Accidental Date

I work at a local art gallery. I absolutely love my job because my boss is awesome, I see some beautiful pieces of art (and some really weird ones), I learn a lot, and, most of all, it forces me out of the lab. Since 70% of my job is just sitting in the gallery and monitoring the art while people come in and admire at it, I get to be near people while only minimally interacting with them. Most of the time patrons rarely speak to me, and the few who do are generally quite pleasant. (In my 1.5 years of working here, I've only had to deal with 4 crazy/annoying people, which is much better than working retail.)

The average retail customer

Don't get me wrong, I love being around people. I am just not very good at interacting with people. I think this is why street photography appeals to me; It forces me to be near people and even interact with them, but I always have a camera between me and them as a security buffer. The longer one spends in a lab analyzing bacteria and blood, the more social skills get lost, and this job helps me retain what few social skills I have left.

Socially Awkward Penguin has nothing on me.

This still leads to some pretty awkward situations, as the latest incident reveals. Lately a guy as been coming into the gallery. We struck up a pleasant conversation, and I learned that he was an engineering major. I will confess to having a soft spot for engineers: They are also quite socially awkward. I am fairly certain the first nerd in existence was an engineer. I am also descended from multiple generations of engineers: My father, and both grandfathers all studied engineering.
One day he visited the gallery, and asked me out to a movie.
I said yes, thinking "Awesome! I made a new friend and we're gonna go see a movie!"
It wasn't until he talked about cooking for me that I realized I had just agreed to go on a date.
The problem: I don't want to go on a date! I just got out of a serious relationship, and am enjoying being single! Not ready for dating!

I wasn't sure what to say, and by the time I had any courage to say anything, he had left. I tried to get advice from some friends, but they all ridiculed me for not realizing that when a guy asks a girl to go to a movie on Saturday night, that is code for "date." (They never taught me that in school. Yet another strike against the American education system.)

Let's do the math: An engineering major prepping for a date + a socially awkward lab geek who didn't know she was agreeing to a date = the most awkward date in the history of the universe. All happening this Saturday night! Stay tuned, kids.

I should be studying.

I've been quite overwhelmed these past few weeks with school. This week I have two huge exams, one in immunology and another in molecular genetics. And the following week, my first photography assignment is due. As a result, my time has been consumed with studying, making flash cards, reading and highlighting chapters, reviewing power points, and snapping a few photos here and there. I feel constantly exhausted and every afternoon brings a severe energy crash, most likely from my habit of forgetting to eat.
But I honestly love it. Not the lack of energy part, that's annoying, but the material. I have fallen in love with immunology, as well as genetics. It's so fascinating!
I've also decided that I want to move next year, either to Oregon or Washington. Eugene is cheaper to live, but Portland and Seattle have more job opportunities. We'll see how it goes. I need two years of experience before I consider grad school, Doctor's Without Boarders, or Peace Corps, and Oregon seems like a fun place to live for a while.

Nerdy Pillow Talk

Me: "I am so sorry about the sheets! I've never had sheets rip during sex."
Him: "As long as you accept that I blame you entirely and in no way shape or form take any responsibility for the sheets... or the subsequent forehead shaped dent in the wall..."
Me: "I dented the wall? I am so sorry!"
Him:  "Oh Cat, that was humor couched in hyperbole. There is no dent."
Me: "What does dent have to do with graphing? Was the dent hyperbola-shaped?"
Him: ".... Leave it to you to employ the homonym."
Me: "Not funny! You've gotten me in the mood for graphing, and there is nothing to graph. You're a graph-tease."

...Yes, this conversation actually happened. I makes me want to buy some kittens and name them Hyperbola, Parabola, and Ellipse. Maybe I just find mathematical expressions of conic sections kinda cute.

Shooting the Moon

Tonight, I decided I wanted to shoot the moon. In Alaska, the best full moons are in winter, when we have an actual night, but they still pose a challenge. If the winter night is warm enough to stand outside, then the sky is too cloudy. If the sky is bright, beautiful, and clear, it is also deathly cold. On top of that, you need to figure out the right ISO, shutter speed, and f-stop. Most people over-expose their shots on their first attempt.

After my lab, I noticed a beautiful full moon rising above campus. So I decided to try to figure out how to photograph the moon with my camera. I armed myself with 400 black and white film, a shutter release cable, two telephoto lenses, a borrowed tripod, pens, a notebook, and coffee. I dragged Wil and we drove 20 minutes out of the city, pulling out at a rest stop by the ocean. As Wil set up his tripod, I systematically planned out the f-stop and shutter speed for each individual frame, recording each in my notebook. Scientists are obsessive note-takers, and I wanted to know which settings worked and which sucked. With a digital camera, it would be a few minutes of trial and error, but right now I am working with film, and I'm determined to find the right settings for moon photography. Wil was as patient as ever, and made a great assistant, especially in providing lighting and a stopwatch for my prolonged shutter shots.

The first two rolls were taken with my 200mm lens, nicknamed J-tel. I used the first roll playing with prolonged exposure, setting up 15, 10, and 5 second increments for each f-stop, and a few experimental shots. Roll Two focused on each f-stop at shutter speeds 1-250. I switched out the lenses to my 210mm, named P-tel, and focused on f11 and f16 at every shutter speed, 1-1000, as well as 15, 10, 5, and 3 second increments. According to my research, f11 and f16 are preferred for moon photography, so I hope these ones turn out well. I don't expect my 15 second shots to be more than white blobs, but I want to see it myself. I labeled each roll (scientists ALWAYS label), and hopefully I will have them developed in the darkroom by the end of the month.

I spent nearly 3 hours working with the camera. By the end of it, I couldn't feel my face, legs, or fingers, despite my attempts to bundle up. But I got so into the technical aspects, that I barely noticed. I love photography almost as much as I love my lab work, and everything about it, from the technical details to composition to film development, really appeals to me.

Flammable Spaghetti

I have a confession to make:
I am a terrible cook.

Not simply a bad cook, but a dangerously terrible cook. Which is kind of embarrassing, considering I am a lab geek and my entire job description is to follow instructions, most of which are laid out similar to a recipe. Being a scientist who can't cook is akin to being an architect who is afraid of heights.

My first job was as a certified nursing assistant at a retirement community. Cooking wasn't in the job description, nor were there any questions relating to food prep or handling during the job interview. But in an effort to save money, my section of the retirement home decided that they would leave all food prep to a staff of high school girls, none of whom had any food prep certification. They also decided that they wouldn't hire any nurses aside from the day manager, opting to let the CNA staff administer medications, including giving insulin shots. (In case you didn't know, this is highly, highly illegal. Which is why I didn't work there for very long.)
So, assuming I could cook, or at least follow basic instructions, they put me to work.
Making spaghetti.

Spaghetti really isn't all that difficult or dangerous to make. Except when the instructions ask you to preheat the sauce by putting two cups of canola oil in a nonstick pan, an instruction which I didn't quite understand. If the pan is non-stick, why in Vader's name would you need canola oil, much less two whole cups of it? Also, why did it ask for a frying pan, when a sauce pan would be more appropriate?

But, fully aware of my lack of cooking knowledge, I decided that the recipe knew more than me and was worth trusting.

It's probably also worth mentioning at this point that I grew up in a home with electric stoves. The retirement home used gas. Which involves open flame. Canola oil, being loaded with hydrocarbons, is of course flammable. Now, not nearly as flammable as gasoline, which is why it's safe to cook with. Assuming that said canola oil doesn't get pushed out of the pan and onto the open flame.

Which is exactly what happened when I dumped the spaghetti sauce into the frying pan.

Right as my boss walked into the kitchen.

The entire thing exploded. The flames hit the stove hood, a good four feet above out industrial-sized stove. It all happened in a weird, slow motion detail. While my boss was standing behind me screaming, all I could hear was my high school chemistry teacher's voice telling me to remove it from the heat source. I snapped into action, moving the pan to a different burner, which was off, and cutting the power to the original burner. The flames stopped immediately, and fortunately no damage was done, other than an irate 60 year old boss who asked my why the fuck my mother never bother to teach me to cook.  Still in shock, I snapped back, "Because my mother was busy working her ass off to provide me with a good home and education," and stormed out of the kitchen. (This was also the woman who told me a week before, while on the job, that I would burn in hell if I lived with a guy before I was married. Our company didn't exactly have a human resourced department.)

I didn't get fired, because the head chef looked at the recipe and agreed that it was poorly written, raising the same questions about the excessive use of canola oil. Another girl, who was working in the kitchen at the same time, pointed out that I put the fire out before it caused damage, and verbally pointed out how the fire alarms failed to go off.

So I put my two weeks notice in the next day, started my first semester of college a few weeks later, and to this day, I always read the lab instructions the day before the lab, and always ask questions.

Binary Nails

I am not sure how, but someday, I am going to do this.

Even if I have to print it out on adhesive paper, cut it to the right size, and glue it to my own damn nails.

It's going to happen.

Don't Let the Internet Gnomes Win

I am an Alaskan.

Which means I get paid to live here.

Every year, all Alaskans get a PFD, a nice little check derived from the earnings of the oil companies. The amlount varies each month; within the past ten years, it's been as high as $2065, and as low as $845.As a broke college student living in a city with a high cost of living, it usually doesn't last very long, but every little bit helps.

People are encouraged now to fill out the PFD application online every year, as well as encouraging Alaskan's to donate a part of their PFD to the organization of their choice through the "Pick. Click. Give." campaign. Of course paper forms are available too. Which I am sitting here filling out, at my mother's insistence. A few years ago, they tried the online application, and apparently there was a glitch caused by Internet gnomes and my step-dad's authenticity was questioned.

Because they are already weary of technology, this experience made them think that internet applying is an evil and terrifying thing. And that the Internet is out to get my step-dad. While I can understand wanting to avoid a bad experience, I believe that one shouldn't allow a bad experience and fear of beaurocracy hinder one from embracing beautiful technological progression. Glitches happen. Its not reason to avoid technology; in fact, it's a reason to embrace it. If the programmers/designers of a product become aware of a glitch, then its in their best interest to fix it as soon as possible, or else the masses will move on. 

Don't let the Internet gnomes win.

With the paper forms, errors can happen, and be much harder to rectify. A form can be lost in the mail, and you would never know it until October. With the electronic application, you get an instant confirmation email. You can't pick a charity to donate to on the paper application. The electronic application saves trees. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I opened my mouth to point out these things, and was quickly silenced as Mom pointed out that her dad is dying. I'm not exactly sure how a dying parental units relates to Internet application forms, but she seems (understandably) stressed, so I let it go.

Next year... I'll convince them next year.