mean it's alive, but that it was probably alive once. Also, these things might not be a factor in Mars life.

I kind of like the idea of checking for a decrease in things the org eats, and an increase in the thing it produces. If you put methanogens in an environment with labeled CO2, and then see labeled CH4, that might mean something.

I don't think it would be very easy to confirm that something is living at the time from a remote location -- you have to either send an astrobiologist or somehow get the thing back to Earth alive. But maybe it will be sufficient to start by going somewhere where extant life is thought to be, show that is was at least alive at one point, and then go back later and do these more difficult procedures. Yeah, I think that's probably the way to go.

And now to make this coherent...

Addendum: Are there photosynthetic methanogens? Should we look for green stuff? Or purple stuff?

Showdown at the toystore, and Radical Christians Dreams

I was in a mall. Actually, this one started out like Back to the Future 2, but was every bit as confusing as that movie, so I'm just going to skip to the mall. I was either a police officer, or watching one. There were a lot of police officers in this particular mall. And it's a good thing, because there was a man with a gun, and he started freaking out, waving it around and (possibly) shooting at people.

I remember hitting the ground behind one of those big potted plants to avoid being hit. I remember thinking, "less surface area, less chance of being hit." I didn't leave, though (all the shoppers were out of there pretty quick) because I was either a police officer, or watching one.

The crazy guy ended up in the toy store (I think it was Kay-Bee). The other police officers and I followed him in. Someone pulled down the little gate thingie (that they put down when the store closes) so the guy wouldn't be able to get out. But then I thought, "That's kind of dumb. Now if he really goes crazy, we can't get out, either." So someone put in the key and opened the gate back up.

I went to the back of the room to see if the guy was hiding there. All I found was this girl; she reminded me of a bunch of different people, but mostly Eliza Dushku (sp?). She motioned to me that the guy was hiding there. But she was just talking to him, since he didn't know we were there, keeping him calm. And then I guess the other police officers went in and got him.

The whole thing was kind of scary, but not as much as you might think.

***

I was watching a special on TV, and then ended up being inside it (which often happens). It was about one of those radical Christian families, you know the kind with like 15 kids who are all home-schooled and not really allowed to interact with society (I'm going to attribute this one to the fact that I saw a clip of Oprah talking to the mothers from one of those cults in Texas or wherever; also, the mom looked like the mom from 15 Kids and Counting, which I've seen a lot of commercials for while I watch What Not to Wear).

So I was suddenly visiting the family. One of the sons was only allowed to eat pomegranate seeds (?!) because they were supposed to keep him away from the Devil.

Some of the kids were playing football in the yard, but they had to imagine they were receiving the ball from someone else because they didn't have anyone else to play with.

I went for a ride with one of the boys and his dad in their truck. We were driving through the forest. We saw all kinds of animals, and they were all really big. Specifically, I remember seeing some coyotes and a giant anteater.

I went back to the house and one of the sons offered me some cookies (they weren't allowed to eat Cheetos, but they were allowed to eat chocolate cookies). I think I took about 3 cookies. The mom seemed kind of shocked by this, but I told her it was okay, because I don't have cookies that often. Then the son took one of my cookies and fed it to his dog. I told him that chocolate isn't good for dogs, and also it isn't very polite to offer someone a cookie and then take it away.

Then they started doing a TV interview. One of my professors (N) called in to the show and was clearly very disturbed by the way these people lived (I don't know N's thoughts on religion, but I would not be surprised if he acted like this in real life). He was trying to explain to them the merits of science, to show them that all the things they explain by religion can be explained by science. But I think he got kind of carried away (he was mad) and wasn't that effective in communicating with them. So I decided to take a different approach.

I sat down with the mom and tried to talk to her. First I asked her what evidence she had that the things she believed were true, but she managed to side step that question. All I got from her was that she had been "lost," and then she met (I wasn't sure if it was her husband or God) and wasn't lost anymore. I noticed that she and I were wearing similar nail polish.

My friend J was there suddenly, and he asked them if they thought they were going to all get on a spaceship and fly away. I told him that these people weren't like that; that was a whole other cult thing.

I explained to the mom that my family was doing just fine, despite the fact that we were allowed to eat Cheetos. I told her how all 3 of the kids in my family had gone to college, how we are all doing really well. She seemed pretty amenable to what I was saying. Then I woke up.

Robot Dream

I dream a lot. Most of the time my dreams are a little odd, and often they're hilarious. I can usually figure out why I had them (I can relate them to something I was recently thinking about), but sometimes they are pretty random. I really like it when I dream about something I had completely forgotten about, or when I sometimes dream up solutions to problems in the lab (this has actually happened a couple of times!) So, at the risk of revealing the inner workings of my subconscious to everyone, I'm going to start recording some of my dreams here, mostly for entertainment value. And, since it's hard to remember what order things occurred in, I might have to put some of it in bullet format.

The first dream is one I had last night. It had something to do with the fact that I recently saw the movie Wall-E, and yesterday rated it 4 out of 5 stars on Netflix.

***

I had my own robot. It was named Wall-E and was, well, pretty much the same as the Wall-E from the movie. No eyes or facial movements, though. And I doubt it had the capacity to fall in love like the one in the movie, but I got the feeling that it was more like a dog/master relationship, where it constantly wanted to make me happy.

For example: One time I turned it on and it was low on batteries. I know this because the words on its view screen were red (instead of green), and it said that it was low on batteries. I told it (it was voice-commanded, how cool!) that I would change its batteries, and it said something to the effect of "No, I can still work." (I don't think it talked -- I probably read this on the view screen) Now that's loyalty for you. I changed the batteries anyway. They were the shape and size of camera batteries, maybe a little smaller.

Wall-E had some kind of infrared imaging system to enable it to see and maneuver around objects. Once it ran into my music stand and had a bit of a hard time figuring out how to get around it. At first I thought this was because the stem of the music stand is small, and it might be hard for it to sense the 3D nature of it. But now I'm wondering if it would be hard to get an infrared image of something that is metal (I actually have no idea what I'm talking about here).

So, what did Wall-E do? From what I can gather, it was mostly filled with information -- basically a rolling, voice-commanded Internet. With a couple little arms (maybe it could help out around the house?) and speakers. The only real task I can remember assigning it is as follows:

My mom was asked to sing at her church. She was not happy about this at all because she doesn't particularly like singing in front of people. But I think they were going to pay her for it, which made it slightly more appealing. For some reason we were in the living room at our old house (the one we lived in when I was in first grade). I wanted to help her, and I think the idea was that I would get Wall-E to play the music for the songs she needed to sing, so she could practice without anyone else around. I don't remember if she actually did it or not, but I still think it was a good idea.

Then a bunch of other stuff happened, and the plot changed to one involving a high school drama class. I don't remember much about this one, but I think this is the second time I've had a dream in reference to Hamlet 2 in as many days. And that's kind of weird, since I saw that movie a couple months ago and haven't thought about it much since (though it was pretty entertaining).

***

So, there you have it: my subconscious' relatively unimaginative vision of robots in the future.

That's a lot of data!

I just made an Excel graph with 64,000 data points. This is not as hard as it may sound, though it is, incidentally, more annoying than making one with 32,000 data points.

If you already knew this, then you are probably way cooler than I am and/or know of a much better program for plotting something of that magnitude.

And...that's the most exciting thing that's happened so far today. I am kind of in between things right now as I am waiting for a new piece of equipment to come in (it's like science Christmas!) and am not completely sure of what to do in the meantime. There are, of course, things I *should* be doing (like plot more obscene amounts of data, work on my presentation, work on my project for class) but none of those things seem particularly appealing.

I can't leave before 5:30 though, since 5:30 brings free pizza (well not totally free, as it comes at the price of listening to two talks) followed by dancing. So I have to force myself to work for another 3 hours. Yuck.

I think part of my lack of motivation stems from the fact that I knitted all last weekend (no really, the whole weekend) and haven't been able to get myself back into *production* mode. Also, I watched the entire 3rd season of the Venture Brothers while knitting, and now am left with a sense of loss and anticipation (which won't be cured until Season 4 comes out, and who knows when that will be).

On the plus side, I did manage to practice my violin a bit over "Spring Break," so hopefully I will not suck that much at my concert.

All right, back to work...

Snow day!

It is snowing like nobody's business out there. You may already know this if you've been watching the news (or are anywhere even remotely near the Denver area). The last time it snowed this hard here, it was two years ago and I was waiting for the bus to take me to the airport so I could go home for Christmas. I didn't make it to the airport until a few days later, and I didn't make it home until Christmas morning. But maybe you've already heard that story.

Today was much less depressing than that. I did have to get up and go to the lab relatively early to take care of something, but was able to make it onto campus without *too* much trouble (luckily, I live within walking distance). Once I got there, I found that they were closing the campus (which doesn't really mean anything for grad students, except there will be slightly fewer people around), so once I finished what I needed to do, I headed home.

On my way home, I noticed a guy struggling to back his car out of a snowbank. I kicked some of the snow from behind his tires and pushed while he gunned the engine. He made it out eventually. He was driving a BMW. I guess all that money doesn't help when you're stuck in the snow.

I really enjoyed my walk home, actually. Sure, it was snowing pretty hard, and walking was kind of difficult since most of the sidewalks hadn't been plowed (nor had the roads, since for some reason the city of Boulder is always *really* surprised when it snows), but still, something about it made me feel like a kid. I had to fight the urge to build a snowman, or just throw myself onto the ground and make a snow angel. But I probably would have squashed my lunch if I had done that, which I so painstakingly made and put in my backpack this morning, when I thought there was a chance I would stay at school all day.

So, what to do with the rest of the day? I thought about going back to bed, but it's getting relatively late, so I might as well just stay up. Also, J is still asleep, and I don't want to disturb him. He'll probably have to drive to work this afternoon, which I do not envy.

I think I'm going to make some coffee and curl up with my astrobiology textbook. On a day like this, I can't think of anything better.

It's too early.

I had one of those nights where you have to do something to an experiment every 6 hours or so. So I was here at the lab at midnight last night, and I got here again at about 6:30 this morning.

I didn't really *have* to do it this way, but I wanted to get this last piece of data in before my meeting with M.

It's something I've been trying to do for some time, so I'll be pretty ticked off if it didn't work.

On the plus side, I spent about 4 hours dancing last night, which was pretty awesome.

It looks like this weekend I will be able to stay home. Next week is "Spring break" (which I put in quotes, because really, the only way grad students know it is happening is because things are slightly quieter on campus), so I should be able to get a lot done.

I really want to get this paper going. Hence the frustration and late nights.

Sorry if this is somewhat incoherent (see today's title!).

New blog GO!

Here is my new blog. I am not going to update right now as my sister is visiting and I want to be a good "hostess." Also, I'm trying to finish the first Harry Potter book. Until later...