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September 29, 2003
feel my chest when i look at you
just breathe. such polar feelings now days. but i am so happy that it seems like even the major stress of work can't get me down.
another fantabulous weekend. busy, busy. well. mostly. friday night i saw an amazing show at this cool jazz club downtown. that night wasn't jazz, but more guitar. the first group, Las Guitarras de España, was this 10-12 piece ensemble. they did world music (no english songs). it was lead by the guitar and surrounded by all sorts of drums, horns, saxophone, two vocalist, and a spanish dancer. it was so cool. the second group was Andreas Kapsalis Quartet, who was leta's guitar teacher. it was him on the guitar with two background percussionists. it was so amazing. it lasted later than i expected, so i didn't get to my second destination for the night, an apartment warming party, until almost 2. it was really good, the little i did participate in. i love the - we've heard a lot about you - greetings. it amuses me. of course i always tell them not to believe anything bad they've heard, just the good stuff. it is cute. i also totally geeked out in the corner with two new friends over the wired article on man made diamonds that i mentioned hear a while ago. (yeah, i should mention that this was a nondept'l party. there was only 3 science people there (me, a med student, and a CS), the rest being history or theatre or something majors.) of course, people laughed and pointed at our joy in the science. but i loved both spectrums - the science and the nonscience.
yay for the cubbies! i actually listened to the games. yeah. me. baseball. one guess why. ; )
saturday night a good chunk of the girls in the department went out for a girls night out. we had margaritas and mexican and then went to this really swank longue/club (where we were on a list. i've never been on a list!) to listen and to dance. it was really fun. i do love to dance. especially with my two favorite girls in chicago. i really am loving getting to know steve's girl jen. steve and jen make the perfect couple.
steve who made me laugh so hard this morning. besides being so happy that people want to slap me, i then just about died laughed in the hall after diffraction.
i'm a very lucky girl. though work sucks a lot. which is a bad combination with my current giddiness. so it goes. off to look at small things that don't seem so small to me. : )
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Posted by christina at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2003
breathe in for luck / breathe in so deep
you're happy, he said as more of a statement than a question.
yep, i'm happy, i replied.
you were happy two weeks ago; you've always been happy, he continued.
yes, i've always been happy, i said with a smile to my reflection, i'm one of those inherently happy, hopeful, and optimistic people.
the smell of rain fills my lab. yum
i'm already tired of depositing B4C. and i'm only on 2 of 10. though, beside babysitting my chamber, it has quit being a pain.
i need more words for my science.
i need to quit overthinking things and just be. effortlessly be.
i am v. excited it is the weekend. though i got my weekend wish early. lots of plans this weekend, though that was my week also. i have not been home at all except to sleep lately. i did run through and make cookies yesterday for kitty's defense, which is at 3. this week at work sucked, though today it got better with some affirmation from my advisor. this week my socail life rocked as i got to have dinners with some of my favorite people and go to meet some new ones.
mark, my old labmate and rock star crush, move back to wisconsin yesterday. we got to have dinner tuesday. he'll be back next week for kitty's farewell dinner, but he is still gone. : ( the two of us could talked for hours about the most randomest stuff. he could make me laugh so hard. i'll miss him. but i'll always have his band's cd to remember him by.
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Posted by christina at 2:34 PM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2003
My stomach's filled with butterflies
Stories like this make me really glad that i live in the us. it is scary. i wish there was something i can do. i wish i could change the world. i wish i could make everyone happy.
i'm trying extermely hard to return my zen self and trust that work will work itself out. the worst thing that happens in i decide to just get my masters. that isn't that bad. everything happens for a reason. always has in my life. sometimes when i get really stress, i pause, breath, and remember that i can deal with anything. anything. i'm walking. walking. i'm running. i am perfectly healthy. i came to close to walk away, you know. i can handle anything.
helps that i have help. helps that i have help that doesn't associate any of my worth with science.
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Posted by christina at 8:46 PM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2003
in a little while i'll be thinkin' about you
Word of the Day for Wednesday September 24, 2003
deus ex machina \DAY-uhs-eks-MAH-kuh-nuh; -nah; -MAK-uh-nuh\,
noun:
1. In ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced by means
of a crane to unravel and resolve the plot.
2. Any active agent who appears unexpectedly to solve an
apparently insoluble difficulty.
ironic.
amusement
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Posted by christina at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2003
you can't love too much one part of it
this is been one of those days that i just need to crawl into a bubble bath. it remains a truism in my life that when one part of it is going great, the other part is going to suck (ie work). but i do have steller dinner plans tonight (thai, yum) and leta just made my whole afternoon with a tres amusing e-mail.
now i need to concentrate and write my advisor about a glove box that is too small (not our fault), the machine shop that is stupid (again not my fault), some focus on a project i have to present in a month, and an outline for the extended abstract i have promised him by the end of the week.
and classes start tomorrow. and i have to keep reminding myself of that fact so that i remember to go.
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Posted by christina at 4:54 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2003
like walking round with little wings on my shoes
sometimes, when i read stories like this, i wonder where people in CA's perspective is. where us as a country perspective is. the article is about children getting some strange disease in Sudan. A sentence of how Merck donates medicine to then touch off a tangent on prescription drugs.
people complain about the cost of prescription drugs. i complain about the cost of prescription drugs. i foresee it being a major issue in the next presidential campaign. the Illinois government is looking at purchasing drugs outside the country where drugs are cheaper.
drugs are cheaper outside our borders because we pick up the cost of the research and development of these drugs. people wonder if it is fair. i say yes. (of course i'm a big socialist.) it all goes back to the tenant of we have much, so we pay much. people question if this is fair. i question the issue of fairness. i think the first world countries should pay the same price we do for drugs. but third world should not. the people that live there can't even afford food, much less the basic of medicines. it all goes back to the thought of why just because we have money (or just simply were born in the us) do we deserve to live longer/healthier lives? it applies to the social-economic system here in the untied states. Medicine should be something that people do because they love it and are good at it, not to just make money. what if we made medical education free? so that health care would not be so expensive. it would be hard to get in, and only the people with passion and talent would achieve at it.
and in my self diagnosed blog clicking obsession (ie following links in other people's blogs to random people's blogs to more random people's blogs) i was reminded what not getting personal is in my journal. i was describing our college friends ring of blogs + the group blog to someone wednesday. i commented that i don't get personal in my blog. he questioned, then, wouldn't i be leaving out a big chunk of my life. i conceded that i would be, but today i realize not exactly. yes, i never discuss my dating life here (except for this sentence), but other than that i am pretty open. i want to share my life and my thoughts with my friends. i think what i mean by personal is i don't try to convey messages (passive aggressively) to other people that i might think read my blog. if i have something to say to say, chris, i'm not going to hint around here. i would just call him up and say, dude, stop being a stootyhead, instead of writing here, someone is a snottyhead and i wish they would stop. i don't know. i'm not saying it is a bad thing, it is just not how i want my journal to be. and i would say that none of the blogs in our ring (or even in my normal reading list) do that. (ie with this i'm not trying to passively aggressively say that someone is doing this. : ))
anyways day of random tangents. which is random, because it is also day of me spacing out.
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Posted by christina at 3:52 PM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2003
bouncing around from cloud to cloud
fabulous weekend. tired today. definitely worth it.
went out dancing with some mat sci peeps on friday at a club downtown. one of the girls had won a party and so we got in free and there was an hour of free drinks. it was good, but fridays at 12:30 i am dead tired.
last night i got to meet some more nonscience majors. i am fascinated by nonscience majors. since high school, i have basically been surrounded by science/engineers. i am loving getting to meet these nonscience types.
being tired made my jog short and ineffective becuase i just couldn't concentrate on anything. now is the push of staying awake until a reasonable time to go to bed. i think i am going to rework my schedule a little to get to school earlier. with classes starting this week, i need to figure out how to fit it all in.
i shall take this pause in conversation to admit that i am a blog addict. not to my own blog, but to reading other people's. i have a lot of small chunks of 5 mins that is perfect for reading blogs. i read like 10 blogs a day. (or at least check them). yes. i am random. but i like reading them. i probably only know in person half of the people i read. judge me if you will. i don't care.
why are there firework sounds going on outside my window?
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Posted by christina at 8:14 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2003
i want to see the end game
how is john mayer so freakin' big and scotty still writes the road journal on the website?
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Posted by christina at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
i've been pacing and retracing / every step of every move
it is cold fall day in chicago today. the promise of fall is in the air.
kitty, my labmate, finished her thesis yesterday – printed and turned in. she defends next friday. i’m excited for her, though sad that she is leaving.
it is a full day of depositing (8.5 hours). i will be so glad when i get this boron carbide films out of my life. it has now taken way, way longer than it ever should have to make these films – as most things do. in undergrad, when something would take way, way longer than planned, it would take hours or maybe even a day longer. now it takes like a month longer. life is slow with a vacuum chamber. any time i change something, it takes over night to pump down to a good base pressure. i think/hope/pray that i will be done with this at the end of next week.
i dreamt last night that i was an astronaut about to go into space. strange only because i have negative desire to be an astronaut – mostly because i am borderline claustrophobic. in the dreams my family was there to send me off with tears (and mixed cds) as i asked if i had made the right decision. it was random.
i fell yesterday – not an aberration for my life, but i did twist my ankle when i fell. (i’ve gotten so good at falling that i rarely hurt myself). i walked it off, and my ankle seemed okay the rest of the day (including through my 3 mile jog), but today it is tender. i guess it is a good thing it is my off day for working out. though i am going dancing tonight, so hopefully it will survive.
i am so excited that it is the weekend. the days pass quickly, but i still am excited.
i want to be closed with the federal government.
life is random, funny, and beautiful.
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Posted by christina at 9:48 AM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2003
don't let your life pass you by
I went to high school with Michelle. I did not know her well, as she was Jenny’s age, therefore a year behind me in school. Our high school was small, and so I did know her. She died Sunday in Fayetteville, AR, where she was attending law school. There was no obvious cause. I think they might know more today. It is sad. It makes me sad when I think about it. Court summed it up best though. “It makes you think, you know. I doesn’t matter how I spend my money or what I eat cuz today might be my last.” I don’t have much to say about Michelle, but I just wanted to share her a little, for her to live a moment in your mind as you read this.
and it makes me want to call my sisters.
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Posted by christina at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2003
just take me away
it has been one of those days that i have no idea how it passed so quickly. all of the sudden it was the end of the day. but i did get lunch with steve (the usual early week weekend recap lunch). and an hour in the beautiful afternoon chatting with leta.
mmmmmm. happiness. excellent.
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Posted by christina at 8:15 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2003
the ocean wrapped around the sun
i love the rain. it doesn’t rain much here, i have found. it especially doesn’t rain warm, enjoyable rains. saturday night (er sunday morning) it did. i was out late dancing. (wow, do i love to dance.) it was raining when we left the club. it was a warm rain. probably the last of a season. i love walking in the rain. the three of us must have been quite a sight walking through the street soaking at 4:30. leta lives in a lofteqse apartment on the top floor. it was so nice to listen to the rain fall on the roof and to fall asleep to the sound of the rain hitting the roof. we slept in and the laid around watching mtv real world / road rules and eating bagels until i absolutely had to leave so i could get everything i needed to do yesterday done. the whole evening was really good.
Very interesting quote from a story from the ajc–
“Candler quoted the Apostle Paul, who said there is neither male nor female, slave nor free in Christ. ‘I'm willing to say that there are neither straight nor gay in the kingdom of God,’ he said as members of the crowd broke out into applause.”
interesting new site/e-mail service– “The daily dispatches will take a "Just the Facts, Ma'am" approach -- no rhetoric, just a couple of paragraphs we'll email each morning on what the President said and why it was misleading or untrue. It's our hope that by doing some of the research for the press corps, we can ensure better coverage of President Bush's lies.”
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Posted by christina at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2003
i wanna be great
it is funny how little i see of other people in my department – especially now that i am not in classes. i see the people i hang out with, but other than that i can go for months without seeing certain person. it is funny, though, how there are traces of everyone – names on log in sheets and reservation list for instruments the department shares. it makes me smile when i run across a name i haven’t connected to a face in a while. and i wonder how they are doing.
in other news, i want to quit grad school, more than usual. the main thing holding me back is me not wanting to move. and on some level, it is just simpler to ride this wave of unhappiness. jen’s comment about giving quals a chance reminded me that i am not alone in my grad school unhappiness. (though i know lots of people here that join me in the angst.) but i do note that the majority of them are girls. i’ve never been one to look for institutional bias, but this fact makes me wonder. maybe guys just don’t like to admit that they are unhappy (for fear of actually having to deal with that emotion), but girls have to admit it, because we have to deal with our emotions.
just read - the no. 6 longhorns lost to the razorbacks, 38-28. dude. that’s awesome. not that i really care about football - especially nonTech football, but now that the sista, rachel has started there, i’m going to at least be a little interested.
la la la. crazy.
okay, just as i was about to finish i realized that i should have mention the tech beat ranked auburn last weekend. there. done.
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Posted by christina at 5:06 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2003
and in your waiting hands / i will land
on figuring postage
tip: One ounce is approximately equal to four sheets of paper plus a standard envelope.
research interesting
a gooey brief on the theory of hardness, which is has to do somewhat with my research. (it's short and layman friendly. gotta love science writers.)
on running around the lakefill
instead of being distracted by dogs (like in my neighborhood), i am distracted by planes (as northwestern is in the o'hare flight path), waves (it was a windy day and the sound of the wave hitting the shore was perfect), and people sitting on the rocks watching the forementioned waves. and the white stripes do not make good working out music.
on target
dude. the todd odman (?) dorm room stuff half price clearance rocks my face off. as does the new spell check feature on blogger.
on films that are not my research
sigh, once again i am unable to please everyone.
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Posted by christina at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
September 9, 2003
it's this picture that's my favorite memento / of a lifetime I survived
the cycle of things are work are as i get one system up and running again, something else pops up to worry me. the good news is that i am finally getting useable films from my chamber, ed. and i'm inheriting, larry, his bigger, two target cousin. he's much bigger, and hopefully won't need as much babying, but we'll see.
this weekend i was late enough one night to want to take a cab home. i'm standing on the street corner looking at the numbers on the street to make sure that i am on the right side of the street so the cab doesn't have to turn around to get to lakeshore. the moment i realize that i am on the correct side, i look to the street to see a cabbie slam on his brakes for me. it is like he read my mind. (though i have to say that i enjoy the raising of the arm to flag down a cab.) the cabbie was so random. usually they don't say much (which is good cuz the few times i've taken a cab in chicago i have not been in a chatty mood), but this one was all questions. and i had had such a great night i was all chatty (actually not that amazing for 3 am). i answered his questions about what i had been doing that night and what i was doing in chicago and where i was from. he told me it was a slow night and pointed out a car coming up an exit ramp on to lakeshore. (!) thank god we had already passed the point where it would enter the highway the wrong way. we hoped that the driver would realize his mistake and turn the right way before plowing head first into someone. the cabbie amused me greatly as i got out of the cab, he said - i'm going to watch you go in, there are a lot of assholes out at this hour. i laughed, said that's why i took the cab, and thanked him.
it reminded me of all the cabs we use to take in dc. my roommate, the beautiful becky, could and would (and i'm sure still can and does) talk to anyone. it was one of the things i loved (well, love) about her. we would take cabs home every weekend night as the metro stop running at an unreasonably early hour for out and we always had at least 2 of us, if not four. it was a flat twenty from the part of dc we hung out in to the part of va that we lived in. she would have the most random conversations with the cabbies. once she tried to hook one of them up with one of our other roommates. another one she harassed for talking to his girlfriend on the phone when she found out he had a wife at home. and i would laugh.
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Posted by christina at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)
September 8, 2003
. . .
i woke up to music today. (i usually wake up to morning edition.) a song played, a line struck me. (i was in that state between asleep and awake.) i wanted to remember it forever. (i forgot it promptly.) i wanted to put it between the brackets. (instead, only the blankness it is.)
we sat on the steps late into the night - lots of words with wine and cigarettes . (it reminded me of tech - of nights spent in random conversation.) we talked about everything - she being a reflection of me and i of her. (i've missed those late nights outside - hours spent in conversations with friends.) we laughed - first at each other, then at the people walking by, and finally at the truck going the wrong way. (i miss the stillness of the tech campus at night - and the beauty of a walk with a friend.)
lots of conversations this weekend with various people. (new people, not-so- new people, all beautiful in their own way.) a gift of music. (the cd and the memory of we'll save australia's one great show will have to satisfy me now forever.) work is busy. (i spent saturday afternoon adoring my plasma.) the days are shorter. (it was dark when i got out of the gym at 8 today.) fall is coming. (the promise of cold annoys me.) my bed is calling. (the end of a book is near.)
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Posted by christina at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
September 5, 2003
a trail of ruby red and diamond white
today's amusement from my advisor -
As a student pilot, I was taught to deal with any problem in flying using the acronym FADD: (1) Fly the airplane; (2) Assess the problem; (3) Decide what to do; and (4) Do it. Nowhere in this routine does it say panic or hope that it will go away. I think it is the same in research. Don't laugh when I say "hope that it will go away". Many years ago, Prof. Meshii told me that one of his students had a problem with the equipment and didn't do anything about it for several days. When Prof. Meshii asked him, he said that he hoped that somehow when he turned on the machine each morning, it would work - talk about wishful thinking.
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Posted by christina at 4:37 PM | Comments (0)
interesting theory on extinction out
interesting theory on extinction out of northwestern
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Posted by christina at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)
September 4, 2003
and it's a great day to be alive
so, i am back on my rant about gay marriage. Or just marriage to me. i don't understand why it makes a different who is getting married - whether it is a guy and a girl, a guy and a guy, or a girl and a girl. this isn't just because a have a fair amount of gay friends who i adore. putting my personal feelings aside, and just looking at it from a logic point of view - the ban does not make sense. i do not see how other people's marriages effect me at all. the basic question for me is why are so many people trying to control something that doesn't have anything to do with them nor effects them in any way. whether you agree with homosexuality (which is a whole another rant about how it is someone's business to agree with it or disagree with it), or not, why do you care if they marry each other. it just makes no sense why people even care.
the back of my tea bag package promises to add sunshine to my day. but really the day is amazing because ... dum, dum, dum ..... i fixed my plasma problems. yay me! i figured out that my main problem was arcing of the plamsa - which can have many causes, but my experience seemed to point to two - nonconducting places in my chamber or the magnet array being off. i gave my chamber a nook and cranny cleaning and also checked and changed around the magnets. and waited a bit for the chamber to pump down. (while steve and i played with the gauss meter and then went on a hunt for the flamable storage locker of the chem stock room which was quite the adventure.) then pumped in some argon and put on my power and la la la beautiful strong purple plasma. happiness is strong purple plasma at 5 mTorr. here's some pics of plasma. this is kinda what my plasma looks like. today, i heart my plasma.
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Posted by christina at 3:19 PM | Comments (0)
September 3, 2003
it's just the same hard candy / you're remembering again
there was like twelve hundred things i heard on npr this morning that i wanted to talked about here. but, of course, i can't remember them all now.
on Paul Hill execution.
this story reiterates my opposition to the death penalty, even in cases like this. this case illustrates some of the problems with the death penalty. first, this man is a very bad man. (how he can think he is going to receive a reward in heaven is beyond my powers of understanding.) he deserves to be put away for a long time. but, instead of letting him have the rest of his life to think about what he has done (and hopefully at some point repent), we are killing him. we are giving him what he wants - martyrdom. we are making him an idol among the extreme anti-abortionists. now it is feared that there is going to be some relaxation for his death. people who kill for religious reasons want to be put to death. and people in the future are not going to be detoured from killing because the threat of death. isn't that why we have the death penalty - to discourage other people from killing? isn't a life in prison a much worse sentence for the person receiving it? people say that his killing abortion doctors is hypocritical - to kill to stop something the killer thinks is morally reprehensible. are we not doing the same thing? we kill to stop killing.
how is it our decision who should die? not to even mention how many wrongful convictions there are.
um, why are there hearings being held on the black out? really, does congress have nothing better to do with its time? (which, i know that they do now that it is appropriation season.) yes, the blackouts were inconvenient and somewhat costly (in the way of perishable food spoilage). yes, i think the dept of energy should look into the events that caused the blackout and take steps to minimize the future occurrence. but does congress need to have hearing on them? it isn't like it is someone lied to the world about wmds. it happened. get over it and get back to funding the running of our government people.
georgia has been all on my mind this week with an npr profile of the ga congressman that use to be the mayor of macon and today's new york times article on the mayor of atlanta. i remarked once to a friend that i should just get involved with georgia politics and go from there. maybe i should.
yay for kitty, my officemate, who just finished all the stuff for thesis. wow. ever feel like you have a million directions to go in, but none of the momentum. yep - that's work for me right now.
yay for great friends though.
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Posted by christina at 3:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 2, 2003
lets rewrite an ending that fits / instead of a hollywood horror
yesterday it was so cold in my lab i thought i was going to die. i had a lot of clothes on and was huddled around my tea for warmth. i turned up the room control to 80, and so today the lab is the perfect temperature (well, not really. but at least i don’t think i am going to die.) it was a good day as no one else was in (it was labor day) and so i got to turn up npr and listen all day. and dance to the music. yesterday morning after morning edition (instead of 848), they had a program out of new orleans with good southern music. it nice. and i danced.
today is the first day of school for chicago schools. it makes me miss the excitement of the first day of school. i always had the outfit picked out. it was exciting to see everyone that you hadn’t seen all summer. the first day of school was like new year’s day (and the first page of a journal). in that moment – one wonders what kind of stories will fill the blank pages of the year. i miss that. today i am missing high school – the friends, the cadences, the small dramas. my high school life was so innocent.
on that topic, i saw a great movie on friday – thirteen. it was v. intense. i recommend it. it is about a 13 year old girl who gets caught up in the “fast lane” as it was put. [the new york times has a couple of great articles on this – skin and beauty.] it scared me in relation to having kids. i wonder how i am going to protect them from the world. i look back on my childhood and don’t see anything specific that my parents did to protect me. it was more the twists of fate that protected me from the drugs, alcohol, and sex. but maybe it was my parents’ unconditional love that kept me from seeking those things. hmmm. i don’t know. all parents can do is the best they can, but mine (and those of my high school friends, though actually my friends in general) seemed to do a pretty good job. i guess the thought i come away with is that you can’t always protect your kids – you can just try to protect them. and love them. it worries me what i am going to have to fight against.
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Posted by christina at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)