so it snowed last night, and then it got really cold. so the sidewalks and streets are perilous this morning... but it's really pretty! the forecast is for it to get up to a whopping 33 degrees today, and down to 19 tonight. brrr! 6 people showed up to my first class (usually, there are more like 20 or 30) and seattle schools, uw tacoma, and uw bothell all had classes cancelled today. but not us. grr.
pictures later today, or tomorrow, once i get them uploaded. it's icy!
someone in my building put in an unsecured wireless network. hallelujah! now i can spend all hours of the night watching a four-year-old play the drums. my life is now complete.
ah! but i could also see the new harry potter trailer. tasty.
i could probably even ramble in my good old trusty blog about stuff that's going on in my life, you know, like a blogger might do. like all the projects i have for school, or how the research is going, or how stoked i am to hit the slopes on friday.
instead, i am going to do the sensible thing and go to bed. with any luck, this internet will be here in the morning. (woohoo! i mean, don't steal internet!)
but first, here's one never before seen on the internets...
so, another week down. i'm confused; the weeks keep flying by, without my permission. this was the 5th week of the quarter, meaning that autumn quarter, which seems to have just begun, is actually half over. according to my countdown widget, i have 218 days until graduation. that's not so far at all.
le sigh. how does time keep going so quickly?
1) it's thursday. this means friday is tomorrow.
2) LICK tonight.
3) cute girls at LICK tonight.
4) kate bornstein before LICK tonight.
5) the rain. i know, i've changed my tune since yesterday, but i was prepared for it - i'm wearing my galoshes (galosh, galosh) today.
1. rain. not so much that it's raining, but more that i was stupid and decided to wear my pumas instead of my rain boots today, and now my feet are soggy and will undoubtedly smell like shit when i finally get home and take off my shoes. this is unhelpful in the battle against fungus-feet.
2. other people. from the annoying girl who always sits next to me in one of my classes and proceeds to talk through the whole class, asking me questions about stupid shit and not getting that my silence means that she annoys me, to the people who flood into the classroom for the next class at 20 after, when we're still packing up our tons of stuff and trying to get the fuck out. this is especially annoying in classrooms that have just one entrance. people, just fucking wait two fucking minutes.
3. the fact that i'm going to be here until at least 7 if not 8 trying to get my fish counted, lysed, and into a water bath.
4. a stupid fucking study abroad fair in mary gates commons. if i can't study in MGH between classes, where the fuck am i supposed to go? that's what i do... i go there for an hour and get work done. so i'm sitting on a motherfucking bench in johnson hall, instead of at a nice table in MGH.
5. my mary gates scholarship essay. it doesn't seem to want to finish itself.
6. a certain other undergrad who may or may not be in my lab. his very existence annoys me sometimes. what will annoy me even more is if his bullshit proposal gets funded and my real research does not.
7. the fucking plug on my stupid computer. it's getting more and more difficult to get it to stay in. i hope i'm not killing my power cord by looping it under the computer like this; if i have to buy a new power supply i'll be out $80 (thanks, apple!)
8. i'm sure there's more. i just need to get back to that fucking scholarship essay, as it's due on friday at 5PM...
yeah, yeah, so i never blog anymore. i think it's mostly because i don't have internet at home, and most of my rambling writing comes after 10pm. so i've been filling up paper journals at an unprecedented rate, but my blog is being neglected.
things are going... this quarter is shaping up to be fucking nuts. only 3 real classes, but that's misleading, because i'm also taking a seminar (for credit/no credit, but still an assload of reading) and 5 units of research. found out today that i can only take 1 more unit of research to count toward graduation... oops! i think i can still take units to count toward being a full-time student for the next 2 quarters, but they just can't count to the 180 credits i need for graduation. not that i need any more credits.
only taking 3 classes was most definitely a life-saver... but most of my work this quarter is not for classes, it's for research. but the next 2 weeks are deadline-packed, for classes and non-class stuff. let's take a look:
next monday, oct 16: physiology midterm
friday, oct 20: mary gates scholarship essay due
monday, oct 23: not one but TWO midterms: development and biochem
at least my first set of midterms aren't all on the same day this quarter. in fact, neither are my second set: those are m-w-f of the same week. not terrible; not ideal.
i'm feeling pretty good about biochem. it's interesting material, and it's much more intellectually stimulating than the last quarter of o-chem was. man, that instructor was shitty. but the prof we have for biochem is at least interesting and knowledgeable about the subject... almost makes up for it being at 8AM. yuck. that's going to be rough come december.
development is another story. the professor is literally crazy. and he's swiss, so his english isn't 100%, and so you're left wondering what he is trying to get at every time he says something. yargh. at least i know and like the TA in the class, and trust her to not grade unfairly. anyway, that's the big wild-card in my schedule this quarter. it's an interesting class, i just feel behind since i don't have the "recommended" prereq and the testing seems to be largely based on hypothetical experimental methods. bleh... i'm sure i'll survive.
anyway... just a quick update from the life of kat. no, i haven't died; i'm just internets-deprived.
this is the elevation i slept at last night: 14,242 feet. 4341 meters. REAL fucking high.
we left shortly after lunch yesterday, packs loaded up, and headed up the mountain. 
from left to right: cait, jenny, charlie, amy, me, and steve g. we're standing in front of barcroft lab, our home away from home, at 12,470 feet. note the address above the door: 5150 is the police code for someone who is criminally insane or a danger to themselves or others. we're all a bit nuts up here.
so we set out around 1:50, and arrived at the summit hut at 4:30. (well, that whole group in the previous photo didn't make it up at the same time, we split up along the way, but steve and i arrived at 4:30, making it a 2:40 summit. not bad time.) 
here's a view of white mountain, from near the observatory just above barcroft. the hike is approximately 4 3/4 miles, start to finish... with a nearly 2,000 foot elevation rise. i think this may have been the hardest thing i have physically ever done. but it was SO worth it.
here's me, about 3/4 of the way up, with the summit in the background.
the building you can barely see is the summit hut, our tiny little home away from home away from home. it has 4 bunks and a stove, and a workroom, and little else. there were 12 of us spending the night up there, so we were 2 to a bunk, with some people in tents outside (boy, i'm glad I got a bunk! it was freezing!) but it worked out just fine. unfortunately, my lame camera batteries died shortly after arrival (should have taken fewer pictures on the way up, but whatever) so it'll be a while before i can get pictures of the rest of the day. needless to say, the sunset was spectacular, the stars were even better, and we had a blast.
i'm stealing this picture from sciencecenter.net, because it's the closest approximation i can give you to the view we had from the roof of the summit hut last night after the sun set and before the moon came up. i honestly don't think i've ever seen as many stars as i saw last night - and the milky way stretched across the entire sky. several of us climbed up onto the roof, where there is pretty much no man-made light, and snuggled under a few blankets, huddled close together because it was SO DAMN COLD, but it was 100% worth the cold to see the stars.
this picture is a composite stiched together from probably 100 pictures taken by Axel Mellinger, partly here at Barcroft. widely regarded as the best picture of the milky way ever taken. ok, so our view wasn't quite this spectacular, but we could definitely get the feeling of being extremely tiny in the galaxy as we lay there, 7 of us snuggling as close as possible, watching the stars, the satellites, and the shooting stars (we counted 23 in our time on the roof). definitely one of the best, if not the best, night of my life.
anyway, more pictures will follow, once i get them from other people. in particular there's a group shot of the 12 of us at sunset on the summit. for now, it's time to get back to work on my paper (oh yeah, this is a class and we have to do "work")... barcroft out!
ok, just a few more pictures before i log off.
an old bristlecone pine at sunrise
said sunrise
it's hard to believe it's been five years. and that means i missed my five-year bloggiversary not too long ago. anyway, a moment of silence in memory of those who died, and another in memory of those civil rights and liberties we are continuing to lose as a reactionary result of that tragic day.
.
anyway, back to happy stuff. i'm here at barcroft lab, near the summit of white mountain, and i feel like i'm getting acclimated to the altitude here (12,470 feet; 3800 meters). it's been interesting: getting into and out of bed, climbing a flight of stairs, just walking 50 meters up the road can really knock the breath out of you. but i'm making some great new friends and having a fucking blast, and i really wish i didn't have to leave this place on thursday.
tonight a bunch of us are walking up to the summit (14,247 feet; 4324 meters) and spending the night up there. (theoretically. i am still reserving the right to turn around and come back down before bed, but i figure if i don't at least try to sleep up there i'm going to regret it.) there's a hut at the summit with a few bunks, and even if i don't get a bunk (or a bunk to myself) it's still out of the wind and cozier than sleeping in a tent.
anyway, without further ado: some of my pictures. (more here.)
here's me in front of a bristlecone pine; unfortunately, not the largest one in the world, which is right behind this one. these trees are fucking amazing: they live to be 5000 years old and are the oldest known living organisms. they're pretty cool too because they can die off parts of the tree while the rest keeps on living. pretty amazing adaptation to the harsh conditions up here.
here's a taste of the scenery. like being on the moon.
anyway, more pictures from the summit hike to follow... barcroft out!
so brian and i went to bumbershoot yesterday, and a good time was had.
rogue wave was pretty boring, so we went to find food, and then got ourselves a good spot for Of Montreal.
let's pretend we don't exist... let's pretend we're in antarctica!
they were pretty good... they sure know how to rock out, and i just love their music.
but the highlight of the day was by far and away LADY SOVEREIGN.
this girl knows how to throw down the rhymes. mad skillz. and shit.
all in all, it was a good day. i'm thinking next year it's all about the 3-day pass and spending all day each day there. since there are some killer acts today and monday and i'm mad that i couldn't afford to go more than just one day. but it was definitely mad fun.
There's been stuff going on that I haven't been talking about in this blog, just because of the sheer lack of anonymity that it provides and the potential embarassment that could result. This isn't a permanent condition; it's a process. That and a terse, obliquely-worded e-mail from my mom regarding some information found on my myspace profile. Evidently, it isn't okay to share the innermost thoughts of your mind with the world via the internet. Except me, I think that's exactly what the internet is for.
There was an interesting article in this past month's Discover magazine on the paradox that is our neverending demand for personal privacy at the governmental level and our seemingly universal desire to share the most mundane experiences of our lives with the world at large. The author, Douglas Rushkoff, argues that there are larger forces at work. The phrase "incipient group meta-being" from his article sticks in my mind, even though I read it several days ago and haven't gone back to it. Anyway, it's an interesting read, and I think he's onto something.
In my newfound freedom from academic life, I spent today on entirely cerebral pursuits. I went down to the U bookstore and picked up two books: the first, a seemingly thick tome containing the abbreviated biographies of the women who have won Nobel prizes in science. As a woman who aspires to the sciences, I figure it's essential reading to find out what my predecessors, my fore-mothers, have accomplished. There are some fascinating stories, and some over-reaching themes. "She was different. She seemed more like a boy than a girl at times." I'm not approaching that book in a linear fashion, I'm more flipping to a story and reading about a particular woman who changed the world. So far I've read about Irene Curie, Barbara McClintock, and Christiane Nusslein-Volhard. As I read more, these women become my heros. I will need to update my myspace profile accordingly.
The other book I picked up is a bit more radical... it's called Genderqueer, and it's basically about postgender theory. I wholeheartedly subscribe to this theory, and you'll probably be reading more about this as the ideas ferment in my brain. The overarching theme is that gender is an outdated concept, created to subjugate one sex and exalt the other, and that it is at its heart nothing more than an illusion, a construct to allow other people to be able to fit us into one category or the other. A truly enlightened person sees no gender, while still acknowledging that yes, we are a sexually reproducing species and any new life requires both egg and sperm, and while the vast majority of people have "plumbing" to fit into one of two categories, the reality of the fact is much more complex.
Anyway, that's just a random dump of the information floating around in my cerebral cortex today. And by publishing it to this blog, I give it to you, my friends, family, and random people who don't know me. These are my thoughts, and they are now projected into the digital realm, which may well outlive me.
So now there's just one question left: what is my place in all this, what will my biography in a future version of that book say, and what will my Nobel prize be for? (Hi, my name is megalomaniac.)
have you ever done something so incredibly stupid, i mean unbelievably, insanely beyond belief retarded, and then watched how the events unfolded to an irrevocable end replay themselves over and over in your head?
browsing craigslist -> "ooh, inline skates. fun." -> purchasing said skates -> "i'll use them as transportation!" -> "i'll use them to get to the lab!"
this train of thought led to putting most sensitive, delicate, important piece of expensive machinery i own in my bag, strapping it to my back, and lacing up the brand-new skates. off i start, down the sidewalk.
um, i don't know how to *stop*. oops. the little foot-brake doesn't seem to do shit. fuck! fuck fuck! i'll go out into the street, get a little sideways action, maybe then i can stop. no, then i go careening out into the street, arms and legs akimbo, only to land on my ass - surprisingly not-hard.
duh. that's 'cause my computer cushioned the blow.
D'OH
in retrospect, it all seems so unbelievably clear how bad an idea that was, and i suppose it could have been much, much worse. it's just a little out of kilter now - one corner is pretty dinged in - the corner with the power plug. at least the screen isn't broken, and the dvd drive appears to work, and the DVD that was inside didn't shatter, sending little plastic knives into the innards of the laptop. but now, the power cord won't stay in the port - it'll still *plug* in, but it pushes itself back out because of the odd new angle of the case.
jesus fucking christ. can you believe that i could possibly be THAT STUPID? (maybe if I bang on it with my head it'll fix itself.)
well, now august is in full swing, and all i can think is "fuck! where did the time go?" summer quarter ends next week. woohoo! bout damn time i'm done with this fucking organic chemistry bullshit. a plethora of swirling emotions. i just noticed tonight, as i was packing my bag to come out to the chai lounge to get me some internets, that i am exceedingly OCD about the things i bring with me when i leave the house. i mean, this must be in that pocket, that right there, everything in the perfect spot. i'm incurable. i'm also really set in my morning routine. alarm goes off, hit the snooze button once or twice (but not more than that), get up, put on the kettle and scoop the coffee into the french press. stare at the wall until the kettle whistles. make the coffee. stick the bagel into the toaster. when it pops, grease the bagel. Consume both bagel and coffee, with soy milk. get in the shower. get out. dress. pack bag, leave house. tomorrow, this routine will be disrupted.
i'm doing a treadmill test tomorrow, for the seminar i'm taking this month. the leader of the seminar tells me to prepare to feel like an astronaut. i'm all about that. i'm hoping for electrodes and a breathing machine... something tells me i'm in for an experience. except evidently you can't have breakfast or coffee before a treadmill test (don't wanna think about why) so i have no idea how i'm going to get to and stay awake in o-chem before... bleh. oh well. life goes on!
the crew compartment's breaking up.....
been awhile. i guess there's not too much to report... it's been a lazy summer, unremarkable thus far. i've been spending as much time as possible at the beach and swimming, while the weather is so nice... lake washington has reached a VERY pleasant temperature and is far, far too tempting to resist. the temperature has mellowed out after a few days of unpleasantness (tempered, of course, by long, frequent trips to the lake), but it's still warm and sunny. got to savor this while it lasts.
i think i'm going to go feed my fish, take some pictures of them, and then go... study on the beach. i'm working on "bum" status.
well, the moving thing is over with and i am well on my way to getting settled in my new apartment. woohoo! it's so nice having my own space... my own kitchen... my own bathroom. i'll post pics when i get a chance, but since i have no internet at home it might be a while.
in the meantime, i'm uploading some pics from my trip and the last few weeks on flickr. might take awhile to upload though, since i'm trying to upload 25 images... yikes.
the 2004 election was stolen.
i've said it before, i'll say it again, but here, ladies and gentlemen, we have what may indeed be the last word in an ongoing debate on salon. i haven't read the primary literature, but based on what this guy says and what i've heard elsewhere, the election was fucking jacked.
duh.
how can we export democracy to other continents when it's so badly broken here at home?
ok, i almost NEVER honestly laugh out loud while i'm on the computer. i feel stupid laughing with no one around. but this one made me srsly lol omg. wtf.
Jessica Simpson to Pamela Anderson: "How did you guys run so slowly in the show's opening scene. You know, where you're running down the beach?"
so suddenly it's june, and the year is almost half over. it's been 4 months and a day since the breakup... already it feels like more than that, except for the fact that i haven't yet found another meaningful relationship. i think this is the longest i've been single since before karl, in 12th grade. but on the plus side, it's given me plenty of time to think about who i am and what i really want in a relationship. more on this later; i've come to some conclusions that may surprise (some of) you.
on the academic side of things, spring quarter is coming to a close disturbingly fast. tomorrow i have an exam and the last lecture of the quarter. the days really are flying by... i feel like they're about 20 hours long. kind of ridiculous the way the weeks have been melting away. i'll be graduating in about 9 months, which feels like a long time, but really isn't, especially when i consider that 9 months ago was september. fall quarter. bio 200 in the auditorium in smith hall, standing around in the rain. rain, rain rain. that's what the past 9 months have been... and it's what today is. it's been a soggy winter.
revisiting a lot of old favorites as mellow study music... lamb, faithless, the nip/tuck soundtrack. good stuff. i think i might listen to baxter tomorrow... there's good rainy-day music.
in 3 months i will have my 5th bloggiversary. i think that makes me one of the longest-running bloggers on the internet... though there are several months in 2003 and 2004 that have very little activity, the blog has never died. and i plan on keeping it alive for the forseeable future... no sense killing something that's got such a streak going.
how have i survived 23 years without ever tasting the crunchy deliciousness that is skippy crunchy peanut butter? ok, i'm definitely feeling the guilt over the partially hydrogenatedness, but mmmm! yum!
i came to the realization yesterday that almost all of my protein comes from soybeans and nuts. actually probably all of my protein for the last few days. i haven't had chicken in weeks, fish in about a week, and beef in i don't even know how long. instead i'm eating tofu, edamame, cashews, peanuts, and the like. weird. i seem to have unknowingly become a vegetarian, but while i'm at it, why the fuck not? it's cheaper, plus i get to be all morally high and mighty and stuff. though i'm not going to stop eating fish or other seafood, because really, i can't convince myself that wild-caught salmon shouldn't be eaten every once in a while. (aside from ecological/over-fishing concerns that is.) on the other hand, it's easy to argue that imprisoning cows in a factory and slurping their juices out with mechanical suckers is cruel and shouldn't be condoned.
i wonder what the limiting amino acid in soy protein is.
don't let your homies join the army
i've been thinking a lot these past few days about our duties as citizens, and just how fucked up our current political situation is. we've got a president here who doesn't believe in the ideas of checks and balances, and is stepping over laws left and right, keeping us thinking we're fighting some real enemy that's a threat to us, feeding us bread and circuses, while he and his cronies send our friends and families off to die for some ridiculous lack of a cause. it is seriously vietnam all over again. the only difference is, this isn't 1970, it's 2006, and it's been more than 60 years since we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, so not that many people are still alive that remember what a truly horrific thing nuclear weapons truly are, and we're not screaming "NO!" loud enough. i am fucking dead serious here when i say that we, the left, the youth, the future of this country need to have a plan for if it looks like bush is going to drop the bomb on Iran. because we will not stand for that. nuclear weapons are an abomination on this planet, and if we can't vote this bastard out of office (it'll be interesting to see what happens next election... how many counties will have touch-screen voting machines with no paper trail?) we have to shut down his administration. with riots and rocks and serious civil disobediance.
if we don't bring the troops home now, what's going to happen in the next 3 years?
wednesday, may 10, 2006. probably one of the most stressful days of my life thus far. two midterms. not one, but two. and my grandpa had fucking open heart surgery. needless to say i didn't sleep much last night, which probably has something to do with my complete lack of energy today. but, i made it through the 2 midterms (though i spontaneously started crying during the first one, when i got to a question that i didn't have a goddamn clue about), and grandpa made it through the surgery too. phew. doesn't mean it's all better though, since i'm pretty sure i fucked up the invertebrate zoology midterm, which means i'm going to have to dedicate myself more fully to the final project, whee. i hope i did okay on o-chem though. sigh. we'll see. sigh.
sigh.
happy hour gone wrong. (ok, so i'm just posing, and it was a fabulous happy hour. how could it not be, with christopher working?)
today in physiology we talked about corn as a "marker" to discover just how long it takes for things to traverse your digestive tract. and i learned that no matter how old i get, i'm still not mature enough to not giggle when the teacher starts talking about rectums and sphincters. especially sphincters, in fact. the word is inherently hilarious. asphinctersayswhat? SPHINCTER! did you know that we actually have two anal sphincters? one is smooth muscle and is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. the other is skeletal muscle, and is, thank god, controlled voluntarily.
let me be (surely not) the first to say it: this class is a load of crap.
this was about 8:15 this morning, on my walk to class. almost enough to make it worth being out of bed.
how the fuck did i live 23 years on this planet without having heard of tegan and sara? i feel like i've been deprived of something important my whole life. i literally can't stop listening. most new music you listen to once or twice, and then you put it down for awhile lest you get sick of it. but i've had the albums "if it was you" and "so jealous" on repeat for the last FIVE DAYS and i'm still not sick of it.
in other music news, fiona is coming through on july 3rd... fuck if i'm going to miss that!
oh, and the yeah yeah yeahs show on tuesday was a fucking blast. it was a little out of hand for awhile there, but it seems like no one got hurt (ok, i got a little bruise on one arm) and everyone had fun. i left my camera in the car unfortunately (or fortunately, because with that crowd it might have "disappeared") so i don't have any pics. let it be said, though, that karen o is one of the best performers on the planet, and i have to know how she can scream for so long without losing her voice. maybe it's just a lot of practice. or maybe she's an alien. yes, that must be it.
wagh. i keep writing posts and then deleting them, for some unknown reason. the words just don't want to form right now. not much is going on, anyway, in the tangible universe. just a lot of cerebral activity this weekend. i think i need some zazen.
i should be going to bed, but instead i'm blogging and having another handful of white chocolate chips ohhh man these are good. plus i don't have to get to class until 9:00 tomorrow. today my invert zoology class took a field trip to edmonds, where we hung out on the public docks in between all the rich people's boats, and laid down on the dock and stuck our heads over the edge so we could see the critters living underneath.
my favorite invertebrate phylum is echinodermata.
it was awesome to see all the little spineless critters hanging around... this starfish was one of the biggest we saw, but the tiny ones didn't photograph quite so well.
it's really hard to take an in-focus photo of things that are underwater.
other than field trips and such, things are going awesomely well right now. i think i'm going to boston in june, which i'm totally stoked about. after much deliberation, this afternoon i bought one of these (in silver) - it should be here at the end of the week - and a helmet to match. it comes "some assembly required" but after reading through the directions on the website it looked more like an hour's worth of work than a job for a licensed mechanic, so i decided to just go for it. i'm pretty excited - i've been wanting a scooter for a long time, and the price was reasonable.
anyway, now it is bedtime.
via broadsheet.
news flash.
tom delay is basically fucked. dick cheney is up to his elbows in this plame game. bush authorized the leak of classified information to judy miller. massachussetts passed legislation requiring (and providing for) all citizens to have health insurance. they're building a brand new abortion clinic on tribal lands in south dakota.
today has been one of the best days i've had in awhile. which isn't to say that the last few days haven't been great, because they have. i don't know what's going on, but i've been riding a high for the last 2 or 3 weeks. a lot of it is probably spring. tomorrow is finally april, which means we've hopefully said goodbye to low 40's and rainy. it's been a dreary winter.
but the last few weeks, i've just been feeling better and better about my life, and the way things have gone recently. i'm enjoying the freedom that i have now. i need a stick to (selectively) fend off the boys. academically, things haven't been this good since high school. and i'm doing original research. today i figured out something that no one has ever known before.
let me repeat that. today i figured out something that no one has ever known before. how fucking sweet is that? it was all me. brock helped, but it was my pcr, my gel, my dilutions, my dna pools, my pipetting, my labeling, my eye that spotted the missing band in the mutant fish.
i think i'm going to name it pinball wizard.
for some unknown and ungodly reason, i've been up for an hour. what? when do i wake up, ready to go, at 5:30 AM?
i've been reading metafilter and dailykos, which i don't read very often, but they do seem to be a trend indicator of the "netroots". which is where our next political movement needs to come from. they seem to be big supporters of feingold, which i think i can get behind.
the crucial moment though, will be midterm elections in november.
finals week is always so disorienting. no classes, but it's not really spring break. i ought to be studying. so i just replaced the battery on my ipod. after having had the replacement battery for almost a month and trying repeatedly and unsuccessfully to dissect the damn thing, i finally figured it out. you just gotta jam a tiny screwdriver or three in between the metal and plastic casing, prying the metal outward and off. connecting the battery took a little fumbling, but i managed to cram the new, slightly larger battery with its slightly longer cable into the case no problem. i was particularly impressed with the hard drive, though - it's like the size of a credit card! but anyway, that's done, and now my ipod is charging, and it will play for 18 hours. and life will be good.
i think i have a plan for my little sunroom. i'm going to build a false floor with some plywood and cinder blocks (or something like that) and put in a bamboo mat. ideally i want a tatami-like thing, but i looked at those online and they are hella expensive. i'm thinking bamboo beach mats or something. that way my kitty won't be able to escape from that room, and i can leave the inside door open when it's hot and sunny. i need to do something about the mold, though. damn mold, ruining everything.
"...we tend to easily blame others for our suffering, and we can justify it because maybe other people are mistreating us or exploiting us or don’t understand us or are doing dreadful things to us. We’re not denying that, but we make nothing of it any more. We forgive, we let go of those memories, because taking refuge in Sangha means, here and now, doing good and refraining from doing evil with bodily action and speech."
from. Long, but worth a read.
it seems like things are mellowing out, which is nice. classes are winding down. all i have to do for 355 is finish up our project and present it. and that is well under way. after that, it's just 2 finals - chem and bio 220. both of which i intend to ace. or at least come close.
we get to use a note card in chem. i mean, come on. i've had trouble with this feature in the past, since i tend to scribble out my notecard the day of or night before and never know what to put on it, but this time i'll plan it out and get it just right and be able to totally pwn that test.
and on bio i will actually READ the questions and the answers carefully. i hate it when i make stupid mistakes. someone got a perfect score on the last bio exam and i hate them, i will hunt them down and make them give me their grade. or something.
hopefully my gpa won't take too much of a hit.
this weekend: moving! whee!
and a tickle in the back of my throat reminds me of the chorus of hacking coughs that accompanied the lecture this morning in bio 355. suzie gave me some "airborne" which is supposed to be one of those supplements that helps ward off colds. i'm hoping it does its job, because week 9 of the quarter is a shitty-ass time to get sick.
i'm getting really fucking sick of my classes this quarter, too. bio 220 ceased to be interesting and started being just boring when we switched from animals to plants. oooh, plants photosynthesize. no fucking way. i dunno. i'm not a plant person. o-chem is still marginally interesting, which will cease next quarter because the guy who barely speaks english and had a stroke last year is my new professor. he's easy, but you don't learn, is what i've heard. and today we had our last real lecture in bio 355 - wednesday is a quiz, and next monday and wednesday are the expo for our projects. it'll be nice to have that class totally out of the way, though i think i blew my chance for a 4.0 with that last quiz and discussion paper. but then again everyone did bad on those and so maybe i was still ahead of the curve. who knows.
ochem test and bio quiz on wednesday. bio presentation next wednesday. two finals two thursdays from now, and it's all over.
at least we're studying stereochem in ochem right now. that's one of those things that either you get it or you don't, and i get it. i can rotate 3-dimensional objects in my brain and distinguish between stereoisomers pretty damn easily. i'm hoping this helps me dominate the next test like i did the last.
aside from school, my project for this week is to paint my new room in my new house. and then move in. and hopefully my new housemates were not hiding psychopathologicalities. i just made that word up.
"He hates his children, he treats his wife like dirt, he gets high all day."
kevin federline is the most pathetic excuse for a famous person ever. at least paris hilton looks cute (/slutty) on camera and has a bunch of money. K-fed is just a stupid lazy mooch who doesn't shower. Eugh.
craigslist is down. this is annoying.
so i started watching grey's anatomy tonight, at the suggestion of several of my friends in bio... fuck me, this show is awesome. it almost makes me want to go to med school though... actually a lot of things have been making me want to go to med school recently. i know, how fucking weird is that. i have NEVER wanted to be a doctor, ever. but the last year or so it's been one of those recurring random ideas. i don't know if i can do it, if i'm capable of it, but i think that i could give it a shot, right?
and i know it's nothing like it seems on tv. if it were like it is on tv i'm not sure if i would want to do it. man, that show makes seattle seem like a fucked-up town. and what the fuck is wiht having the hospital right at the base of the space needle? and the aerial shots "look, we're in seattle! hey guys, this show is set in seattle! did you notice the space needle there? this is seattle!" bah. there's no hospital in seattle center.
evidently the northwest has dire need for pediatric neurologists.
OK, so I guess yesterday wasn't a complete waste. between a few well-timed myspace messages to and from semi-random people (I guess everyone else gets lonely too) and some much-needed chocolate from brian, i went to bed a lot happier than i started out.
I still haven't got my fucking paper review that's due tomorrow done... gah, this thing is kicking my ass. I keep writing and writing and then I realize that I'm only half done and it is 550 words and the word limit is 500 and I don't know how to cut it down! fuck! i am tempted to just leave it until tomorrow afternoon, but i know that's a bad idea since i only have an hour to take care of stuff before it's due. fuck. fuck fuck. i haven't had this much trouble with one of these reviews yet, but this one is by far the most info-dense paper we've had to read (no one else i've talked to even read the paper, much less *understood* the damn thing) and we're supposed to summarize and critique in 500 words or less. Fuck.
In other news, I'm going to look at an apartment/meet a possible roommate on saturday. I would rather find my own place, but I figure it's worth a shot to see if we get along, since $400 is cheaper than $535 and my parents can only give me $750 a month, total, and i have bills and bills and i have to eat, you know, small stuff. blegh, why is life so stressful right now??
today is the worst day of the year. it's like a day for everyone to say, ha ha, kat, you can't manage to keep a man happy, instead they all fall in love with your prettier friends and ditch you, leaving you with nobody when you need somebody. i started crying on the way home from the bus. valentines day is the stupidest, shittiest holiday in the world and i hate it.
and now, just in case this might be pertinent to anyone reading this: 10 reasons why you should never accept a diamond from anybody.
blaaaaah.
i've gotten up earlier both days this weekend than i did at all last week. saturday i had a volunteer orientation at the seattle aquarium, which was pretty cool. it's a bit of a time commitment but it should be fun... talking to kids about sea urchins and stuff. plus once you've put in 100 hours then you can move into the more behind-the-scenes stuff like animal husbandry or diving (if you're certified, which i'm not, but maybe someday!) so i'm pretty stoked about that
and then today i hit the slopes like a madwoman. i took the huski bus to stevens pass, which i'd never been to before, but it was pretty sweet. stevens is not a beginners mountain, and there's exactly 1 green run on the whole thing, but i didn't even start on the green, i started on the blues and was kicking some butt the whole time! go me. i was linking turns and going onto my toe edge even on the steepest parts, bombing down the slopes. it was rad. also i got to go in the singles line, which made lifts way faster. and also since it isn't a beginners mountain, there were very few snowboarders sitting on their butts on the slopes clogging it up for the rest of us. in fact parts of it were quite empty and the snow was beautiful and the weather was awesome but i am sunburned.
i'm thinking about going blonde again. i'm getting kind of sick of the redhead thing.
on another note, trying to find an apartment fucking sucks. i waited outside this one place for 20 minutes today waiting for the manager to show... only to find out that they didn't have keys to the unit they wanted to show. also, the place was way the fuck out there, by magnuson park, not in walking distance of anything to speak of. *shrug* a bunch of new places have come onto craigslist in the past few days though, so hopefully i'll be able to find a box or maybe even an apartment with a bedroom that i can call home.
living on my own should be interesting.
i'm tired and i'm lonely. being alone is hard on me, it's never been my strong suit. at least i have frida, and for the moment i have suzie and zoe, but at the end of the day, i'm the only one in my bed and that's tough for me to deal with. i'm having a hard time telling if i'm depressed or not, too. i know i was last week and the week before that, but now that the sun's out things are a little better. though things are at the same time not better at all.
i know that time will help, but right now i just really wish i had someone to hold me.
my head is full of tons of thoughts that just can't seem to come unclogged. i guess it's to be expected. it also dawned on me that if you look back on the archives of this blog, the times you'll see the most entries, and certainly the most real content, are while i'm not currently in a relationship. i think that i start self-censoring at some point. but anyway, i don't need to censor myself now.
or maybe i do. there's still so much that i haven't sorted out for myself, so much that i don't want to talk or think about for awhile. i've wrapped my brain around some very difficult concepts the past few days, concepts that i've been denying for awhile. being in a relationship does change you in some ways, makes you less fundamentally "you". for so long i've been jared's other half, part one of two, what have you, that i feel i really need time to discover the rest of me. like what i do when i live alone. i mean really alone, not in my own room in a dorm.
i think it could be interesting.
i also really, really want one of these.
apologies for the last post. if anyone actually reads this anymore.
anyway, in case you weren't in the loop, it's been a rough fucking week. i swear, it's the weather. we haven't seen the sun in like 3 and a half months. we're probably vitamin D deficient or something, but we are all going nuts up yonder in seattle. i think i've been depressed for awhile now, and i know jared has. and we've finally decided on some things that are going to make things better.
first of all... i've realized that i need to be out on my own. i have never lived by myself; i've always relied on someone else to share in the duties of keeping a living space. i think it's high time i try that out, even if it's only a box with a kitchen at one end.
second, i've realized how important to me school is. it's a goal i feel i lost sight of a long time ago... probably somewhere about halfway through my senior year of high school, looking back... but i really am loving what i'm doing now (in a way that i haven't felt since i was back in mccormick's AP chem and bio classes), and i'm pretty damn sure that it's what i want to do. i also have decided that while i'm where i'm at, i'll be able to do what i want to do living alone better than i would living with jared.
and then, as weird as it sounds, i think that the way that jared and i have felt about each other has been slowly changing, even though we might not have been completely aware of it as it was happening. and it's probably not something i need to go into detail about, because these things will sort themselves out in the end. but let it be said that i'm moving out, and moving on, but i know i have friends no matter what, and that's what matters.
plus, i want to marry john dorian.
