of chelators and governators

Ahh Spring Break!

Life’s been kinda crazy, but I’ll definitely try to update this a little but more.  I doubt I have any readers left, but thanks for reading if you’re still around! Anyway here’s a numbered post because this would get way too long if I tried to write a prose post about everything that’s been going on in my life in the past month!

1. So far I’ve been pretty good at keeping my new years resolutions (apart from updating this blog!) I’ve been exercising at least once a week (sometimes more, GASP!), hanging out with great people in Pasadena, spending less (well except for the past two weeks!) and cooking!! Here’s some recipes I tried out

Tandoori Chicken!: http://www.notakeout.com/tandoori-chicken/

Tasted great and the only downside was that I burned my pan so bad that I had to throw it out

Shrimp risotto with peas: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/health/nutrition/20recipehealth.html?ref=dining

Naeem and I made this when I came up for Valentine’s Day!

Banana Frittata: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Banana-Frittata/Detail.aspx

This was a fail.  I couldn’t flip it.  I think it was due to my poor skills as a cook though

Gently Cooked Chicken Breasts with Garlic Chili Ginger Sauce: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/dining/131arex.html?ref=dining

Naeem and I made this this week and it turned out great and left us with enough food to eat for the week!

I also made some chicken curry which tasted great (mostly me throwing a bunch of spices and a tomato together with some chicken!) and made this old favorite: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sweet-Sticky-and-Spicy-Chicken/Detail.aspx

2. Though I was really scared that I’d be spending my first birthday away from Texas alone, it turned out great! It included Naeem coming in and spending the weekend (and birthday morning!) with me, being taken out to birthday dinner with my old lab, cupcakes with first years, and ending it with froyo with my friend Rell. Not a bad way to start being 23!

3.  I also got lucky and was able to drive up with Tad and Kevin (a bf of one of the people in Naeem’s year and his friend who both live in LA) for Valentine’s Day! We had a chill valentine’s day where we just cooked our fancy rissoto, and then spent the actual day shopping on Powell street and I even got some flowers from Naeem! A great day overall!

4.  My current, somewhat drama filled, lab situation ended with a bang when a postdoc told me out of the blue to leave the lab and not come back.  It definitely caught me by surprise, and I was really glad to have the support of the first years and my old lab when I was going through this, but in the end I was able to maintain good relations with the PI of that lab which was good (plus it meant one more week of vacation!)

6.  The same week I got fired I found out I had a tear in my cornea because of my horrible contact lens habits.  Thanks so much skimmy for telling me to see the optometrist, now I’m all better and have a new pair of glasses!

7.  I decided to join my old rotation lab! I’m so excited about being back and can’t wait to get started on my thesis work!

8.  I’m on vacation and LOVING it! This entire semester/quarter/year has been pretty nuts, and it’s so nice to take some time off, hang out with my favorite person in the world (sitting in his bed typing this right now!) and relax before I start work again! And I can’t wait to go to Austin for a week! So excited!

Overall things were crazy, but everything is starting to get better, and I’m so happy/thankful for that :D

Good day :)

Today I finally learned how to ride a bike! It was amazing!! I can’t wait to practice more (and hopefully someday I’ll be able to ride around Pasadena!)

Also, I ended up cooking a really good dinner! I made chicken from a Real Simple recipe

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/sweet-spicy-chicken-00000000014577/index.html

but didn’t use any oregano

and this rice dish from All Recipies

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Carrot-Rice/Detail.aspx

I just used chopped walnuts instead of peanuts and didn’t use cilantro

It turned out great! I would have taken a picture but my camera was out of battery and I was really hungry!

Trying to look on the bright side

I was talking to the postdoc I share my office with today, and I mentioned to her that I have trouble sleeping as of late because I have a ton of stuff on my mind.  She said she had the same problem, and to get to sleep she’d think of the few goods things that happened during the day and focus on those.  This week has been full of emotional ups and downs based on work, and things are sort of resolved now so I’m guessing I should be focusing on that, though to be honest I’m still reeling a bit.

Anyways here’s what’s been going down.  I started my second rotation lab, THE lab I wanted to work in when I was looking at Caltech, and I had high hopes and high expectations.  The PI is AMAZING, she is sweet and caring and super smart.  Only problem is that she’s really busy so the lab kind of runs itself.  It’s filled with tons of postdocs, which I thought would be great since I thought I’d have this huge knowledge and mentoring resource, but it has been anything but.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s super nice people, but the main people are pretty arrogant and don’t think very much of grad students, let alone rotation students.  The worst by far was the woman I was working with.  I don’t think I’ve ever been treated more rudely in my life, and her behavior towards me has not been limited to yelling (like literally yelling) at me in front of other post docs for no good reason, belittling every thing I do (for 20 good things I do, she’ll harp me on the 1 mistake I made), treating me as if I’ve never held a pipette before in my life, and just walking off while I’m talking to her (since she has better things to do apparently).

This had been going on for the past four weeks, and I put up with it because I wanted to learn about the model organism she was teaching me, so I sucked it up even though I was miserable at being picked apart and micromanaged so much.  Finally this week I had the last straw.  After an especially bad morning when everything seemed to be going wrong, and on top of that her criticizing everything about me (which was not limited to my lab techniques but my work ethic, and personal habits), I finally talked to the professor about it.  Though I had wanted to switch to one of the nicer postdocs working on the same model organism, she decided that it would be best to change model organisms all together and tell her “oh I wasn’t that interested in your model organism to begin with” Anyway I did just that the next day, and she took it well (or so I thought)  and I switched to a more laid back postdoc, though I now I’m working on something I’m not that interested in.  That was yesterday.  Today, she treats me like crap again and I just straight up left.  I guess I took most of the day off just to get away from it all.

Anyway, I really wish I had stood up to her, but I am proud of myself for doing something about it and getting myself out of that situation.  So that’s good things number one :) And I guess by being diplomatic about it and not saying all the horrible things I wanted to say to her I’m not burning bridges with this lab, which I know is good in the long run, but I’m not feeling so good about it now.

Ok that was my drama (though it was a bit encompassing since I had to deal with it 8 hours a day, all week long).  Other good things this week include

1.  Getting to hang out with the Caltech kids.  They’ve all loosened up a bit since first quarter, and it’s kind of refreshing not having to talk to them about lab stuff all the time now.  We all went to a froyo place, and a bunch of us are getting together to teach me how to ride a bike tomorrow, so I’m really looking forward to that :)

2.  Having another really great meeting with my professor from my last rotation and getting to see everyone at lab again.  Just being in this new working environment has made me realize how great I had it over there and I can’t wait to get back!

3.  Going to Target and hanging out with the roommate this week.  She is really amazing, like totally respectful of common areas and gives me space, which has been really nice.  Plus she took me in her car to Target which meant I could buy more things that I could carry (something that is not usually the case since I walk everywhere) which was great!

4.  All of this work drama helping me forget about the rest of the drama I have in my life! Just like the crazy airport drama, I’m seeing that immediate drama is helping me focus less on all this parents shit, which has been good, though I’m not sure if this is the best way to cope

For the rest of the night (and this weekend) I’m going to try to focus on myself and stuff that makes me happy, which hopefully I’ll be able to do. Now it’s time to watch “Meet the Fockers!” (Woo for Netflix!)

Best weekend so far in 2010!

Apart from all the airport drama (in the previous super duper long post) I actually had an AMAZING time this weekend with Naeem.  And I’m really starting to like it over there (it would be totally awesome if I could move there once I figure out what I’m doing with my life!)

Here are all the great things that happened while I was there!

Friday

1. See Naeem at 7 in the morning!! It was even more amazing to see him after all the drama from the night before!

2.  Catching up on sleep while Naeem was at lab :D :D

3.  Waking up and going to my favorite Indian restaurant in Berkeley for lunch! Indus Village!! http://www.yelp.com/biz/indus-village-restaurant-berkeley

4. Mutual freak outs at prices at the North Face outlet. Hahaha i love that we’re both cheap!

5. Target Run! People always ask me “Oh what did you do??” Everytime I come back from a Berkeley trip, or “what are you going to do?” if Naeem comes down, and honestly, we just love to do the normal stuff we used to do back in Austin like lounging around, going grocery shopping, cooking, going to a mall.  It makes me happier than any random planned activity like going to a museum or something :) Plus I got this sweet laundry bag (haha my old one ripped bc I put too many clothes in it from not doing laundry.  I’ve invested in buying a TON of underwear, so I can get away with not doing laundry for a really long time >.<)

6.  Cooking together!! Yay for yummy spaghetti and meatballs!!

7. Staying up super late and watching random stuff on TV like Oprah at 2 in the morning. Hahaha

Saturday

8.  Waking up super late and having a waffle with whipped cream for breakfast.  Haha Naeem and I eat pretty healthy on our own, but when we get together we’re pretty bad about the food we made/eat.

9.  Getting to make dippin’ dots with Naeem at lab (he has to freeze a solution to yeast cells in liquid nitrogen so that these cells can be put into a machine that crushes up their cell walls so that he can extract protein from them later)

10.  Going to Milpedes outlet in San Jose, where Naeem got me my birthday present! Thanks for the dress honey!

11.  Going to Dave and Busters with some game cards I got from a party I went to earlier (one for a student that was graduating from my last rotation lab).  We played for about 2 hours, and all we spent was 10 dollars! Plus we both got enough tickets to get a stuffed animal!

12.  Coming home and making these (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lemon-Sugar-Tea-Cookies/Detail.aspx ) cookies!

13. Playing flux and eating cookies with Naeem, Matt and Shaon!

Sunday

14.  Waking up early to go to brunch at this Buddhist temple near where Naeem lives. Basically all the Thai moms (it’s a Thai Buddhist temple) cook food and you can buy food there for pretty cheap on Sundays.  All the proceeds go to the temple! We ended up going with Matt, Eric and Shaon

15.  Watching “3 Idiots” with said group of friends.  It was hilarious to say the least!

16.  Getting take out from Da Lian (my favorite Chinese restaurant in Berkeley: http://www.yelp.com/biz/da-lian-berkeley )  for dinner!

17.  Naeem making fudge at night and getting to hang out some more with Shaon!

Overall I had ridiculous amounts of fun and it was just what I needed! I know this will sound mushy but weekends like this make me realize how lucky I am to have someone like Naeem in my life, even if he lives almost 400 miles away.  He makes me happier than I’ve ever been and I can’t wait to see where life takes us next :D

Fear of Flying

This weekend was full of both high and lows, and because of the utter ridiculousness of certain events I think I should document it.  I should preface this by saying that, to my dismay, I really don’t blog very much about weekends that I spend in Berkeley.  After this weekend, I decided that I really need to change this, since my time spent at Berkeley is usually AMAZING, and totally makes life bearable at Caltech (since I have something to look forward towards)

I was especially looking forward to this weekend because a lot of stuff in my life hasn’t been going well for me.  Though I’ve minimized contact with the parents, this whole ordeal has been pretty taxing.  For the first time I’ve finally been honest with the parents about my lifestyle and it just really sucks that this is how they’re responding.  Adding to all this stress is stress associated with the lab I’m working in now.  I’ve realized pretty early on that this lab isn’t a very good fit for me, and going to work isn’t very fun anymore to say the least.  Overall on Thursday night I felt like I had reached my tipping point in terms of keeping it cool and not letting all of this stuff get to me, which is why I was really really looking forward to seeing Naeem and visiting Berkeley to get away from it all (at least for a little bit.) Anyway, I thought it would be one of those easy trips where I’d get to the airport early, buy a magazine, get on my plane at the right time and see Naeem by 10.  Boy was I wrong.

For the past week it’s been raining pretty torrentially in Pasadena, which is a rarity in terms of Pasadena weather.  Because of this, my super shuttle came about 30 min early, since the driver was worried about getting in an accident, and being in rush hour (it was 6pm).  True to form, I was ready early so this wasn’t a problem.  I checked my bags, and got through security smoothly, and expected that this visit to the airport would be like any other.

Boy was I wrong.

Upon getting through security, I saw that Burbank airport was in complete and utter chaos.  My flight, which was supposed to be at 8:45pm, was delayed to 10:40 pm.  All the other flights seemed to be getting canceled/delayed.  Anyway, I noticed that two other earlier flights to Oakland were also delayed, including one at 6:50, which was delayed to 9pm.  I immediately got on standby for this flight in hopes to getting to Oakland at my normal time. Then I read this sign that said that getting on standby flights may subject you to charges.  This didn’t sound good.  I also started wondering what would happen to my checked bag if I got on this flight.  So I waited about 45 min in line to talk to a southwest person (and there were only four in the midst of this chaos, can we say poor planning!) and she said that getting on standby meant that I would voluntarily separate myself for the luggage. An image of me and Naeem waiting 2+ hours for my luggage came into my head, and I decided to get off standby.  Anyway the two other flights to Oakland that were before mine came and went (even though they were increasingly delayed) and I found out that my flight had been delayed an extra hour.  I was pretty much at the end of my rope, now having been in the airport for about 6 hours when literally 5 minutes before my flight a southwest attendant says “I’m sorry but I have the worst news possible, your flight in cancelled”

I’m currently at the end of my rope.  How the hell will I get to Oakland?!  I NEED TO GET TO OAKLAND. How will I get home? How will I get to the airport to catch the next flight? How much will all of this cost?!?!  And most importantly,  I can’t believe I’m gonna miss out on this precious little time I get to see Naeem.

As immature as this sounds, I ran over to the next gate and started crying.  It was all way too much, too fast, especially with all this shit going down in other parts of my life.  I call Naeem, and finally get a hold of myself.

Anyway I make my way to the counter when I see this really angry guy (another passenger) waiting to talk to the attendant.  Since he’s clearly been waiting to talk longer than me, I offer to let him go first. He says, “No you go ahead, when I get done with this guy [the southwest attendant], they’re gonna need to call the police”

A little freaked out, I make my way to the southwest attendant.  The next flight out of Burbank is at 2pm. No way in hell I’m waiting that long.  The next available flight from LAX is at 6am.  I book it.  Then I ask about my bags.  The southwest guy says that they’re in the airport and I can get them from the luggage carousel.  I then look out the window and see one of the luggage handlers outside mouthing “no bags!” to the Southwest attendant.  WTF.  I immediately ask him about this and he says that my bags are already in Oakland, sent on an earlier flight.  I can’t fucking believe it. I could have been on standby this entire time and gotten to Oakland and Naeem when I was supposed to.  I call Naeem asking him if he can maybe pick up my bags at the Oakland airport, and Naeem says its fine and suggests I ask to be reimbursed for expenses I incurred traveling to the airport.  The Southwest guy starts saying something about talking to customer service when dear “They’re gonna need the police” guy steps in, yelling, telling me that Southwest is playing me for a fool.  I really at the end of my rope now, now that the attendant and crazy dude have started quarreling.

And suddenly it all got better.

A woman who had been traveling for business on the same flight as me saw all this shit that was going down.  She quickly came over and said that her company was paying for all her traveling expenses and that she could get a taxi and give me a ride to LAX.  After talking about it for a while, we decided that it would be easiest if I went with her to a hotel near LAX, stayed there, and took a shuttle from the hotel to LAX to catch out 6 am flight. And her company would pay for all of it!

I really don’t know what I would have done if this woman hadn’t been there.  Once she got her ticket taken care of, we ended up chatting about our lives and careers, and had a really great time.  Though I was only able to get two hours of sleep that night, I was able to catch my plane to Oakland, and see Naeem at 7am Friday.  I’m so glad everything turned out great in the end, and even amidst all this drama I was able to make a friend.  In a way I’m also kind of thankful it happened bc it really put everything in perspective.  With all the airport/flight drama I totally forgot about my other problems and started living in the moment again, which was nice and made me enjoy my weekend with Naeem even more!

And speaking of that, this post has become pretty long (and was kind of a downer) which is why I think I might do another separate post to talk about all the fun stuff I did in Berkeley! :)

Feeling better

Just spent the good part of this afternoon and this night with my old rotation lab (one of the grad students was graduating!)  Seeing them and talking to them made me feel so much better about science and life in general.  I think I might just have found the right lab for me!

dinner tonight

the only resolution I seem to be keeping is the “save more money by not eating out” one.  I’m really glad Naeem helped me get into the habit of cooking everyday though!

Tonight I made Latkes! Here’s the recipe I used and they turned out great!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Potato-Latkes-I/Detail.aspx