A plastic leg, sitting on a porch railing in Woosta!:



Seriously.

My brain has chosen today to have a panic attack about all the stuff I need to get done before I leave for Leeds. Unfortunately, a fair amount of the really important stuff that needs to get done (like get a visa, which I didn't know I even NEEDED until today), I can't do until I get my work permit. So shut it, brain.

Packing is one of the other major things I have to do. I have the entire month of September to do that, so again, shut it brain.

Blah. I'm going to go eat Doritos.

As in Organize my stuff at work, so that when I leave in two weeks, people can find it. This means going through my boxes in the freezers, and chucking stuff that isn't needed (it's a duplicate, an incorrect clone, a dud stock, etc), making sure all my data got into an Excel spreadsheet or nine, and then making sure everything gets backed up onto an external hard drive somewhere. I also have to clean out my desk. Note to self: get the giant recycling bin from the loading dock.

My thesis was sent to the binder last week. I should have my hardback copies by next week. I filed all the paperwork I needed to get myself out of hock. I am officially done with graduate school. Yeehaw.

The paperwork for my work permit was submitted just over a week ago. Now, I wait.

Finally, more sewing pictures.

*A "remote controlled hovercraft sack of hammers" can be used as a valid plot device.

I would like to say I have some of the loveliest friends a girl could ever have. You are sweet, wonderful, kind, and generous. How I got so lucky to have you all in my life, I don't know.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Love,
Kat

I'm still alive. I've been a bit busy with graduating, job hunting, and thesis edits. In fact, right now my thesis is staring at me, begging for edits. Shut up, slut thesis!

Anyway, lots of thoughts on graduating, family, friends, etc, etc. I don't have time to go into them now. I'm not entirely sure I want to, actually. It's a morass of happy, sad, proud, feeling like a sham, panic, hope, excitement.

Ganked from lucasthegray: If I were to die tomorrow, what would you wish you had said to me while I was still alive?Comments screened.

1. Goodreads. Rate and review the books you're reading. I'm under lovelycherrylady (at) gmail.

2. Twitter. Microblogging is the best way to describe it. I'm ladyscience over there.

Science teacher conference was fun, overall. I went to the exhibitor workshops and played with their kits for experiments to do in the classroom. I did an "HIV ELISA" (really, an ELISA using chicken proteins), a DNA extraction, and a bacterial transformation.

I went to an intro to protozoans workshop, and now I have pets! Volvox, paramecium, stentor, euglena, and a few others are currently living in glasses on my windowsill. I have to look up how to keep care of them all.

Mom still drives me nuts. She's deaf in one ear, so half the time she doesn't hear me. The other half of the time she's not paying attention, which adds up to me repeating myself 100% of the time. Very loudly.

How are y'all doing? Lay it on me. I'm screening my comments.

Suggested by elenuial. No, I didn't forget, I've just been busy with noble pursuits like writing my thesis and being drunk.

I've never thought about whether writing would supplant my career as a scientist, mainly because everyone tells you not to quit your day job if you want to be a writer. On those few occasions when I daydream about my future, I always imagine I'm a scientist and a writer.

I already know I don't want my own lab- it's a whole level of responsibility I don't want. Plus, I like doing bench work an awful lot. I imagine myself bouncing around from postdoc position to postdoc position for a few years, then becoming a perma-postdoc at some point. The difficult part about being a scientist is that it's not a job- it's a vocation. It can suck up a lot more of your life than you planned, and you have to really, really love it to stick with it. It can be hard to keep some part of yourself away from the science.

I've thought about becoming a science writer/ editor. I'm applying for an editing job at Cell in Boston. I think it would be interesting to combine the science and the writing. However, I am afraid that doing writing as my regular job would put me off writing fiction, that at the end of the day I would be so sick of writing that I wouldn't want to do it.

Striking that balance between being a scientist and being a writer will be difficult. One is going to eclipse the other at different points in my life. I suppose I'll just have to keep an open mind, and see what life throws at me. Writing as a career option isn't something I would have imagined 10 years ago, so already life is surprising me. Just gotta go with the flow, I suppose.

I have to fly next week. I have not flown since the "no liquids through security AUUUUGHHHH!!!" debacle. What are the rules now? Can I take an empty Nalgene bottle through, and fill it in the bathroom on the other side of security? Does everything have to be in a plastic sandwich bag?

This is what I want to take with me on the plane:
1. Paperback book
2. Empty Nalgene bottle
3. My synthetic hormones
4. Wallet
5. Keys
6. Ticket

What say you, hive mind?

Have a cupcake. I think we all deserve one.

I am still sick.
I still have not gotten my chocolate milkshake.

Ah well.

Do you like bacon? Bacon cups and bacon curls. (via Not Martha)

I developed a cough over the weekend. The deep, from the bottom of my chest kind. My ribcage sort of hurts. Thank the Lyndon B. Johnson for cough syrup with codeine in it.

However, I did work on my thesis this weekend. My Introduction is mostly mapped out. I have loads of notes that I need to turn into sentences and paragraphs. Go me.

I also had a good Saturday with The Ladies in Northampton. Yarn + Yak = a fantastic way to spend the Saturday.

I was all set to finish my orange dress, when I realized... I never bought a zipper for it. Completely spaced on that. Can't finish it until I bribe someone to take me to the fabric store.

I am living in the land of fairies today. Where's my shirtless gardener and my mojito?

I am having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner tonight. Then I am having a hot, hot threesome with the washer and dryer. Because the dirty clothes started whispering to me "Hey little girl...".

Texas repealed their sex toy ban. Here's Molly Ivins' NSFW take on the sex toy ban.

Last night's Lunacon dream: The cops showed up at the con, wanting to know what we were doing. I told them it was a science fiction/ fantasy convention.

Cops: But, what do you do?
Me: We sit around and talk about science fiction and fantasy.
Cops: You sit around and talk?
Me: Yeah...
Cops: But... what do you do?

They were so bemused. Like, why would you sit around and talk about stuff you find interesting? With other people? Madness!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I have an announcement to make.

I will be defending my PhD thesis on Monday, May 12th, in the afternoon.

Arisia 2008 was fun, on the whole. I think I need to get more into steampunk. Victorian age + science fiction = awesome.

I did not accomplish my goal of making out with anyone. However, I did meet a nice doctor. If my mother really was a Jew, she's be happy. He was looking for girlfriend material, though. I just got out of girlfriend mode, I'm not interested in going back into it for a while.

It's too bad you couldn't order a sex buddy from Amazon. You can order everything else on the planet from Amazon. "Your shopping cart contains: 1 copy of Battlestar Galactica Season 2.0, 1 copy of All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris, 1 sex buddy with wrist kissing upgrade. You qualify for Super Saver Shipping!"

Hmmmm... I might be on to something.

Miss Inertia and I were discussing a book we've both read, set in Victorian England. Here, we're discussing a particular scene that I've been dying to discuss with Miss Inertia for days.

Kat: When writing about teenagers, I sometimes have problems. What is too risque? There's stuff that we know happens to teenagers in real life- but can I put that in a young adult book? So this author puts a near date rape scene in her young adult novel, and she totally becomes my hero for it because she answers my question.
Miss Inertia: That's not the scene I thought you were talking about.
Kat: Really?
Miss Inertia: I thought you were fascinated with all the wrist kissing.
Kat: Oh! Well that too! I want a boy dedicated entirely to kissing my wrists. That would be his sole responsibilty.
Miss Inertia: THAT'S MY GIRL!!!

Call me Posty MacPostsalot.

I am sweet, like Sugar. I am all sweetness and light; fluffy bunnies and dancing fairies; happiness and joy. Too much of me will make you sick. What Flavour Are You?

Fluffy bunnies and dancing fairies? LIES, ALL LIES!

I have to present a paper in lab meeting next Wednesday. It is titled "Semen-Derived Amyloid Fibrils Drastically Enhance HIV Infection". Working on a sexually transmitted disease brings unintentional comedy to my life on occasion.

Stayed up too late... got up too early. Forgot my coffee at home. Attempted to make some tea. Water on my floor is out. Had to carry the teapot down two floors to find water.

But now I have tea. *slurp*

Miss Inertia has been feeding me dirty dance songs. This is why I love her.

*My Mom is doing okay. She only lost a toe. She has a penicillin pump for the next six weeks, but otherwise will be fine, thank the Lyndon B. Johnson.

*I've lost 5-7 pounds in the past few weeks. I don't weight myself, so I'm not exactly sure how much I've lost. But my jeans won't stay up, and my shirts are loose. Guess being on a martini diet helps!*

*There is smut. I also posted smut last week, but forgot to mention it.



*Just kidding. Other than a glass of wine here and there, I've stayed away from the sauce. I have been walking a lot lately, though, because it helps clear my head.