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July 30, 2003
i got a little bit of hope / like a soap on a rope
it is a good day. more than good, it is a great day.
though, the scanning electron microscope filament burned out while i was using it this morning and therefore i got no good pictures. sigh. it is just really annoying cuz next time i can get on the sem is next week when i'll be gone. oh well, it really wasn't something that i could control. and the sem guy amuses me. he is so laid back.
patrick and i flipped the top and bottom of my chamber so my target now sits face up while my sample is suspended from the top. patrick was amazing with the muscle i needed. i had to put in my random engineering ingenious to suspend the sample. i hope it all works. the chamber is pumping down nicely, so the seals are all good (thank goodness). but we'll see when we go to outgas and deposit tomorrow.
i love when i am in such a good mood that i randomly interact with strangers. today in the locker room at the gym i came around the cornor to find two girls singing "we are special. we are special." ordinarly i would probably be annoyed at the kids in the locker room, but today they amused me and passing by them i said, you are special! and laughed.
i'm in another waiting spell. it is frusterating as i feel like i have so much stuff i want to get done before vacation (yay!), but an just going to run out of time due to timing issues. such is life.
i think i am going to break down after my vacation (yay!) and put iz on a diet. steve - she is wide. me - dude, she's a haas. the word haas (sp?) is something my sista jenny says. mmmm, i do have to say that after my excitement about seeing my dog, i am excited about seeing the fam.
my advisor wants to take us to six flags. it would rock my face off if i could ride roller coasters. i love rollar coasters. it is more mean actually, to take me to a park and taunt me with roller coasters. sigh. oh well, just reminding myself that it is better to walk than to ride roller coasters.
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Posted by christina at 4:50 PM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2003
snap her up in a butterfly net / pin her down on a photograph album
yes, yesterday was so busy. it was a hurry up and get all this stuff done so i can wait around today for it all to be ready tomorrow. my target is curing. my samples are corroding. what more can you ask for. and now i have a moment to write.
it's a great day. i am still high from the great weekend. plus i am happy that i was super productive yesterday. i slept in a tad this morning (like 30 minutes), but it gave me the time to roll over and rub my kitty's tummy before i started my day. she is so funny. she get all affectionate when it becomes apparent that i am getting ready to leave. in the morning she rubs against my legs and meows as i pack my bag for school. i think she's afraid that i'm not coming back. poor kitty.
last night steve came over to meet her and get the keys to my apartment. he is cat sitting for me while i'm on vacation (yay!) next week. but he is leaving today for dc to move his g/f up here and won't be back until friday, therefore we had to do the tour and key last night. his g/f is a big cat fan also, so it is a good match. i'm kinda worried about iz, but i think she would be way more traumatized by travelling anywhere in the car (home with me, the vet, someone else's apartment) then she is by chilling in my apartment alone for a week. she was totally freaked out by her stay are the vet for female surgery. i don't think she has been around other animal and so they freak her out. therefore my parents' house is also not going to be a great place for her, as they have two cats and a dog. though i absolutely love my dog. i am sooooooo excited to see her. and my family.
life is funny and random. i'm loving it.
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Posted by christina at 1:13 PM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2003
i'm an anchor on the line / of a clock that tells the time
the unknown band walks on stage. they play a song which i recognize and realize that it is a band that is played on my favorite internet radio station. i've enjoyed them on there enough to look them up and be able to recall the band name before they said it (graham colton). liz was impressed.
this weekend i spent with my favorite girl in the world - my college roommate liz. we saw an amazing concert in the sticky houston air. i forgot how much i love the balmy southern nights. we spent saturday waiting out rain in a tahiti bar and then the beautiful calm after the storm on a lake. the water was calm (great for the skiers of the group) and the temperature was perfect (great for the transplant southerner that is no longer use to the relentless southern heat). it has been forever since i'd been on a ski boat (or really a small boat in general), and i fell in love with the feeling of the wind on my face, the rocking of the water, and the sun's scattered rays falling from the skies. the laughter and banter with liz'd b/f and her b/f's best friend continued through a late late dinner (so late the fajita place i really wanted to go to was closed - we didn't come off the water until 8:30) and dancing at a random random club.
it was a perfect weekend. (okay, today was not as thunderstorms south of chicago closed both airports down for a good chunk of the afternoon and delayed my flight.) but really, even that can't ruin the weekend. i miss liz. we actually get to see each other pretty often as her parents live up here, but there is nothing like living in the same city -- or even the same apartment. but i do get to see her in two weeks! we talk on the phone so much that most of the time it is like we live in the same city.
i'm v. tired tonight. my bed calls my weary body.
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Posted by christina at 9:17 PM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2003
breathe in for luck, breathe in so deep
i am currently annoyed with the pace of research. patrick, one of our summer students, remarked to my lament about how long this glove box journey is taking that it does seems that academic research moves slowly. i assured him that it was all research, as i've now worked in industry, national labs, and now academia. it is much different that the pace of school. all through college you have labs and classes that because of the time frame, things get done very quickly in. even when you have the whole semester, everything is done in 15 weeks. it is very much an instant reaction time.
so, i had coffee this morning. i so rarely have coffee that it makes me super hyper. not to mention today is friday as i am taking tomorrow off. yay yay yay. i get to see one of my favorite persons. yay yay yay.
i am currently in one of those "why the hell i am not getting a phd in public policy" modes. steve's roommate is a sociology major here. it seems like they are not made to jump through as many hoops as we do. (my major complaint about this flavor of grad school right now.) they get to take classes on subjects that interests them and write papers on stuff that interests them. not that i am not interested in my research, i just hate all the extra crap. i usually take this moment to wonder what if i had stayed at tech, or what if i return to tech? getting my phd at tech would (i think) enable me to also get a public policy masters along with my engineering phd. as much as i love living in chicago (and as much as i had to get out of atlanta), i wonder if that would have been the better choice. time will tell.
i resigned my lease this week. how have a been here long enough to resign my lease? i am still all enamoured with my apartment. i love to sit in my kitchen and look through my apartment with each color of each room complimenting each other perfectly. though i am wondering if i should repaint my bedroom. the smokey blue i painted it is a little more blue than i had wanted. mmmm, not that i have time or anything, but it is a thought. a thought, today is full of thoughts.
i bought a wedding present this morning. how am i old enough to have friends getting married. friends that i knew before they started dating each other? the wedding present is perfect, if i do say so myself. and the wedding should be fun. i'm definitely not complaining about a couple parties where i get to hang with old friends and laugh. i just can't believe it is almost august.
in the hunt for the lyrics i found out that dashboard confessionals is coming out with a new cd next month. i enjoy them. but i found them. from hands down by dashboard confessionals. great song
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Posted by christina at 1:50 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2003
and instead of drowning she's drinking it in like i am the wine
work has been frustrating me lately. nothing in particular, just all the little things.
the weather today was perfect. i shall now sing the beauties of chicago. it is trying hard to make up for winter's coldness. it was a fall day. the sky was blue; the breeze crisp; the sun brilliant. the business of the gym sent my run outside. it was perfect running around the lake fill, looking down the coast to see the buildings of downtown gleaming beautifully in the sun. run up the circle with the breeze on my face, the smell of fire in the air. my workout made my day so much better.
i have a million words floating in my mind meant for a couple of venues, but i have little time. so i leave you with today's run with my apologizes for my lack of words.
hmmmm, the song line i am looking for for today's title escapes me. i heard it when i was wrapping up my workout. oh well, this is good too. it is from a new artist in my life - christopher jak.
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Posted by christina at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2003
there's a moment lost in time
monday. monday. this monday has gotten progressively better. this morning my body did not want to get out of bed. nor did it really want to function for the first couple of hours at work. it has become happier as time passed. it had random sushi with a friend as the stories of the weekend fell like rain. he went to go see phish. twice. this weekend. i have been craving sushi like crazy - hence why i broke down a got random sushi. it was fairly good - i haven't died yet. though it just reminded me how much i love sushi. i love sushi. it amazes me that i was 22 (i think) before i came to learn of the yummy goodness of sushi. how many sushi eating years i missed. sadness. the sushi i had today was a salmon/avocado roll - which combined my two favorite sushi things. tres bien.
i had the perfect first dinner after a break up at my favorite sushi place. at that point i was not so down with all the sushi ordering. i think it was my second time for sushi (though for the life of me i can't remember my first). we sat at the bar -- which is awesome becuase you get to watch the guys make the sushi. it was the perfect thing to fill the pauses in the conversation that might have been awkward. i recommenced it if you are ever in need for a perfect place for that let's try to be friends dinner.
doing what i can to help.
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Posted by christina at 9:15 PM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2003
caught up in circles
another beautiful chicago weekend. yesterday the sky was blue; the air was dry; it was the perfect weather to run by the lake. and that i did. i did the running part of my work out around the part of campus called the lakefill. it is a park type area on the lake. it has a beautiful view of the chicago skyline. i always forget how close we are to chicago. the city looked amazing against the brilliant blue water of the lake. i love how the lake is a unifying characteristic of most chicagoians.
the street run on a perfectish north/south east/west grid. the east street i take to get to school dead ends into the lake. i wait at the light to turn left to school. a perfect tree sits at the end surrounded by the dark blue of the lake and the light blue of the sky. it is a perfect image.
i like the sound of my feet hitting the ground as i run in circles. i like when lightning hits out in the water. it is cloudy and muggy today. a pretty big drop in temperatures starting tomorrow will bring thunderstorms tonight. the summer of chicago is the spring of atlanta. i like when i get a parking space in front of my building. i love iz as she lays in the window and licks her paw and rubs her face.
through a what is becoming a not so random event, i found myself at 8:30 this morning watching the british open (not by choice). it was also one of those moments where i laughed at the absurdity of the situation. really, sometimes my life is the theatre of the absurd. much of my 20s has been the theatre of the absurd. i don't know whether i put myself in those situations or if some how they are just attracted to me. but as i have gotten older, i have learned to deal with all the details better. and as i remarked this morning, sometimes all you can do is laugh.
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Posted by christina at 9:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2003
will you hold me sacred? / will you hold me tight?
that's some sistas if you are wondering. so beautiful. (can you tell i've had some down time at work waiting for things?)
"show a little faith, there's magic in the night" has been stuck in my head alllllllll day. more than that, basically the song has been stuck in my head off and on since friday night when steve proclaimed that thunder road is the best rock and roll love ballad ever. i don't know. i am pretty partial to meatloaf's i'll do anything for love. oh, oh, and don't forget (but i won't do that). the weirdest thing is that when i was all into that song, i was also all into a fabulous book. the book's story and the song are all intertwined in my memory. i think that it might be one of those cases where the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. actually, i started reading that book again last week before i went to the library. it is a freaky book and just starting it brought back all the memories of freakiness.
so, i tell myself, i should tell you want the book is called. first i must explain that i was in early high school (if not jr high - probably in 1993 the publication date of this book) and was all about the teenage horror genre. i was all into christopher pike. he wrote some adult horror novels also. this book was his second or something. the book is called seasons of passage. anyways, the book was good. is good. i still have memories of the feelings it brought. 10 years later. now that is a good book.
this tangent also reminds me of the waldenbooks bookstore in the hot springs mall. it was my main supplier of books through my jr high days. i remember how much of treat it was to go with my dad to the bookstore and get two books. i loved the smell of that bookstore. that bookstore saw the transition of my reading habits from the back teen fiction section to front adult fiction (dude, that sounds dirty). i laugh at some of the trash i use to read (ie v.c. andrews), but i read. i read almost anything i could get my hands on. i also had this huge crush on this guy who worked at the store for a little bit. it was during my ann rice phase. we would talk ann rice. i remember thinking he was so dreamy. this was also during my blond stage. he did have longish hair - a stage i never really grew out of. ; )
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Posted by christina at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2003
show a little faith, there's magic in the night
i am getting saner. i don't know what it is a function of (probably getting older), but i find myself saner than i have ever been. it is nice. i have nice adult relationships where we can say i am sorry for something stupid we might have done and know that we'll be truly forgiven and everything will truly be alright. i've learned that there are few things in life that you can control, but you can control how you deal with them. sometimes all you can say is i'm sorry, you are important to me, and let's move on. it is up to that person how they deal with it. you can't make them be okay with it, you can just hope that they will. in the case that the person is also sane (at least with situation) and understands the situation and forgives makes them even more valuable. i think the most important thing is the communication and empathize with the other person.
funny how two unrelated events in my life converged on the same school of thought - that you can't control other people, just how you react/deal with them. life is complicated. well, life is complicated when you choose to involve others in it. when you invest in others in some capacity. life gets complicated becuase feelings aren't logical and people are not completely sane. we all have our insanities - it is just how much you make others deal with them verses dealing with them yourself.
but some how, i tell those around me, it is worth it in the end. to love is one of the great joys and becuase of that we deal with the pain it can bring.
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Posted by christina at 8:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2003
well i should try to be strong
so. yes. life. random. and really, mine is the least random of some of the lives i'm a spectator for.
i am unable to concentrate on much work right now. it is more a function of having a bunch of stuff up in the air waiting for responses on stuff. i want my glove box quote dude. he said monday. monday is right now.
it was a beautiful weekend. absolutely. and the weather was perfect. saturday it didn't get above 75. the evening/night was clear and not that chilly. perfect for another roof top party. friday steve and i et al checked out our neighborhood sketch bar that we've been saying forever that we were going to check out. yes, i drink all sorts of beer now. though i'm trying to cut extraneous white sugar out of my diet (extraneous becuase, really, there are important things that cannot be cut out, like dark chocolate, i would never be able to cut it all out.) so, ironically, now that i can drink beer, i don't want to becuase all the sugar makes me feel gross. i felt more gross saturday morning becuase of all the sugar than becuase of the alcohol. so, we'll see how long this no white sugar thing lasts. it is just so bad for you. but i really like cake. and cookies. and baklava. see, i would rather get my sugar that way then from beer.
my calf hurts. it was a big debate whether or not to work out. my right calf hurt all day. saturday, mmm, night (or at least when i was sleeping after saturday, which was closer to sunday morning, but alas, details) i got a huge cramp in my calf. i think it was from walking around in my flip flops. i am not use to walking a lot in my flip flops and i think it takes a nonstandard calf motion to keep them on. and my motion was underused and got really used saturday. therefore crampage. but i did decide to go to the gym. mostly becuase i felt relatively unproductive today (function of all my pressing issues being in other people's hands). and so to salvage the day, i went to work out. i took it easy on my calf by ellipticaling the whole time instead of my usual 15 minute jog then elliptical. (trying to mix up my routine. though it is more to amuse myself that i run perfectly fine.)
now that i go at a standard time i see the same people. after a while you have some sort of interaction (like a short conversation about a machine) to warrant classification as a gym buddy that you smile and nod to when you see them. now one of my gym buddies has started to talk to me. i'm not so big on talking while i am working out. case in point - the beautiful leta was with me last week when i was lifting. i was doing chest presses with free weights when she made me laugh and i just missed dropping one of the weight on my head. so, i shouldn't talk, i usually need all my concentration to not fall off or to not drop something on my head. anyways, i walk that line between being friendly (i do like to talking casually to this guy) and between focusing (which makes me feel rude).
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Posted by christina at 8:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2003
i'm gonna clear my head / i'm gonna drink that sun
it's been a clumsy day in general.
i am very sad. i lost my FIB sample down the holes in the air table. it wasn't an important sample at all. it was just my pratice piece from this morning. i had burned some images into it - including 30 micrometer rose. it is very amusing to me. i brought it back here and was going to image it on the afm. i acaully had done what i thought was going to be the hardest part - finding the pattern spot on the wafer. i had gotten the sample back out to move it to the left so that it would line up and it came off the double sided tape. i thought, i should be careful that it doesn't drop down the holes. (the afm sits on an airtable to islated it from the vibrations of the world around it.) just as i was going to get up and get more sticky tape for it to stick to the puck, it jumped off and went down the air hole. oh well, i have my memories. and you'll just have to take my word for it. i was looking forward to imaging it. : (
here is a pretend picture, though. (it is the same pattern that i burned (though without the thank you), but burned by someone else. this is also just a image with the ion gun. ah, no i am even more annoyed, becuase i would going to do a surface plot to see the depth. oh well, another time.)
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Posted by christina at 2:53 PM | Comments (0)
i'm tired today. so it
i'm tired today. so it goes. i shouldn't complain. all i am really managing this morning is reading about the focused ion beam that i am about to get trained on and thinking about books.
i have all these list of books that npr has recommended for summer reading. (do people not read the rest of the year?) and so as i am ready for a new book, i was planning on visiting my favorite used bookstore this weekend. then it occured to me that i should see if the northwestern library has them so i can can read them for free. low and behold (what exactly is that suppose to mean?) they have a good bit of the list. so the big plans for my lunch today is to go to the library. i'm actaully pretty pumped. the great thing about the nothwestern library is they check books out to you for like 3 month (and then you can renew them for another three months, not that i have done this or anything becuase i was too lazy to get my bum to the library). so i am going to get like 6 books. that should keep me happy for a while while. yes, three months - but you can request a recall of a book someone has checked out. in fact i just recalled a vacuum science book. i know that sound sexy, and i assure you that it is.
i need some energy. i should have went hardcore with the coffee this morning instead of my usual tea. i like my tea, but coffee just gives me a jolt. (like the cola i never had.)
randomly enough, the knowledge i picked up my nanotechnology classes has come in quite handly lately. (that is back on the focused ion beam + patterned magnetic media train of thought that is also chu chooing through my head.) which i now must run to.
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Posted by christina at 9:52 AM | Comments (0)
July 9, 2003
hey can you recognize me/ i am the light of the Sun
monsoon season in chicago.
i see rain in the air that does not hit the ground.
one thing i do is atomic force microscopy. do as in in charge of our group's afm. it was a recent addition to my plate as the undergrad who usually does it is away for the summer. anyways, we are collaborating with a group down at the med school. and by collaboration i mean, teaching and letting them use our afm. they are wanting to image red blood cells. they have to be in a buffer solution. fluid is not good for the piezoelectric crystal in the microscope. it is also a challenge to engage the microscope in fluid. but some how, after just a few hours (like 8) with the afm the past week, the med student (a md phd student, sean) and i got it to image cells. well, the brilliant sean got it to image cells. i was just the technical consultant with suggestions.
so, his lab does work with malaria. and blood. they want to eventually be able to coat the tip with a ligand and place the ligand on a receptor. good luck with that i half jokingly tell him. it does not sound easy. it does sound interesting. it is a lot like dip pen lithography if you randomly know about that. anyways, so the blood cells have a pretty short life span, so he has to do the sample prep in my lab. and if you know me and blood (well, anything biological in general) it was all my strength to not get totally freaked out. i don't know why blood freaks me out. (here i am getting freaked out just remembering all the paraphernalia he had on the desk next to mine.) i give blood some what regularly. there was a time where i had a fair amount drawn. (dude. shepherd took about 5 gallons in the first hours i was there.)
so, we got an image of a cell. of course it was like an hour after we first put the sample in the stage, so it was kinda dried. But an image we did get. it is amazing how science is just trying and trying again. i guess a lot like life. you learn from your mistakes, take measures not to repeat them, learn to look for the signs something is wrong, and hopefully all the planets align and you get your sample or, in this case, your image.
i wish you could buy contentment in the mail. i am currently very content, and in that state it is hard for me to see people i love be discontent. i want to some how bottle it all up and be able to give it to them. or have some sort of secret way of being content that i can share and then people would find that contentment. but as much as i have tried, i can't. it frustrates me though -always has.
in these sane moments, i think it is a choice - to be content. you just do your best with what you are given and you are thankful for what you have. that is contentment. but i have had some not-so-sane moments in which i couldn't make the choice to be content no matter how hard i tried. so i don't know. i still wish i could somehow share it.
i want to put the recipe on a card and then fill a jar will all the dry ingredients like the cookie mix jars. so i can give it to someone and say, just add milk and eggs and cook at 375 for 10 minutes. and viola - contentment!
i am ADD with the layout of this site. whenever i come across a blog layout i like more, i always want to change to it. not as easy.
to fulfill some request - here is a pretend picture of iz.
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Posted by christina at 9:22 PM | Comments (0)
July 8, 2003
here's my amusement. now for
here's my amusement. now for you to enjoy.
: )
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Posted by christina at 5:27 PM | Comments (0)
July 7, 2003
i'm gonna keep on laughing / the best is yet to come
i work too much. not really, but as i just sent a bunch of work related e-mails it makes me feel like it. it makes me happy. today was one of those days that flew by and i had to make myself leave to go work out. (fabulous workout btw). it was a fairly frustrating day. (but not in a personal way - which i handle a lot better. i can handle machines not working and networks being down and needing to fix all of it, but it is not personal in anyway. personal frustrations like worrying about people being immature with information shared or not making it in this grad school world are much worse.) So it was uber-nice to work that all out in the gym. Besides all the e-mail i had to send (and get caught up on, i checked the e-mail briefly once today), i am pretty relaxed right now.
we had amazing thunderstorms yesterday. the great warm rain forest rain that i love to stand in. and stand in it i did. for a moment at least. there was a rainstorm much like it one time at tech. warm, hard, beautiful - it called me out into it. i left my shoes and umbrella in my room and ran around the ulc/sixth street courtyard splashing in the puddles. Then i sat in the grass and let the rain wash all of my frustrations of the day away. a friend came upon me, surprised to find me sitting in the rain. we laughed together (as it was what we were best at) and enjoyed the moment after i convienced her that nothing was wrong.
i stood in the rain yesterday for a moment. (i ran out to make sure i had closed my car windows. of course i had.) but i did open all my windows in my apartment and let the scent of rain fill it. i laid around in bliss.
i, as usual, have angst with this page. i want to fill it with something witty and/or thought provoking. but alas, i am too tired to do it and i have one more beautiful e-mail left to write tonight. i want to link you to something v. amusing to me, but you have to have access to sciece mag, therefore i shall put it up elsewhere and then link to it.
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Posted by christina at 9:54 PM | Comments (0)
July 4, 2003
open up to light / just let it flow through / my body
happy july 4! which i actually celebrated on july 3. my advisor had all of us up to his house for food and fireworks. (yes, chicago and willmetta, have their fireworks on the 3rd. cuz of rain, they say, as if it rains the 3rd, then they can do them on the 4th) what i thought i would just going to survive, i actually ended up having a good time. he has a daughter also named christina who is my age who i had not met before. we ended up getting alone well. seeing my advisor in the dad role with her reminded me of my dad. they have the same type of relationship.
anyways, christina is attending medical school in the fall in hong kong. my summer student, christy (hee, all these chris people again), is from hong kong. my advisor mentioned to christina that she should practice her Cantonese on christy. The comment coupled with an earlier conversation between christina and i about the elliptical trainers at SPAC, recalled the memory of working out that morning next to a girl that had a intro to Cantonese book. (i thought it was random then.) i asked and it turned out it was her! random.
Plus, on the small world tangent, our other summer student is named patrick. he is a family friend of my advisor. he is brilliant, majoring in physic and math at U of Chicago (not UIC). It is where Fermi taught (illustrating how good of a school it is). anyways, patrick's sister, nora, dates a guy in my class. nora and the boy met at amerhert. she is in england on marshall and is going to harvard med school in the fall. my adivosor was very amused at the smallness of the world.
anyways, the fireworks were nice. we laid in a park with lots of other people and watched them. i think it has been a while since i watch a fireworks display up close. it was warm and humid. i enjoyed letting the sound and the color wash over me. fireworks are amazing things. i am amazed at the science. i want to know more. my favorite part is when the lit ash is in the air floating down. we were behind a tree (not a problem becuase the firework were above it) but it was so beautiful to watch the glittering sparkles fall behind the tree branches - to see the light between the branches. i wish i had a camera (and the capabilities to take that picture). it was so much nicer than i had expected (i usually hate things like that becuase of the crowd factor - being that i don't usually like crowds).
yes, yes, and a relaxing morning. now i have to make a decision about the rest. yeah. i think i am going to make the choice that i know will make me happy. ah, small happinesses.
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Posted by christina at 1:07 PM | Comments (0)
July 2, 2003
time passes and it tells us what we’re left with / we become the things we do
things i have learned this week (and its only wednesday!)
1. there is a huge market of used scientific equipment out there. anything you can think of. well, almost anything, i doubt that you can get a plutonium enrichment system. but most things. so if you are looking for an scanning electron microscope for your den, i can point you in the right direction.
2. people are stupid. though i knew this, i am just being reminded big time. it is weird to me that many, many years ago someone woke up in the morning, and thought, mmmmm, i think i shall write a law banning a sexual act between two consenting adults. Who thinks about these things enough to make laws over them. it is amazing to me that many of the law have stood so long. (note: Illinois's was overturned in 1961 - so a long time before most, though then i think, dude, how could every state have enough
people with not enough to do to pass these laws.) it also bothers me that it is still not universal for everyone to be protected against discrimination (see: new wal-mart policies protect gay workers) as a women in a male dominated field, i haven't been discriminated against becuase i am female. people should be treated differently - but becuase they are individuals, not because they fit in a category. and definitely not discriminated against. i was going to write that everyone should be treated be same. but i need to be treated according to my personality. i need encouragement every so often. it falls under that category that some people operate under the assumption that they are fulfilling expectation unless told otherwise. i like to be assured that i am meeting expectations. that is how i am different.
anyways that was a random tangent. back to my angst. frist's stupid proposed amendment. jesus. why does he care? does he not have enough going on in his life? it is never going to pass. if for something strange reason it does, then i am sure that the supreme court will strike it down. it just doesn't make any sense to me. the government is suppose to protect. every job i can think of for the government can be placed into the catagory of protecting. but this is not protecting anyone. protecting people who want to marry each other from marrying each other? it makes no sense.
3. i have a habit at suceeding at what i thought i would fail at and failing at what i thought i would succeed at. maybe i just need to never have an expectations.
4. it happens.
5. check your z range. you never know when 20 nm is just too close.
6. look to the right. watch for bikers.
7. camp romances are the best (okay, this was also a reminder)
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Posted by christina at 9:40 PM | Comments (0)
July 1, 2003
It's a strange kind of high
today is one of those small happiness days.
the happiness of having a very productive day at work. i enjoy when i go from task to task. i completed a report on glove box recommendations. (exciting, let me assure you. actually it is interesting all the types of glove boxes out there. and the price range. it is amazing how expensive scientific equipment is. makes sense from a market view, but still! i just want my testing up and running and it looks like it would be 6 weeks just for delivery.) my labmates are amusing to me and we get along, but remain detached enough to be productive.
the happiness of a simple card game with people who make you laugh. steve (who lives around the corner) and i played cards last night with his roommate and his ex. (yes. random.) emily (the roommate) made us cosmopolitans and we played cinch. which i didn't think i knew how to play, but it turns out that it is a the two people card game that i use to play occasionally just with four people. i don't know what it was called then. but it is called cinch now.
the happiness of making dinner plans with people i really want to hang out with. my life is fairly random and i often get committed to hang out with people i'm not crazy about. more from guilt than random. i am working on my guilt. i am reminding myself that it is okay to not want to hang out with people i'm not crazy about. even if i feel bad in turning them down. these are the small happiness.
the happiness of laughing at my cat. she is so cute. she was playing with my worthen's wrapper (i think she like the sound of it crinkling). she looks up at me with the wrapper in her mouth. she meows and it falls to the floor and she looks so confused. it is so funny. funny like when she rolls off the couch and gets up and glares at me like i pushed her off.
the happiness of a good workout. yeah. and my favorite magazine finally started showing my in my mailbox again.
but, as life is what it is, there is a moment of bittersweet. words catch my eye. a place in a dateline. a flood of memories of those i miss, of ease of relationships i still crave.
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Posted by christina at 9:55 PM | Comments (0)