Weschler, Westfield, and Wonderful gifts!

I was trying to fit biochem in there somehow, but it didn't quite work out.

Let's start with wonderful gifts! Kim brough me some chesnut mochi in a cuuuuuuute green box! At first, I thought it was some sort of fancy green kleenex but I was mistaken! It was mochi! I have yet to try it, but the decoration looks good enough to eat.

Westfield Mall- very nice! That's what I call a mall. Went with Morgan for 1/2 hour or so and must go back!

Friday night we had a staff party and watched "Saved", all the while hiding from the freshmen (who'd gone to freshman formal, luckily).

Why the Weschler? Studying for Clinical Psych midterm, which will rear it's ugly head on Monday morning. Biochem follows shortly thereafter, on Tuesday. I hate having midterms close together. I'm more or less just cramming Clinical Psych now because there are like a kazillion pages to read for it, but I'm going to have to focus on bio soon, or else face the wrath of the curve created by a couple hundred insane premeds.

On the bright side, the weather has been nice! It's got a nice twingy fall feel to the air- sort of crisp and a little cold.

P.S. I forgot to mention this earlier, but some Advice To All- do NOT do NOT watch "Audition". It is a horribly frightening Japanese film that will have you fearing needles for life. Yikes. Despite whatever your RCC says. Still don't understand why Daniel P was advertising it as a romantic comedy. Then again, the guy spends all his time at Packard (until 2 am or so) so something's clearly wacky up there.

warning: VENTING ahead

Let's face it. I'm here to vent.

Sad, but true-most of my journals/diaries/random entries in things are venting-oriented. I guess this doen't really count as venting though- because I'd have to be angry to vent, right? I'm not angry, I'm just really really frustrated.

I.
hate.
the.
stupid.
MRI.
machine.

I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I absolutely positively freaking hate it.

Just really frustrated at a lack of data, some mean people, and my stupid mice who are such freaking abnormal respirators. Although that might actually be good news for the project itself.

On the bright side, my PI is really nice and has been super understanding. I just want some data!!!!!!!!!

In other news...

Insights from researching for honors thesis lit review, painfully earned at 5 am the day it is due:
We prefer the term compartmentation to compartmentalization, which is popular with many of our colleagues, one of whom has been heard to say compartmentalizationize. Why our preference? For economy of space and from a desire to avoid the redundancy of making an overly long noun (compartmentalization) from an already awkwardly long verb (compartmentalize), which itself comes from the perfectly useful and shorter noun (and verb) [to]compartment. The infinitive "to compart" may sound Dickensian to the modern ear. That notwithstanding, when we compart or compartment, we get compartments (spaces that are compartmental) and achieve compartmentation. Enough is enough. More is too much.
-footnote in Compartmentation of G Protein-Coupled Signaling Parthways in Cardiac Myocytes

Intruiguing. Someone clearly had to fill some space in their review article.

What else?

Hurricane Wilma hit Miami pretty hard. 80% of the folks down there are still without power. Luckily, my family got power back a few days ago. They made Mom go to work today, but there was in fact no work that could be done because the network/comps were down. Schools still aren't open. They had a curfew (not sure if that's still in place). Apparently the lines for gas go on for miles. The crazy thing is, I don't remember this sort of Hurricane scariness before the last couple of years. I hope this isn't the way it's going to be every year. Miami is a fantastic place to live, but it's scary having your family down there with four or more major hurricanes passing by for 1/3 of the year during storm season.

Minor venting: the guy lecturing in EMT class the other day kept saying how a patient could "go south on you" if this that or the other happened. What has he got against the South anyways?

This is probably discombobulated and making no sense. Things are not going well. Please send me happy thoughts and butterflies.

No, I take back the butterlies. Insects with wings. Let's not discriminate on appearances.

yay! 

i love the nice messages! 

The troubles with sleep continues

Helpful Hint: When using sleeping aids, be sure to make sure you actually have 8 hours to sleep. Otherwise, you will just spend an entirety of 8 hours wishing you could sleep.

A hard lessoned learned from insomnia at 3 am and total inability to concentrate/listen to biochem lecture at 9 am the next morning. It was bad.

Declaration: I will be living at Lucas center for the rest of this month.

Funny "adult" fortune cookie slip: Kissing is upper persuasion for lower invasion.

Scavenger hunt was fun (last Saturday) but I don't recommend sharing a moquito at 10:30 am at the Cheesecake factory...even if it is only 1/5th of the drink. Especially if you're Asian.

Peace (haha! can't believe i typed that)

From the insomniac at heart

I really don't understand it. I've been so tired today (and definitely lacking in the sleep department owing to biochem problem set and manic Monday) yet I STILL CAN'T SLEEP! Argh. Took some of those "Simply Sleep" pills. I'm not sure if they actually help though, because I end up just staying up and not trying to sleep for a length of time until finally collapsing into the land of nod...

Helped Justin with his college essay today :) Pretty funny and not half bad! Go bro! He's not a Cardinal fan though, which makes me sad :(

Stunningly insightful conclusions:
1. Stanford kids are involved in EVERYTHING and do so AMAZINGLY
(epiphany reached by going to the community fall forum @ Arrillaga today. I was presenting some info on the health education talks/classes we put on at PFC this year. Lynne did a fantastic job getting us involved with the Diabetes health class and Promotores at Community Health Partnership. Man, Kudos with a Kaptial K. I staffed a couple of times and people were really enthusiastic and they got some great conversations on nutrition, exercise, how to manage medication, etc. Really fits with the overall goals of PFC too)
2. My mice are okei but there are faaaaar too many of them! Definitely saving some simply for the microarray study. It's a hassle with the BP machine as it is...I shudder to think of the horrors I'll face with the darn MRI. Alas, the pains of research.
3. Swing is FUN. To be further explained later
4. Intro to Clinical Psych is so boring it makes you want to tear your eyeballs out and stick them into your ears just for entertainment purposes. The reading is even worse. Ugh. Still, a psych minor's gotta do what a psych minor's gotta do (namely, take required classes).
5. I got nothin. Just didn't want to leave it at 4 because I like 5 better.

No, I take it back...
5 (fo real). Need to cut a class and was having some trouble letting it go, but go it must! Just going to audit. It'll be just as good, plus no stress! Darn you, other crazy premeds!!!!!

Back to Swing is Fun.

It is.

Tried out for Swingtime. So did some friends of mine. We took Living Traditions of Swing in the winter (AWEEEEESOME class! One of the best I've taken at Stanford). Swingtime is so great. Sigh. I could laud them for a while, but that would be sort of...sad. On my part. Hope I get called back. Lots of rearranging of the schedule to do then though. Hm. I think it's worth it. When else would we get to do something like this??? (Er, actually, hopefully next year, if I'm still on campus for work/research).

We shall see.