Callipygian

Well, I passed. I feel like they discovered a new orifice I wasn't aware of, but I cleared the major first year hurdle.

The schoolyear is over, so I'll just be working in my new lab now for the summer. That should be relieving. It'll be more of a regular grind, and I won't have as much to take home and work on with the break from classes.

/stretch

Hopefully now I can relax a bit. I think I'll try riding my bike to the beach a little this summer.

I finished watching Gunslinger Girl. It's only thirteen episodes. It didn't seem like there was really any plot, just an expose of the characters and how they reacted to their situation.

Anyone know if there's manga that continues this? Seems like another show that got green-lighted for one season and never got off the ground.

Me stressed. Me stressed!!

Finals are coming up. On Tuesday I give my lab presentation and have the last week of classes. Finals come the week after that. The final test in proteins covers half of all the lecture material. The day after my final I have to give my minisymposium, which is a presentation before several professors I don't even know about my research this quarter. And that's at 8:00 am.

(>.<) Stress!!!

On a lighter note, it rained today. That was awesome. I can't explain how cool it is to see rain after so many months of sunshine. Yes yes, I bet you'd like to be able to say that was a problem for you too. Come to California, and it will be!

Will from Wisconsin is having a birthday this weekend, so a bunch of us are going to Dave and Busters. I love Chuck E. Cheeses! I mean Dave and Busters. At least the prizes have some utility. Hopefully I'll be able to expand my shot glass collection.

So I made it to California. How did it go, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Wednesday: I spent the whole day packing stuff up. I packed my computer and other entertainment stuff as well as a box of textbooks that I want to have mailed to California. Three of these boxes were in the 65 pound range. The textbooks were just shy of 40 pounds. Toss in packing two suitcases, a carry-on bag, and my briefcase, and it was a rather busy day. And yet I couldn't even dream of going to sleep. Even though I tried, I just got up and talked to Eryn on the computer until three in the morning rolled around.

Thursday: So then I got a shower, we loaded up the car, and drove to the Pittsburgh Airport. I got there, checked in, had very little hassle with security (they opened one of my bags for a grand total of about 10 seconds), had about a 20 minute delay in getting the plane out of the gate, and I was off. I slept the whole way from Pittsburgh to Phoenix, which was nice. Then the fiasco began.

I was supposed to connect from Phoenix to Orange County an hour and a half after landing. They jumbled us around between three different gates, running halfway across the airport at one point. Then, they canceled the flight completely. I spent the next hour and a half standing in line waiting while they rebooked everyone for new flights. My flight ended up being at 7:30 by the time it was my turn to rebook. It was noon, I should have already been in California, and I had seven hours to kill in the Phoenix airport. I ended up reading scientific papers, moping around, and generally being perturbed.

The flight finally came and went off as well as can be expected. We were a few minutes late in leaving, but we arrived in Orange County, I disembarked and met Eryn and Justin at the airport, looking awful seeing as how I hadn't hardly slept in two days. We got to the apartment complex, I called the girl on night duty, got my keys and everything signed, then went to see the apartment. It could use some cleaning up, but it's a decent place. My new roommate Aaron showed up and helped me move his futon into my room. Eryn and Justin left, and I got some much needed sleep.

Friday: I got up early to go see one of the program assistants for MBGB so I could start working and get paid. Talked to Dr. Hertel, and I start on Monday at 9:00 am.

Eryn and Justin drove me out to Target to pick up some stuff for the apartment and to get some food. It'll be nice once I have my own car and can stop being a bum.

Saturday: Well on the way back from the airport, Eryn asked if I was interested in going to Anime Expo at the Long Beach Convention Center. Does a crack smoking monkey want more crack in his pipe? So they picked me up around 10:00 in the morning, and we drove to Anaheim (about a half hour away). We waited in line til we finally got our badges at noon, then rushed to the 35mm theater (think the CAC but with TWO balcony seating sections above the back half of the theater) to see the live action movie adaptation of Death Note. This thing absolutely ruled. It was over four hours long, but they split it up into two sections, with "Howl's Moving Castle" showing in between. I wanted them to see that movie as well, but our stomachs got the better of us, so we decided to skip it and come back later for the second half. The story is a little different from the anime, which is cool as I still want to see what happens in the series. I give it two thumbs up though. It was quite good.

In the interim, we went to the dealers room, which was easily the size of three high school auditoriums, if not larger. Then we ran into some folks that Eryn and Justin went to high school with, so we hung out with them, and they came with us for the second half of Death Note.

It was a good trip (though tiring), and I was impressed with the size of the convention. It was probably twice as big as Otakon, though there strangely appeared to be less cosplay.

Sunday: Time to recuperate and get ready for the coming week. I'm taking it easy today. Reading a few papers, making some lists of things I need for the apartment, but not really doing much. This week is going to be quite busy, I think, but I figure I'll get settled in the next couple of weeks and make a regular routine. We'll see in the coming days.

My flight is booked for Thursday morning at 7:45 out of Pittsburgh. Ugh at having to get up that early. By noon PST, I will be in California, barring any delays or other fiascos like I had the first time I went out there.

The next three days will be devoted to packing, preparing, and saying goodbye.

I start working on July 2nd in Dr. Hertel's lab. He sent me four big papers to read, so those should keep me busy on the flight and at my apartment. I'm a little bit nervous, but really excited. Can't wait to see how things go this week.

It's been a really long time since I posted here, and even longer since I posted anything worthwhile. The way things are going for me, though, I'm gonna start again. Soon enough I won't be able to tell you all in person about my (mis)adventures.

For those who don't know what I'm referring to, I finally heard back from all the graduate schools I applied with. Here's the rundown:

Virginia Tech - An assistant professor invited me to check out her website and look at her research in avian epidemiology. This would have been a masters degree program, and while the research looked interesting, I decided it wasn't what I was after.

Georgia Tech - This one surprised me. They accepted me to the masters program, but without any assistance at all. No work to help me pay for school and actually get some valuable research experience before trying to enter the experience-crazed work force? No thanks.

West Virginia University - I got an email yesterday from an assistant professor working on chromatin structure and gene expression in Drosophila (fruit flies). Rather interesting stuff, and right up my alley, but I don't think their offer will compare to UCI. Pretty sure this will only be a masters program.

University of California, Irvine - Doing my applications, I considered this one to be the longshot. Boy was I wrong. I got an email and a letter from them inviting me to fly out, at their expense, for an interview weekend in February. This invitation came several days before the application deadline for the program. They were definitely interested in recruiting me.

I got to spend February 8th through 11th in California. I had a blast while I was out there, met lots of professors and students from the program and really connected. I was excited when I left, excited when I got back, and really excited two weeks later when their acceptance and assistanceship offer came in. Full tuition and fees and a very liveable stipend while I work on attaining a PhD in genetics. Typical time to completion is five to six years.

So, I get to continue my education just like I wanted. California will be a pretty big change, but I've got a couple friends out there that I met through the internet and during my visit. The school itself is the smallest in the University of California system, but that works for me. It's about 20% larger than WVU as far as student numbers go, but it's a planned community, so it's not nearly as large or cumbersome as WVU. The entire school is laid out in a circle, with a sizeable park in the middle, which I found very relaxing. There's bike trails and pedestrian paths across the whole campus, and you can reach just about anywhere on campus with a 10 minute walk. It's also only three miles from the beach. I figure it'll be a big lifestyle change for me, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Here's some links to websites for the University, the MBGB program, and the city of Irvine, in case you're curious what I'm getting into:

http://www.uci.edu/
http://mbb.bio.uci.edu/grad-phd-biosci.html
http://www.cityofirvine.org/

On a side note, several folks are already fantasizing about flying out for a vacation once I get settled out there, which I think is an awesome idea. As things progress, I'll be posting more here.

You have been warned...

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k314/vaincallipygian/Cathearingvoices.jpg

Check this out cause it's hilarious.

I have a feeling this is the kind of thing Ricky is going to play on a loop 200 times over because it's so awesome. Be careful about it if you're at work, since it could potentially offend someone who is uptight about their sexuality. Seriously though, give this song a listen.

On a side note, lunch was two hours ago, but my hands smell like cheese. What's up with that?

We played a new game for gaming night last night: Call of Cthulhu, Arkham Horror. It's a complicated game, but really quite fun once you get the rules down. For those that aren't familiar with the genre, Cthulhu was created by H.P. Lovecraft in the early 1900s. Like Tolkein was the father of fantasy, Lovecraft was the father of horror. Much of his literature involves strange and powerful creatures from other dimensions seeking to break into reality and devour humanity.

The goal of the game is to prevent one of these entities from invading the city of Arkham. Each player picks an investigator to play and a random monster is chosen to be the invading entity. Players work together to fight monsters and close gates from other dimensions in order to keep the otherworldly entity safely removed from reality. If the players don't close enough of the gates quickly enough, monsters overrun the town, and eventually the ringleader breaks through and you have to fight it.

The first really creepy/funny thing happened before we even started the first turn of the game. Everyone was picking random investigators, and John pulled one named Bob Jenkins. For those that don't know my roleplaying history, I played the Call of Cthulhu pen and paper roleplaying game a few years ago with my college buddies. I hated the game, so I made the most comical character I could come up with: a drunken hobo with no really extraordinary abilities or redeeming qualities, who despite his mediocrity had insane dice luck and succeeded at some crazy stupid stuff. I named him "Shotgun" Bob Jenkins. The first item the new Bob Jenkins got playing the game last night was a shotgun. It was absolutely hilarious and a really strange coincidence.

In choosing my character for the game, I had two choices: some dark, mysterious guy who looked kinda like a private investigator and a sexy red haired woman leaning over a map on a table. Of course I picked the sexy librarian, which turned out to be a superb choice. Her special ability allowed one investigator to make one reroll once per turn. At least five times that power allowed us to kill a monster or close a portal. It was awesome.

Long story short, we killed a bunch of monsters, closed all the open portals, and won the game by preventing the emergence of the endboss. It's a pretty cool game, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes board games. I'm not much into horror, but I still enjoyed it. Just be ready to learn a lot of rules the first time, and you should be good to go.

The world is such a sad and beautiful place.

You find something wonderful and satisfying, so you lose yourself in the fantasy of it. But then the world breaks in, and you realize that it is just a fantasy. Do you break the fantasy? Throw it away now, while it is still fresh and young and beautiful, so that the heartbreak of losing it will be less?

I hope that you find what you're looking for. I'm sorry I couldn't be closer to share it.