My New Years' Resolutions

My preliminary resolution is to write down all my resolutions, since I can't remember what my resolutions were last year with the exception of "swear less" and I think I've managed SOME improvement there.

1. Most important resolution is to take better care of myself.  This past semester I've been sick constantly, headaches all over the place, and even now that I've been asleep for a week, I have a nasty ear infection and a lingering sore head.  So I need to find where I put my new glasses prescription so I can get a pair when I go back to Texas...

2. Improve my appearance.  This actually plays into resolution #1, because all of my friends (including my friends in med school) are concerned with how badly my body has been reacting to grad school stress, and have all roundly informed me working on my novels is NOT in fact a proper break from work.  Therefore, spending extra time blow-drying my hair, keeping my nails healthy, and moisturizing my poor, chapped skin is not only going to improve my appearance but also constitute an actual daily mental break from the grind.

3. Go to the damn gym. (See resolutions 1 and 2.)  I actually miss going to the gym like crazy, but last semester was a weed-out semester and I'm still feeling the aftereffects...there was no way I could've managed the gym on top of everything else I was doing.  This semester, I'm going to make time.  Somehow.   

4. Severely reduce bread and rice intake.  I'm going to stop making homemade bread (sigh) and cut back on rice as completely as possible INCLUDING when I eat out.  (Triple sigh.)  I refuse to give up pasta though, because it's in the Geneva Convention on Torture that stopping someone from giving up all three of the Golden Triad of Carbohydrate Deliciousness renders them mentally unstable and not responsible for their actions thereafter.

5. Stop reading the comments.  The comments always suck.  They're always bitter, unkind people who think "trolling" is okay because "it's just the internet".  Since I can't wave a magic wand and make their hateful words stick to themselves in the real world to teach them a lesson about the pervasiveness of hatred and negativity, I will simply stop reading the comments.  After all, all a troll wants is an audience right?

6. Stop swearing.  (This is a long-term process, I'm okay with that.)

7. Try to watch a movie (a new one?) every week.  I have 127 movies on my Netflix queue right now.  You think I'm joking.  In addition to that, I have nearly 40 movies on DVD that I've never watched.  I have to start chipping away at the mountain!

8. Floss more carefully.  Today I went to the dentist and came out with ZERO CAVITIES for the first time in YEARS.  I attribute this to two things: adopting the rather disgusting habit of flossing while I watch late-night tv, and giving up candy almost entirely.  My dentist said I've been doing a good job but there are a couple molars that I need to floss more deeply on (I have a small mouth and big hands) so I'm going to try and focus on those.

9. Write my novels every chance I get.  (And continue to try and get them published.)  I don't know how much time I'll have...but I'll give what I can.

10. Enjoy grad school as much as possible.  Grad school SUCKS, just so you know.  You're tired, overworked, paid just enough so you can ALMOST scrape by with your parents' help, constantly applying for grants and fellowships and gnawing off your fingernails waiting to hear back (or not), you can't even READ papers because all you do is skim them for vital facts and citations before moving on to the next one...trust me, I could go on.  But there are good things.  I love my classmates, and my professors, and I love learning everything I'm learning and the incredible opportunities that can come my way if I just work hard enough to get travel funding for them.  So I'm going to try and cling to the positive bits and push through the negative bits.

What would I give for the entire universe?

When I woke up this morning I was feeling pretty bummed out, so I pulled up my Youtube app and watched Neil deGrasse Tyson's "We Stopped Dreaming" video - which I realize sounds like a strange way of cheering oneself up, as it's all about how society is failing science and technology, but it really makes me feel energized and like I could do something with my life.

Right at the end Neil deGrasse Tyson asks, "How much would you pay for the universe?" and I've never really had an answer, but this morning, I said out loud, "My life."

Not that I think I should sacrifice myself on a public altar; not that I think that sort of action or protest would further the cause.  But I think I should - that a lot of us should - dedicate our lives to the universe.  To science, to technology, to our future.  I already am on that road, let's face it, how many 25 year old girls get to spend their days in a lab with an XRF, analyzing the elemental composition of artifacts from shipwrecks?  I'm guessing it's not a lot.  In fact, I'm guessing the percent total of scientists vs the percent total of hairdressers is not going to be a staggering number either.

Not that I'm hating on hairdressers.  We need them.  We need hairdressers, and construction workers, and auto mechanics and the million and one jobs - people - necessary to keep our world turning.  I think what we also need to do is stop pushing everyone and their brother into college when they don't want or need it.  It's just making higher education ridiculously expensive, it's making huge classes the norm, it's turning colleges into numbers machines instead of havens for learning, experimenting, pushing the envelope.  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7332452/The-university-professor-who-stood-up-against-dumbing-down-of-degrees.html) Even in my field, it's all about how much you publish, not what you publish. (http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system)

We need to stop treating teachers like losers.  We need to publicly destroy the phrase "those who can't do, teach".  We need to start respecting education for what it is (a process) and not for what it can get for us (an endgame).  We need to stop training children out of asking "why" even if it IS annoying when you're trying to cook dinner after a 9 hour workday and two hour commute.  Children are not there to serve our interests; we're here to serve theirs.

And we need to make the universe our priority.  All of it.  After all, we are the most infinitesimal grain of sand on a celestial beach.  With so much out there, why do we keep dismissing it, cutting funding for it, and claiming it's more important to "trickle down" than venture out?

Let's go back to the moon.  Let's go to Mars.  Hell, let's go to Pluto!  (Sorry Dr. Tyson, it will always be a planet to me.)  Let's make "why" and "why not" the two most asked questions in the world. 

Above all...let us have fun doing it.  After all, what is more fun than dreaming great dreams?  Or achieving them?

Final stretch

Well I'm getting closer to Armageddon.  Exam 8 am Wednesday morning (gaaaah I hate getting up at 6 am!!), and I've been trying to study.

Spent the weekend in bed with a sick headache, only getting out of it to lie on the couch and go grocery shopping.

Today I had another bad headache but dragged myself to Big Lots since I was out of toilet paper and kitchen paper.  That cost $10, and I spent $1 on an extra box of tissues and $3 on some rather ugly stove burner covers that will hopefully prevent stuff from falling into my stove and forcing me to clean it up.  The only thing I hate more than scrubbing the inside of a stove-top is scrubbing a floor.  I hate cleaning the bathroom so much it doesn't register on the scale.

It occurred to me today, as I was trying to force the fact that 3-masted carracks appeared in Northern Europe in 1450 AD into my brain, that if I do cave and get cookie-cutters one day in the future, I will ALSO need a rolling pin.  And I really need a sieve before I get either of those things.  Growing up is a real pain in the ass.

I've been trying to plan meals so that everything perishable in my minifridge will be eaten by the time I leave.  I'll fill my tupperwares with water and shove them in there to keep my energy costs down.  Did I mention that growing up is a real pain in the ass?

My dad just learned his whole department might get outsourced to India (I'm not even joking) so he's considering (if it happens) packing up the whole house, moving to the Northwest coast, and renting out our house.  I feel like that would be highly preferable to him selling it (I love that house, and really want to buy it from him one day if I find work that will let me settle in that area), but I hate the idea of my family being so far away.  One of the nicest parts of College Station is that it's only a 15 hour drive from my parents' place, so I could get there in a day if an emergency happened - and New Orleans is the natural stopping point between the two, so I get lovely food whenever I go home or come back to college.

Let's hope his company reconsiders.  I don't think he really wants to live in the Northwest...he loves clear blue skies and warm weather just as much as I do.  Mom is the one who likes chilly air and four seasons.  Still, it's all conjecture right now.  I have enough trouble without borrowing more.  Time to scrabble together some dinner and then back to studying.  Woohooo....

My Crazy Life

Been meaning to update, somehow never get around to it.

When I moved in, I found (to my disgust) I had a minifridge.  I noticed that the deli drawer (simple plastic drawer, not on a track, very easy to remove) had a small crack in it, but I didn't think anything much of it.

One morning a few weeks ago I opened my fridge and found the crack had expanded:

So I emailed the front office and asked what to do, since I didn't fancy using it and finding a gigantic plastic splinter in my hand.

Friday morning (after Thanksgiving) I open my minifridge and realize the drawer (which I had taken out and placed next to my tv) was gone, and a new one was in its place, and all the stuff I'd stacked in the bottom of the fridge were neatly placed in it.  Mildly creepy.  And then, looking closer at it, this one also has a tiny crack in the front.  (Head, meet desk.)

Last night I had some warning signs of a headache so I spent a couple hours cooking to ease the pressure on my brain.  Made a green salad and a chickpea salad (they last a few days in the fridge so I always make extra), and put one of the Cornish game hens I got on sale on Sunday in the oven with a couple potatoes.  My recipe requires basting while cooking, so for the broth I used chicken stock, beer, garlic and chives.  Once done cooking you pour the juices from the hen back into the saucepan and cook it down into gravy...soo good!  I also, since I had a couple pears about to go off, tried "pears n onions" instead of my favorite "apples n onions" which I don't make much any more since apples are so damn expensive here.
  I put in a little apple cider vinegar and some balsamic vinegar to the pears, but it was just too sweet.  Not sure what I should do next time.  I feel like if I find the right ingredient they could be incredible, just not sure what it is yet.

 

My roast hen, resting amid the potatoes that roasted with it.

 

And my dinner!

It was a lovely dinner, but it didn't actually stave off the headache.  It turned into a migraine and I had to take a couple pills and lie down for an hour.  It subsided enough that I biked to campus to draw, and got quite a lot done, but I had to leave around 11:30ish because it was getting much worse.  I decided not to try writing any more that night, so I watched a half-hour of Storage Wars in an attempt to give my brain a break (literally the only times I haven't been working the past few weeks are when I'm in the bathroom, eating, sleeping, or biking) before heading to bed.

I woke up with a migraine still this morning, so I decided to lie there quietly until it eased off, which it did a little after nine, and I got up, went for a walk, and have spent the day pacing my apartment and trying to knock out this essay.  It's a little more than a third done, so I'm hoping I can knock out one third tonight, and one third tomorrow, and turn it in Friday morning and spend Friday on my other essay and the drawing.

Got some headache warning signs right now, so I'm hoping they just go away...decided to not go to campus today to see if staying very still and quiet will ease things.

It would help if I didn't have a ghastly final on Wednesday, and need to work 80 hours before December 19th.  Still.

This is not improving my mood either.  But I have a fur coat now.  It will help me battle hell!  One of my classmates (from Wisconsin) is hoping for snow.  I have informed her that if it DOES snow, I'm sacrificing her to the Weather Gods in hopes of warm weather.

Oh well.  Back to work. 

Isn't it so blurry?

I don't know if my vision is blurring due to overwork, the fact I keep misplacing my glasses, or something is up with my eyes again.  I must remember to make all my winter break appointments (doctor, eye doctor, dentist, car) tomorrow morning. 

And I'm sneezing.  Making hibiscus tea to see if that fixes the sneezing, am highly annoyed I didn't notice in the supermarket that it's caffeine free :(

But I've done a LOT today - got groceries, cooked, cleaned, cleaned out and tidied up my desk, disinfected the last of the stuff from my car and put it back, did my laundry, did my accounts (that took hours ), paid my rent (no late fee this month!), organized my folders, basically did everything except take out the trash and do all the homework I wanted to get done.

Working on homework now, of course, but between the sneezing, and the tired eyes, and the sleepiness...I might wake up on the floor again.  Man, when I think back to all those days in California when I found myself asleep on my desk...or next to it...I think it might be time to take up coffee...too bad I HATE coffee...

Guess I'm glad I got a lot done.  But this week is looming over me and I feel an impending sense of utter doom.

Oh well.  Back to work.  Two weeks from now all I'll have to do is finish  my 80 hour work month in a few days and then I'll have a few days to sleep before it's thesis time!  Woohoo...