Half-a-Beaner

Check it OUT!

2006-07-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

So, my buddy Clarissa did harass me about not having a photo on my blog when I first started the whole thing. The reason it took so long is because I'm just as vain as anyone else and didn't like any of my previous attempts at a self-portrait. But I just bought my first Threadless tee and submitted a picture for two reasons: 1. Street points and 2. I was a little sick with myself for not having a picture. The picture turned out alright for the most part. I did notice that my eyes are little wild-looking when I enlarged it, but too damn bad. I'm going to assign the crazy eyes to my excitement. After all this is the first new piece of clothing I've bought in quite awhile. Well, here's what I look like.

Holy Crap! I'm a Chemist!

2006-05-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

Well, friends and neighbors, it's amazing. Me, the girl that most of my elementary school teachers would have thought fortunate to have made a career of uttering the phrase: "Welcome to Taco Bell, may I take your order?", I have graduated college with a bachelor's of science. It wasn't always pretty, it wasn't always fun, but I did it. I've enjoyed the few hours that I've had to convince myself of this achievment, but now it's back to work. Time to find a job that will let me work part-time when August comes around, because, dear friends, I'm going to throw myself into getting into grad school. Yep, I have aspirations of doing research in one of the top five programs in the country and earning a PhD while I do it. Why not dream big? Thank goodness that I have had college professors that believe I'm talented enough to get into any program in the country. I know that all the teachers I had in Minnesota would think that I must have cheated my way to where I am now, because I imagine that they couldn't see how I could manage to get my own shoes on without someone else point out which shoe went on which foot. Wow, that was a nasty negative statement. I doubt that anger it really truly directed at the people who taught me the fundamentals of writing and math. I bet that mostly what I'm angry about is the nasty bad luck that always manages to find my family. I went through most of the march to the stadium on Saturday, dressed in my robe and motorboard, feeling detached and thinking that the only reason I was going to commencement was because my parents wanted to go. You see, I'm a VERY old undergraduate (33 if you must know). Needless to say, I was a shiftless little bastard throughout my twenties. My beautiful friend and guiding grad student, Clarissa, found me in the line of undergrads weaving their way into the stadium, and oh how amazing that was to have her find me with her shining happy face, to be there so excited and giving me flowers just when I was feeling so lonely among those gorgeous young and brilliant people ten years (or more) my junior. That was just what I needed to get a kick start into realizing just what I was doing. I was actually graduating. So, the graduating class of 2006 got inside and were standing at their seats waiting for the university president and faculty to be seated at the dias. Next to me there was a girl wearing a necklace of yellow and red carnations, standing on her chair and chattering on her cell to whom I assume was her mother or father trying to find her in the crowd for a photograph. On the other side were two boys, one of them on his cell and telling the other, "Look over that way, my mom wants a picture of us." I started looking around for my parents and sister but there were SO many people I didn't think that I would ever find them. Of course, I kept looking around casually not wanting to get my hopes up and then I saw my sister and Clarissa waving like maniacs in the section right in front of me. I waved back with Clarissa's flowers in my hand. And then I saw my mom and dad. My mom was wearing red and my dad had his right arm raised and his index finger pointing up. My dad, in the crowd with his hand raised is going to be what I'm going to remember most about my graduation day. He was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease five years ago. It started in his hands and he hasn't been able to really lift his arms for a couple of years. So, it made me start to cry when I saw that. My dad made it to my graduation and raised his hand in the crowd. Somewhere during the past two weeks he started using a wheelchair and I didn't know. I knew it was getting harder for him to walk but I didn't know he was using a chair until I was running around after the ceremony looking for my family. The disease had been progressing slowly for so long that it is becoming even more frustrating now that it seems to be speeding up. And it pisses me off. I have a great dad. He taught me how to drive a car and he always had faith that I was smart. My dad taught me to keep a lab notebook and how to run an AA spectrophotometer, acetylene and nitrous flames, thank you very much. My dad taught me the fundamentals of experimental design, how to evaluate laboratory standards, and to degrade cyanide with bleach. My dad worked so hard all our lives and was always so in love with our mom. He kept up the health insurance that paid for the fillings in our teeth and the kidney mom needed oh so many years ago. I never thought that my dad could get sick. He fell off of the roof one winter while cleaning the chimney, broke his back and crawled through the door when mom opened it to run out to see if he was alright. It's so unfair that he's been healthy all his life and now he's wondering if he'll make it to his retirement. It's also unfair that yesterday was Mother's day and I'm talking about my dad. But I can't really go on much more without getting myself all kinds of worked up. After all, I've got some experiments to do tomorrow, bright and early. There's not a whole lot of time to sit around being introspective, and right now I think that's a good thing.

Little things I should had said or done, I just never took the time...

2006-04-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

So, the diocese declared bankruptcy to avoid the responsibility of owning up to the consequences of covering for the preists who were buggering the alter boys, but they have installed some very elaborate chimes in the cathedral downtown. I could be wrong, they may have had the automated deluxe Quasimoto before the whole preists-without-souls scandal hit the fan, but I had only noticed it about six or eight weeks ago. I couldn't ever pick up on the tune and just assumed is was something sacred and religious. But just now it sounded alot like "Always on My Mind" by that glorious human being, Willie Nelson. And when I really ponder the lyrics, I'm not sure if this qualifies as irony or coincidence. What do I know, anyway? I'm spiritually bankrupt myself and I say it all the time.

Actual Food Prepared for One

2006-04-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago Todd gave me some wonderful samplings of frozen beef. The other day he asked me how I had liked his gift. I had to shamefully tell him that I had been too lazy to whip up anything more demanding than PB&J. It's the end of the semester and with the grace of all that is generous and kind in the world, I'll be graduating in May. I'm so deflated right now it's all I can do in the morning just to keep breathing. However, tonight I finally ate better than The Goob. By the way, that's a salad plate not a dinner plate. I am making an effort to obey the rules of portion control. Thank you, Martha Stewart, for the tomatoe and mushroom side. Very tasty! Now I think I'll cosy up to a Cold Comfort martini and lose myself in Hänni Haus archive. Tomorrow is going to be a long overdue slog through Einstein's theory of special relativity. I'm panicking. Why can't it be enough that I made it through quantum mechanics?

When you think too much, you give yourself a complex.

2006-04-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, the wonderful thing about how many blogs there are out there is that I can vent here about what I'm obsessing about and, more likely than not, no one will know. On Tuesday, I screwed up. Badly. I mean in the realm of 'WHAT were you thinking? You DUMBASS." In doing so, I have not only disappointed but really pissed off a professor that I really admire and value. I'm assumming the disappointment but I definitely know she's very, very angry. I obviously sent an e-mail to apologize as soon as she let me know I had completely stepped out of line. Now tomorrow I absolutely must tell her in person. So, I was able to get through most of the day calmer and more productive than I have been since Tuesday. Then I freaked out just now and absolutely HAD to clean my toilet. Is that psychologically significant or am I over-analyzing?

What the heck

2006-04-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

Here's why I decided to start a blog. I've been checking out blogs off and on for about a year. Celebrity Smack is a wonderfully catty blog to indulge in, even if you couldn't care less who the hell Lindsay Lohan is. From there I checked out Spicy Pant's extensive list of links. I was drawn to Hänni because I'm a sucker for umlauts. I had such a blast reading her blog that I added myself to Hänni's map and guess what? Now I've got my own map at Frappr. Do feel free to add yourself to my map but know that the site automatically gives you a map of your own which comes with the decision of whether or not to start a blog. I was going to blow the whole thing off but I can always use something to waste my time and I don't know how to knit (although the Martha Stewart worshipper in me wants to). So, here I am. I'll be goofing with this for a bit just to amuse myself. I'm not expecting this to be interesting to anyone except me, but maybe once I get started it'll become someone else's method of procrastination as well. Meanwhile, I'll try to figure out how to put up some links for the blogs that I have found to be more interesting than network TV. I just figured it out and linked Hännihaus and Celebrity Smack above. I'm a newbie to this whole blog nonsense as well as a moron. As my neighbor Todd says, "I's special". Oh, I would also recommend Waiter Rant.

2006-04-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

This is my dog. I don't know about everyone else but I have lots of pet names for my dog. I often call him The Goo. He's also commonly referred to as The Creepsy-Doodle, Goob, and Hooty-Hoo. He's my best bud and his favorite interests are his toes. Hey, does anyone else know a dog that sniffs their toes after they have been scratching the inside of an ear? Creepsy-Doo does it almost every freaking time. And for any of you rolling your eyes because I'm yet another loser talking about their pets, be happy I'm not a crazy cat lady.

2006-04-26T18:55:00.000-07:00

I'll get to this in a minute. Maybe later tonight. Tomorrow, I promise.