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August 27, 2004
and I will wait to find / if this will last forever
“you’re like a real scientist.”
Last night ben and I had dinner with a couple friend of his (and how it goes, mine now). We picked up burritos on the way over. The four of us sat outside on their deck in the most humid night so far this year chatting and laughing. They have the cutest dog – a boxer English bull dog mix. They just moved into this apartment in Lincoln square. It is a cool 3 flat, which is a house that has three floors – each an apartment. It has a backyard for their doggy. And the people below them on the second floor have a cute lab mix that gets along fabulously with their dog. I just kept laughing about how their apartment came with dog for their dog! It is a great find as they take care of each other’s dogs. Seriously, their dog is so ugly it is cute. And just cute in general.
They also just got engaged. Well, not the dogs, but the couple. It is strange but not. They’ve been dating for about 1 year 8 months. When we brushed away their offer to pay for the food, the guy laughingly said that they’d reciprocate when we got in engaged. I just laughed. Am I that old and that much into a relationship that that has become a possibility? I am that old. I am that hopeful. But I am still in that stage where it is, well, month to month. I was just going to say day-to-day but we are definitely past that to the month to month. Especially since we’ve just started watching The Sopranos on dvd. Ben is already hooked. I was commenting on the commitment we just made to like 5 seasons of the sopranos. crazy. It is perfect as we can watch an episode a night before bed.
Anyways, the whole point of the story is that at dinner the girl was asking me about science stuff and I was explaining stuff to them that they had heard on npr and at one point the guy said, dude, you’re like a real scientist and stuff. He follows it up with a well, I guess so since you are getting a degree in it and stuff. It was quite amusing. Though the conversation just made me all annoyed at the bush administration for cutting research money in fuel efficiency (where it would help now) and putting it in the pipe dream portable fuel cells (ie for cars).
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Posted by christina at 1:36 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2004
there I am in younger days, star gazing / painting picture perfect maps
So yes, I’m a slacker. I know that it has been forever plus a day and you’ve been waiting anxiously to find out how much money ben won in vegas. Ha ha ha! No matter how many times I explain to him that it is improbable to win gambling, he still does it. In fact, he says, he sometime hears my voice in his head as he lays a bet explaining that it is improbable. Gambling falls into the most addictive category – random response, random intensity. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that theory here – somewhere I heard that a study done one rats with food illistrated addictive behaviors. I should find it instead of trying to paraphrase it.
Anyways, Ben survived vegas. I had a good weekend. Went to see the Macharien (sp?) Candidate with Tom. It was good. Went to a bon voyage party for a friend. She is moving to France for a 2 year post doc. So cool. Ran lots of errands (including two trips to the airport). And watched a lot of sex and the city. All in all good weekend. I’ve finally got use to being alone and Ben comes back. I am so glad that he is back, but there is a couple days breaking in time where I get use to spending all my free time with another person.
Speaking of paraphrase, I e-mailed Becca off the cuff yesterday about her comment about transparent alumunium and she posted by response. I double checked today
And I was correct in my knowledge. Electronic band structure is what defines metals, semiconductors, and nonconductors. How light is reflected, adsorbed, or transmitted is directly relateded to the band structure. Therefore the band structure that defines a metal to be a metal can never transmit light. A ceramic can. Though really, if you read the link, it does point out that few solids are really transparent. Glass, if you recall, is a liquid.
One of the things that drive me crazy in science are mutually exclusive research, ie transparent aluminum. The most talked about example is putting carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in things to improve the bulk properties, ie putting carbon nanotubes in plastics for enhanced mechanical properties. The reason that carbon nanotubes are so strong that all of the bonds are bonded to other carbon atoms in the network, therefore cannot bond to other materials. If one figures out a way to get the CNTs to bond to a plastic, than it would not be bonded in the carbon network in the CNT and therefore the CNTs’ strength would be decreased.
I will take a moment and sigh about how much I love talking about science. And how sometimes wish that my b/f would, you know, be interested in it. But alas, that’s what I get for dating a history major. His other qualities more than make up for it.
La la la. The week has been just normal. I currently really hate being a girl (instead of hating a little). (Not that I would want to be a boy, there are just things in general I would not like to deal with.) Work is okay. I’ve taken lots of pictures of water drops. (Yay for Tom who found me a pipetter, totally made my month in the work world!) I should go continue analyzing those pictures.
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Posted by christina at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2004
over and over and over again
Whew. Crisis averted. Boyfriend home.
The harper’s + 1 all arrived home safe and sound this morning at 8. I’d been awake since 6, up since 7 as it was like Christmas and I just couldn’t wait to see my boy. Of course, they were all a wreck as it is a 9 hour flight and to their bodies, it was 3 in the morning. Cosmo was v. excited as I’m sure he really believed that he’d been abandoned to me for forever. Not that he minded, but he really needs more than one person, plus I have this crraazzzyyy habit of working 10 hour days.
Anyways, I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and working on yesterday’s time crossword puzzle when I turned around to see my boy in the foyer. Ah, so nice to hold each other tight. I had about an hour and a half before I had to be into work (I have xps time today) and so I sat on the couch, he laid with his head in my lap and half sleep half helped as I continued to work on the crossword puzzle and chat with his mom.
Glad that I’m not them as today they are all going to spend crashed. Though emma did promptly leave for coffee and a bagel. She’s my favourite. And I’m only kinda hanging in there as my 5 or so hours of sleep is way less than I need to operate. So it was v. wise of me to schedule xps time today as I just have to babysit it and calculate concentrations. (though the real reason I schedule xps time for today was it was the first one I didn’t need to go home for lunch with cosmo. Oh, I’m going to miss lunch with cosmo.)
Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the next day+. (though I’m going to saw way to go if you have put up with my ridiculous sappiness so far!)
I’m quite disgusted with the new jersey governor situation. I’ve read so much about it. (thank you haper’s times.) I find it so unfortunately that him coming out as gay is linked to him being corrupt. One does not put one’s love (male or female) in a job period. Even if they are qualified (which this guy was not). One just should not do it. I hate that his homosexuality is being tied up with it. It just goes to reinforce a lot of ignorant people’s stereotypes of gay men being sharmy (sp?). This was a sharmy thing to do. I would of rather him just resigns admitting that he made a mistake in giving his lover a job. Why does he have to say whether it a male or a female? In my perfect world, people would not care at all if someone running in an election is gay or straight, but unfortunately, it is not a perfect world, and I hate that mcsweeny’s sexuality is getting tied up in his corrupt behaviour.
Also, please, please, please, John Kerry and John Edwards explain to me the logic of not allowing homosexuals to marry (and not in a political capital way). I want want want to live in a world were people aren’t idiots. And that logic rules.
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Posted by christina at 4:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2004
sleeping to dream about you / and I'm so tired of having to live without you
la la la
here i am. sunday morning, pretending it is a regular work day. it is, for me. i'm taking Wednesday off and some part of thrusday due to the fact my idiot boyfriend "just happened" as he explains it, to a weekend trip to las vegas. he didn't check the dates for his family vacation, and tad dah, got himself into a situation where he gets back tuesday morning from 11 days away and leaves thursday for vegas. (i have given him a lot of shit about it, mainly cuz weekend trips to vegas aren't something that just happens...over commiting yourself to dinner, helping someone move...these are things just happen, but not weekend trips across the country. just admit you were stupid and didn't check the dates.) anyways, because of that, i'm taking the time off to spend with my idiot, cuz i am not really dealing well with the being apart for 11 days. it has surprised me, but it is more a function of a lot of things. i could deal with it if i wasn't pretty frustrated with the damn friction tester right now. and i wouldn't be the frustrated with the friction tester, as i have figured out what the damn problem is, if i wasn't starting to get stressed about my quals. and i could deal with this just fine if i didn't have this ache in my soul. though we've talked a bunch (his parents are going to laugh when they see their phone bill. it's their house's fault as my cell phone doesn't work inside. but they seriously don't care as they love me, and have been seeing the other end of the separation, ben, who isn't dealing with it that much better...especially because his brother's g/f is along and has to watch them be all lovey dovey. (yes, if you were wondering, i was invited, but i can't take that much time of work...especially with already having gone on vacation to yellowstone and taking two days off around labor day to visit my family.))
anyways, it has just taken me by surprise, which also makes it worse.
friday tom and i watched the human stain. it was good. i recommend it. it has antony hopkins and nicole kidman in addition to some other people one recognizes. it is based on a philip roth novel. i went through a philip roth phase, so i was interested in seeing this movie. it was intense in a intellectual way. and good. after, cuz we like the random juxtapositions, we watched trainspotting, which neither of us had seen, but wanted to, and so we did. it was good, amusing and random and had way too much needleage for my taste, but it was good all the same.
i just read sarah's account of their trip up long's peak. ah, colorado is beautiful. estes park is especially beautiful. i spent a couple of family vacations up there in cabins in estes park. my grandparents lived (and my grandma still does) in longmont, which is quite close. so that what we did. i have memories of apple cinnamon tea and this mexican poncho (not the rain type, but the warm type that is coming back in to fashion according to the times).
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Posted by christina at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2004
the remedy is the experience
one feeling that has been swirling around in my head lately is how displaced i feel. Well, it is more strange than that, it is the feeling that work in my constant physical place. It makes sense as I spend way more of my waking hours here than any other one place. But also, this last 6 weeks, have been filled with lots of different things that have me staying in all sorts of random places. My apartment is this unknown thing to me. First it was a week in rhode island, than yellowstone, then because of some random events plus ben having lots of time to cook me dinner, i really spent more time at his apartment than usual the next three weeks. and this past one i've been at the harper's. it is strange that i feel that work in the constant physical present.
yesterday was ucky. though my run was surprisingly good. i run in days of 3, and usually my run on day 3 sucks. but the weather has been so cool and i've gotten lots of sleep, my run was good. i've been frustrated this week with something that is not working and me feeling so helpless with trying to making it work. i just want the dang thing to work. i've been working a ton lately. yesterday at 6.15 it all came to a head and i just couldn't handle it anymore. i could not get the sem to work for me, combined with the fact that i'm pretty sure i patterned the wrong side of that sample, plus that fact that at that point i had already worked almost 40 hours this week, i gave up and went to lay on the couch with cosmo and watch a lot of sex in the city.
i miss my boy. this is ridiculous. one should not leave your girlfriend for 11 days. it should be the law. or at least will become my law. ha ha. i'm sure that everyone now finds me ridiculous, but so it goes. it has been worse this time than usual...but missing him combined with being frustrated at work and staying at his parents house will do that.
v. excited about Chinese and movies with tom tonight. we are again taking advantage of the harper's very nice tv for movie night. we are ordering in Chinese cuz we both love it. (as ben doesn't like to eat it that often. sigh) we are trying to find this documentary about the Amish, but it seems that it is very hard to find.
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Posted by christina at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2004
it was not a chance meeting
one of the many perks of the harper house is the ny times everyday to read in paper form. ah, yesterday was science times day. and they had the most interesting article on jogging/running.
Why Joggers Labor and Olympians Fly
I tried to follow the suggestions during my run this morning and found that they did help (or at least in my head they did). I have to learn to relax my upper body. It was a good run this morning because it was also 60 degrees out. It currently feels like October. crazy chicago weather.
A story on npr pissed me off yesterday. It was a national story on the Illinois senate race (really amusing times editorial). The reporter in the story actually said the sentence that Keyes support family values....and Obama does not? Not to mention how the heck does one define family values? One of my major beefs with the republican rhetoric is that they say that they are for family values, implying, as the reporter did about Obama, that the democrats are anti family values. How does one define family values? How does one imply that a whole party is against something undefinable? Of course, they try to define family values as marriage between a man and a women...but even if I give them that (which I don't), there really isn't anything else. Republicans cheat on their spouses; they get divorces; they break up families, just as democrats and indepdents do. I just don't understand how one can say that someone is against family values. If anything, the republican opposition to gay marriage is against family values as they are against the creation of legally defined families.
Another very interesting story - Crucial Unpaid Internships Increasingly Separate the Haves From the Have-Nots It is very true. Interships are very important when looking for a job, especially in politics. The vast majority of internships in washington are unpaid, combined with the high expense of living in dc, make it prohibitive for a lot of middle and lower class students to participate. Not to mention if they actually need to earn money for school above and beyond their living expenses. It is a really interesting article and I really hope that the practice changes so that either interns get paid or money becomes available for all students who need it. It is just another example of how the class systems makes a larger difference than a lot of people care to admit in a lot of fields.
seriously, my boy needs to come back. it has been harder than usual as i am surrounded by his high school face, yet don't get him. though i do have amble opportunity to make fun of the stuff from this ex. seriously amusing.
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Posted by christina at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
August 9, 2004
well the first days are the hardest days
so with ben out of town and me living 7 minutes from school, i had planned to do a bunch of work this weekend. i just need to do a bunch of testing on one machine that has been in high demand lately with my summer student leaving things to the last minute. i've been understanding and stayed off it all last week. but now i've run out of other things to do and i need to do testing. so saturday i came in thinking that no one would be in...alas, both my summer student and the other guy that uses it were in and were using it. i was annoyed, but went about my day which consisted of hanging out with my cat and working on my scrapbook. i'm on a scrapbook kick right now as i wanted to get my yellowstone pictures mounted to take home at the end of the month. (Home! yay! did i mention that ben is going with me. just to experience the amazingly hot temperature in the south that time of year....and i guess to meet my parents.)
it was a good weekend. friday tom came over to the harper's to hang out. There were some movies we missed in the theatre, so we had a blockbuster night. we made dinner and angel food cake, which we both love. i love tom's sweettooth. ben has no sweet tooth and it drives me a little crazy that he doesn't understand my need for something sweet even when i am full. the harper's don't have a bundt pan...or i couldn't find it, so we made it in loaf pans, which turned out superwell, those there was a lot of laying around and watching them through the door and debating what done would be. the harper's have a super nice kitchen. it is so nice to cook in. (love the dishwasher!) the dishwasher empowers me to cook a lot more than i usually do as i don't have to wash everything by hand.
anyways. tom and i watched secret window. it was not good. and the butterfly effect, which i had v. low expectations for as it is aston (sp?) and i just can't take him seriously. but it was good, really interesting. the concept of how much you would sacrifice yourself for the happiness of those you love is a really interesting one. and the dvd has two endings...we watched the directors cut, which has a "sadder" ending than the theatre version. i do recommend this movie. if only to ponder the themes the movie brings up.
we stayed up until 2 watching the movies, which shocked ben when i told him as i am usually passed out by 12 on friday nights. but, i found, the secret is that i have to be sitting up. when ben and i watch anything, we are usually laying down, curled up in each other, the perfect formula for me to sleep. tom and i were sitting up and so i stayed awake. plus the second movie was so good.
amazingly, when one is in charge of 3 places of residences scattered up the northside of chicago, one spends a lot of time traveling between them. sunday i went to church, which is south of ben's, then went by ben's to pick up the mail and get the camping chairs for steve, and almost set off the alarm. then by steve's for a failed attempt to drop of the chairs. then by my place to run in squares, gather some stuff for the week, and visit my cat. then to work to remove a sample from a corrosion solution. then to blockbuster where i am currently doing the movie pass thing. they have a special that it is only $15 for the first month. so i am taking advantage of it for the time ben's gone as i have lots o' time. i've already got more than my money's worth just the first weekend (3 movies, 1 sex in the city, 1 queer as folk). and then to cosmo's to hang out with him. he got all excited cuz i sat in the backyard to talk on the phone to liz (as it is the only place my cell works well enough to carry on a conversation).
the hotel that ben is staying at amused me greatly saturday, as when i called him back and asked for his room, the women said my pleasure in a tone that made me slighly unconfortable.
sigh. i miss my boy. the first couple days are the hardest. it is weird. he's never been the one to leave. i always am the one going somewhere. and it makes it just a tad stranger as i am sleeping in his childhood room. as i laid in bed saturday morning, looking at all the sport paraphernalia on the walls, i asked myself how am i dating this person. it makes me laugh, and reminds me that you can't control who you fall in love with.
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Posted by christina at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)
August 6, 2004
makes us want to stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay here for awhile
I broke a mirror this morning. (good thing we have a broken glass receptacle here in the lab.)
I had an amazing run this morning. (the weather is so amazing here. High yesterday: 70. High today: 74. Amazing running weather.)
I kissed my boy goodbye this morning. (he is gone for 11 days on the family vacation.)
I ate lunch with a very cute dog. (I’m house/dog sitting for the harper’s while they are all on vacation.)
I escape work early today. (I have to come in a bunch this weekend to use instruments while no one is here.)
yay for dinner and a movie with tom.
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Posted by christina at 3:58 PM | Comments (0)
August 4, 2004
it only takes a spark
I wrote a name today that I haven�t written in a long time.
Christy
It is a childhood name. I only use it with about a dozen people who only know me by it.
Today�s need for that identification was a sad one.
I babysat for jenna while I was in junior high. She was the daughter of the pastor at my church. She had an older sister and a younger brother. I spent a fair amount of time babysitting for them. They moved away right after the point I stopped babysitting and started going out with my friends. Goddamnit people, wear a seatbelt! The story didn�t say if she was, but being thrown from the car is a sign that she wasn�t. Life happens fast and without warning. And is so short.
Having myself overturned my car in a ditch of sorts and only being alive because I was wearing my seatbelt, I just wanted to take a moment to tell everyone to wear their stinking seatbelts!
And to take another moment and remember the bubbling blond girl, whose long hair I use to put up in curlers, who just to run to be every time she saw me with the largest hug, who would cuddle in my arms and watch movies.
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Posted by christina at 2:37 PM | Comments (0)
August 3, 2004
message in a bottle
Sometimes a woman needs to be reminded that she is the luckiest woman in the world, that men don’t usually come in such freakishly wonderful packages as he came.
quote from the archive of my favorite random journal of dooce.com
it is true. sometime i get caught up in details and forget how freakin' lucky i am to have stumbled upon ben.
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Posted by christina at 4:46 PM | Comments (0)
August 2, 2004
will you hold me sacred / will you hold me tight.
Well. Let’s see. Shall I speak about how I had this really interesting conversation with chipper about intelligent women. He’s looking for one…sometime he gives ben a run for his money. ; ) chipper is one of ben’s friends. He has just started the rotation part of his medical education. He wanted to be an ER doc. He wants to find and date and marry an intelligent woman. He tells me, they are so hard to find. Tell me about it, I laugh with him, I’m always looking for women friends. I have some great intelligent ones in my life, but it takes me so long to find them and they are few and far between. Of course, I concede, my chosen profession don’t put me in contact with a lot of women, but when it does, they are usually intelligent, so that is nice. Chipper also loves sushi. At this point I turn to ben and tell him that I am now dating chipper.
I also have this urge around chipper to tell him my health problems…which are few and far between, but the urge amuses me. We had this really interesting conversation about kids and women and society and class structure. Fortunately for the both of us being talented and hypereducated, we are going to have the money and flexibility to be able to be home with our kids more. (as I told him I think the perfect situation is where the husband and wife structure their schedules so that they can each be home one day a week and have the other 3 days at day care. (cuz I do believe is socialization of children at an early age.) of course that can’t actually happen as even we don’t have that much control over our schedules. Though I do know. I could definitely stay home one day a week now and work at home. Too bad the most flexible time of my life coincides with the time of no responsibilities.) anyways, might marry chipper.
Running this morning and not eating after has made me starving all morning. Hopefully my body will get the message that we now have eaten and that it should stop freaking out that I am trying to starve it to death. Stupid body.
Anyways, I got a fair amount of sun this weekend, not meaning to at all. I forgot that running at noon on Saturday for 50 minutes is, for one’s shoulders and face, like laying our for 50 minutes. Then I got a bunch of sun at the game yesterday, though ben did not and we were in the shade…somehow I arrived home all red. And happy because the game was real exciting, but also a tad sad as greg didn’t get the win and I couldn’t rub it in carter’s face that I saw maddox’s 300th win. Now it will happen on the road, I bet, and carter will see it also. The game was good, though sticky hot.
seriously interesting:
By Accident, Utah Is Proving an Ideal Genetic Laboratory
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Posted by christina at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)