Blogito Ergo Sum

I started writing this blog post Sunday night I believe and abandoned it in a glassy-eyed torpor since it was probably too late for me to be up. Then again, it's 2 AM now and here I am anyway. I think I'm getting to like this blog thing.

This past week was good. And by good I mean lazy. I think I was productive Monday and I know I wasn't productive Sunday. Tuesday, I was counting down to elections and partaking in Starbuck's and Ben and Jerry's new-found election day enthusiasm. Both were disappointments. Let me just offer a word of warning. If you ever wonder what could be bad about an ice cream flavor named "Peanut Butter Cookie Dough", let me tell you. Plenty. It's salty. I still shudder. But it was free, so it wasn't that big a deal.

R came over for election night, and while I was convinced that I would do work while we were watching the results, I was, in fact, lying to myself. It's good I'm so forgiving. There's something fascinating about realizing (or pretending) that the next four years of your life or more can be affected by this one night. I'm a fan of Barack Obama and have been following him since the primaries so I was very happy to see him win. I'm not very political though, but I will say I'm very reassured about some of my uncertainties by the way he's been handling things since the election.

I also stayed up until 3 AM reading election night coverage that night, so I spent the rest of the week paying for that. The one thing I do recall was talking a lot about picking rotations. I have it narrowed down to four (I think) after some hemming and hawing and I really should have it down to three, but that looks hopeless.

There's the plant computational biology lab, where the professor, who works for the school and the Department of Agriculture and said her lab was all about yield, yield, yield. If you've read my post from yesterday or the one from last April, you'll know I don't need to be told that twice. Then there's the lab(s) that work on genetic profiles for various diseases, including cancer and autism (I've mentioned that one before also). Then there's the more procedural lab, which is huge and has lots of opportunities, but may pigeonhole me as a computers guy, where I'll live out my days looking at increasingly cool computer screens while the world moves on around me. Lastly, there's the guy who does protein analysis with chemistry techniques (proteomics) in ways that have never really been done before. He's already done some amazing stuff that I kinda grasp and he might be interesting. Then there are the ones I don't want to rule out, but kinda have to. It's good to have to choose from options like these.

I suppose with all the uncertainty, I'm lucky enough to realize that my thesis project isn't set in stone as what I do for the rest of my life. One of the professors (the proteomics one) used to be a plant biologist and never had any PhD chemistry study...and look where he is now. My supervisor at my old job was very helpful when he said it's not worth banking on technology you have now to carry your career for 20 or 30 years at least when that technology will be gone in 10. Oddly enough, one of the lessons I've already learned in getting a biology PhD is that the key to succeeding is evolving. So while I may work on this stuff for the rest of my life, I might also be doing something completely different. And I'm alright with that.

Today was a good way to wind down from last night's all-nighter. I napped between and after classes, then gave myself the night off (from when I woke up at 8:15 PM). Knowing that time off is invaluable, I headed to the kitchen and made myself some stir fry. An hour and a half later (the prep was loooooong), I had some lovely chicken/broccoli/green pepper/mushroom stir fry with a soy sauce and mirin. Yum. And I have enough for me and R when she comes to visit this weekend. If there's one thing I got out of this summer, it's that you don't have to be afraid of cooking. Once you do it enough, you get a sense of what should go in a dish and what shouldn't and it just works out. You also learn neat little tricks along the way, like how to blanch broccoli and how to get chicken in stir fry to look like those tender white chunks you see in commercials. It's easy. And yummy. And after making about a stir fry a week over the summer, I can safely say that I'll eat what comes out of my frying pan (no wok yet :( ) and I'll probably be happy. Plus, cooking with the people you love (me and R usually spend some portion of every weekend cooking one thing or another) can be especially rewarding. Especially when said person is R.

When I think about cooking, I think about how great it would be to have a garden with all my herbs. Then I think it would be so great to work in a lab where I get to do that for a living. Then I wonder if I want to take a hobby and turn it into a job. Then I wonder if I'd need to heat up the stir fry if I go down now to have some more. Then I realize it's time to pack it in for the night, because I'm tired.

Side note: thanks to everyone who reads this blog and I'm really touched. Also, please please please comment. I'd really like to hear what you guys think about what I write hear. It doesn't even have to be clever or witty! Lord knows I'm not...