Home!

Yay! I'm back in DC and Christmas is just around the corner :) Lot's of eating of delicious food and happy family times! So, I haven't been blogging, but here is a cool cartoon my friend sent me from xkcd.

Love This

Muppets and Martinis

The sky has opened up!! There is a sheet of continuous rain out side my window... I was just about to go to the gym, but by the time I get there, I'll be soaked. Hmm. I don't mind getting soaked after my work out, but before I work out it's a little uncomfortable. I guess I'll just wait until it lets up a little.

In the meantime, I have four papers to write this weekend and forty papers to grade for Monday. So... I guess I'll get started on that.

Enjoy this awesome video my dad sent: it's all interesting, but I like it best around min 4 when you get to see the inside structure of the hill.



Oh, I almost forgot the most interesting part! I went to have Martinis last night with my friends and then we watched a Muppet family Christmas :) Here's a picture of us at martinis--does my face look strangely gigantic?

Done

Well, I'm done. It's not great, but I'm done. I didn't get a wink of sleep and I don't have a lot to show for it, but it will have to do. This was a weird experience. I never felt like I wasn't working on this paper, I didn't feel like I was procrastinating. I worked and worked and worked but it was like pulling teeth. How do you write something that just isn't there? Somehow, I don't think my professor will see it that way...

Well, off to school for a presentation that I hope my brain will hold out for. I need to stay coherent for just a week more. Hang on brain!

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Haha-I just printed two copies of it (17 pages each--not double spaced) and realized I don't have my name on it anywhere!

Red Bull

Is red bull supposed to make your teeth feel like they are disintegrating? I think by the end of the evening, I may have no teeth left. Also, it kind of feels like my stomach lining is melting...

It was brought to my attention that the book I was thinking of was "cloudy with a chance of meatballs"--I actually had an epiphany on the bus this morning when I remembered that but wasn't able to get to my blog in time to correct myself...so I just ended up looking silly.

It's going to be a long night. Paper due and another presentation tomorrow...when it's over I will immediately need to start studying for my final on Friday. I will get through! I know I will! It may not be my best work...but it will be done.

This paper I'm writing is about whale-fall specialists; specifically Osedax, the bone eating worms. They are no longer eating whales, they are eating my brain.

I really like this little animated video of an interview with John Lennon they had on Boing Boing today. What a cool thing to have been 14 years old with a pass to interview John Lennon in bed with Yoko Ono. Although, if it were me, I wouldn't have said anything bad about George--I always liked George.

Meatballs

I am working on my paper again at Starbucks and all of the sudden, something triggered my memory of a book where it's raining meatballs. I think that may even be the title of the book--it's raining meatballs. I wonder what reminded me of that... I wish I could read that book right now...there is a man in here with a big red beard and when I looked at him, I thought of that book. Weird. I think my brain is starting to turn into a green blob of undulating goo.

Swap-meet

Yesterday I went to the swap-meet by the stadium where they sell lots of cool Hawaiian chatchkes. Here are some pics. It's now Sunday night and I don't know where the weekend went....

Ugh...

Remember how I said I pinched a nerve in my finger? I still can't feel it. It feels like when you have a chunky band-aid on your finger tip...

I had a presentation in my benthic biological oceanography class today and it was terrible. I slept about a half an hour last night and I think that it did not help. I had one of those moments where I was looking at everyone and I realized I was talking and then I couldn't get out of my head and then I didn't know what I was saying--it was excruciating. I don't think I made any sense at all. Ugh. Then I apologized for being scatterbrained and not making any sense--a rookie mistake! Never admit defeat, maybe they won't notice... But they did. Poooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop. I had trouble recovering afterwords and felt as if maybe it didn't happen--maybe I had an out of body experience. Unfortunately I didn't. It happened.

I just made an amazing white pizza and I am very impressed with myself. I think my friends are at a movie. I was going to go, but my phone died, so I didn't hear what time it started. So now, I am going to go to sleep at 8pm on a Friday. Today is a good day for feeling sorry for myself.

Ahhhhhhh! Will I make it through the next two weeks?! Stay tuned...

Swim Test

Yay! I passed. Whew. And with 17 seconds to spare! We had to swim 400m in 10 minutes and I made it in 9:43. It's a good thing too because last year a girl failed because she came in at 10 mins and 10 seconds! What a sh*tty situation for her. Anyway, I am so relieved. The 25m underwater was no problem, nor was treading water or the dive skills :) Somehow I pinched a nerve in my left pointer finger though and now have no feeling in the tip--it makes typing a bit difficult. Oh well, now that the swim test is over, I can get on with the other important things I need to do--like this bloody paper.

I'm at Starbucks and feeling a bit like I'm in a fishbowl in Waikiki. I'm sitting by the window and I've already had two sets of high school boys come up to the window knocking, laughing, and then running away. Oh well, it's better than being in my apartment, where I get no work done. Why am I having so much trouble with this?

Today I went in to talk with one of my professors because I got an 87 on a test and I was bummed out because I wanted an A. He said I can still get an A in the course, but I need to do better on the next exam. Anyway, he was asking me what I want to be when I grow up--I'm not kidding, that's what he asked me. I kind of smiled because I am beginning to discover that this is a common question in grad school. Somehow I thought when I decided I was going to get my PhD, those questions would stop. But apparently, I still need to figure it out. I was hoping I would have some time (like the next five to seven years) to get it all straight, but I guess I am supposed to know now... The choices are: academia or government. Those are the two paths you get with a PhD in Zoology. But I don't want those...my choice is TV. I want a TV show. But how do you tell people that? I want to get a PhD and then travel around the world on the Discovery Channel's dime telling people about amazing, unappreciated animals and raising awareness about conservation. Somehow, people in academia don't take you seriously if that is what you say... so I said government. We'll see. Why do I have to decide now? I thought a PhD was supposed to buy me some time...

Here is a dress for me:

Hawaiian Name

I just looked up my name in Hawaiian. It is Hekele. It sounds suspiciously similar to a bad word in Finnish. Hmm... Click here to find out your name in Hawaiian!

Rabbit Rabbit Bunny Bunny

Ahh! It is December already! Must get to work--but can't...get...motivated.

Here is the species I'm going to do my dissertation on. That's what I should be doing work on right now. I thought graduate school was for research--what's with all these classes?



Yay! I get to open the first window on my advents calendar today :)

Also, my Dad sent me this awesome video I meant to put up here a while ago--here it is. The little octopods are not quite anatomically correct: they have two siphons and six arms...but they are cute.