Procrastination, it’s a wonderful thing.   When it’s not anxiety-inducing and debilitating of course. Not that I’m procrastinating now. Of course not. I’m just catching up on an lj that I haven’t updated in three months. It’s really quite shameful of me, and needs to be remedied. Right now. Instead of working on writing up my thesis. Because writing up the thing one has been working on for the past two years is not something that one would get the urge to put off in any way. Never. The suggestion is absurd.

Yes, it is true, I should be writing. I’m almost done in the lab, though I might be a couple more weeks because the dratted AFLPs might actually be working (seriously, they couldn’t have continued to not work for another month or so? Then I wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not I should bother with them at all.)  Bah! Oh well, it should only be a couple more weeks and that’s not so bad.

In other news it is actually not raining right now. This might not sound like much, but I think it has rained at least once almost every day for the past two weeks. And they were calling for thunderstorms this afternoon. Can’t say I’ll be all that upset if those don’t happen.

What else is new? Oh, books!  I would recommend “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” to each and every person I know. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time. It’s completely charming. It’s like a cross between Jane Austen and L. M. Montgomery, in other words completely awesome. And even if you don’t like either of those two authors (first of all, seriously?) then you should still read it, because the authors somehow make a book about the Nazi occupation of the Guernsey islands and the period immediately following it absolutely hysterical. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t make light of what happened (and some of the stories are heart-breaking), but the characters themselves are all pretty hysterical, even if the events they’re talking about aren’t always. It’s all told in letters, so I found it took a couple of minutes (about ten pages) to get into, but once you figure out who the first four letter writers are, and their relationships to each other it’s smooth sailing. I absolutely want to be the main character too. She’s fabulous. It’s one of those books that tells a good story (and they’re far rarer than they should be), and tells it with charm and wit. I haven’t loved a book this much in a while.

Actually it’s been a good month for me and books. Finally got around to reading the sequels to Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men, Wintersmith and A Hat Full of Sky. The whole series is pretty awesome. I think this is because both witches and the Nac Mac Feegle are featured prominently. Also got around to reading Robertson Davies. Am now wondering why no one had ever insisted I read his books before now. I mean, sure you hear every so often that he’s a really good writer, and his books are good, and yes I’d been meaning to read them for a while. But never has someone said to me directly “You should read Robertson Davies. He is an amazing writer.” And I have far more conversations about books than the average person. He is such a good writer (although admittedly, I may be biased as I started Fifth Business immediately after reading Good Omens, which is hysterical and brilliant, but not a particularly compelling read). I’ve only read the Deptford Trilogy so far, but I liked World of Wonders, and I really liked The Manticore and I loved Fifth Business. It’s a trilogy that starts when one boy throws a snowball at another boy, misses, and hits a pregnant woman, causing her to go into early labour and the premature birth of her son. And it’s about how all their lives are affected. Seriously, it’s just so well written. I especially recommend Fifth Business. The narrator is excellent. I would be sad that I’m done them, but I just bought another one of his trilogies so I’m all good (What? The used book store was having a sale.)

In other news, since the last update I’ve been to Stratford four times. Yup, that’s right. Four. (I have another feeling it’s going to be another year of going seven times). 

( I've been to four performances, clearly this was always going to be long )

And now that I’m done ranting about the theatre I guess I should go do some work. Or perhaps I’ll go buy groceries.

Tags: books, can lit, procrastination, stratford, theatre
Current Mood: calm

Hello,

Well, it’s one conference down one to go. Overall I think it went well. The presentation was fine. People actually showed up and asked intelligent questions, which was a concern since I was presenting on the last day and wasn’t talking about either ballast water or zebra mussels. That is one problem with going to an aquatic invasive species conference, there’s a lot of ballast water chit-chat. And I get to go to a second one next week… Oh. Joy.  No, I’m kidding (sort of). I’m sure it will be a lovely conference. So, yes, overall, conference = good. Although the sessions were organized by organism (instead of, I don’t know, by question) so I did learn more about tunicates then I ever really wanted to know. For those of you who aren’t aware (and I’m assuming everyone that might possibly be reading this falls into that category), tunicates are aquatic invertebrates, and causing havoc in some of the maritime fisheries. Yeah, they named the concurrent sessions by organism. It was odd organizing, but great for mockery purposes ([In overly cheerful voice] “I’m going to tunicates this afternoon!” or “Oh curses, I can’t go to Bullfrogs! It’s on at the same time as Plants!”) so I guess it all evens out.

Montreal was a lovely city though, although it did rain the entire week we were there. And the Montreal Canadians were eliminated from the playoffs, which was very sad and so the city was in mourning. It was actually pretty funny; on the evening of game four you should have seen the number of police officers wandering around the bars and the pubs around St. Catherine’s St. I’ve never seen so many law enforcement officials in one place at one time before in my life, except maybe on television.

I’m going to Halifax next week, which should be good. I had to make a poster for it though. I hate making posters. They just seem so pointless to me. For one, in what other situation would you ever have to make one? Seriously, when am I ever going to use that skill again? I’ve just jinxed myself haven’t I? My job is going to consist almost solely of making posters now isn’t it? Sigh…

What else has been going on? Not much. Am in the process of working up the courage to go swing dancing in Waterloo when I get back from the conference. 

Mom has a new ally in her quest to get me to visit home more. I was talking to my parents on the phone a couple of weeks ago when nephew picked up the extension. After the usual greeting and me asking him what he was doing (“Talking on the phone.” Ah, of course. How silly of me.) He gets to this, “Why aren’t you home?”
My reply: “Well, because I’m at school?”
Nephew:  “Why?”
Me: “Because I have to go to school.”
Nephew: “Oh. You come home soon?”
Me: […] 
Luckily at this point my sister managed to get the phone from him. I feel that this development isn’t any too fair.

In other news, Murdoch Mysteries continues to be possibly the most ridiculous show ever.

 

( This should probably go behind a cut... )

And that is all for me for now.  Oh except that I got a new userpic.  It's from this British TV show Black Books about a really sarcastic, antisocial bookstore owner.  I thought it was appropriate considering how much of a whole lot of nothing this entry contains.

Oh, and also, on the way back from the lab I saw a one-legged goose standing in a puddle.  I regret the lack of a camera as now I'll never be able to photo-shop in an eye-patch and a peg-leg and make an icon out of it.

Tags: conferences, kyle, murdoch
Current Mood: amused

So, had a happy, if generally uneventful Easter.  Cut off all my hair.  Seriously, it's short now.  At least comparatively.  But I think I might love it.  However, given the drastic nature of the cut I do not think that it would have been unreasonable for someone to notice.  Seriously, Paul noticed when I got new glasses, but apparently not that I've cut off about 5 inches of hair.

Saw the small one.  Continued in my role as house game-player.  First we played hide and seek, then what would have been tag, but I believe I shall call "YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!"  as this is what nephew bellows as he runs past you on his way to the dining room where he proceeds to circle the table while you attempt to catch him.  Occasionally he mixes it up by crawling under the table if you happen to get anywhere near him.

Also amusing, his fascination with eggs, both real and decorative.  And his reaction to Mommy when she's bothering him:  "LEAVE MY 'LONE!"  (I recognize that I really shouldn't laugh about the second one.  But really, it's too funny.  Afterwards he apprently went to see Grandma when Mommy was mad at him, and when she asked him why Mommy wasn't pleased, nephew quite candidly said "Because I kick her."  Grandma succeeded in holding in the laughter while nephew was still in the room.)

In other news, saw the second half of the newest adaptation of Mansfield Park.  It's pretty good, but it's really condensed.  To give you an idea, they shove that entire book (which is one of her longer ones) into an hour and a half.  Granted, much of the book is filler, and absolutely nothing happens, but still...  I still quite liked it though.  I have to reread the book.  I keep getting a bunch of the secondary characters from it confused with the secondary characters from Persuasion.  It doesn't help that both books contain a pair of sisters related to the protagonist, the youngest of whom is name Louisa.

And lastly, guys, I have somehow managed to switch the orientation of the text in the bar that you type the website into on your web browser (am clearly up on the technical lingo).  It is now on the right instead of on the left.  This is extremely irritating, and if closing and reopening the web browser doesn't work then I have no idea how to fix this problem.  Seriously, how do you even do that?  I think my computer is playing mental games with me...

Tags: computer problems, holidays, kyle
Current Mood: complacent

Today is nephew's birthday.  I bought him special paints that only work on the special paper that comes with them.  There is an outline of a lion on the paper.  I was amused.  I also bought him a recorder.  I told my parents over the phone.  I'm sure that the strangled sound my mother made upon hearing it was meant to show approbation.  She then insisted that it remain at his house and not hers.  I think this must be so he has more time to practice.  I'm such a good aunt, introducing my nephew to musical instruments so early in his life.  After all, isn't music supposed to develop all sorts of areas in the brain, and you know, be tied in with math and pattern recognition?    I only have his best interests in mind.  He enjoyed the kazoo he found so very much.  And think of the pride it will instil in my sister as he walks around blasting into the recorder...

Tags: kyle
Current Mood: amused

Subject line pretty much says it all.  I went walking outside for about 10 minutes just to get out of this building and I want to go back.  It's really really nice out.  This is perfect weather.  Why is it not possible to set up PCR reactions outside?  Sigh... it's so pretty out...

Tags: weather
Current Location: the lab
Current Mood: Wistful

Seriously, it is freezing out today.  It was cold, windy and damp yesterday, but today it's freezing.  And this is made more irritating by the fact that only a few days ago it was actually relatively nice out (ie. the temperature was above the freezing mark.)  Today it feels like it's the dead of winter again.  It's not even that I mind the cold, it's the fact that it feels like the temperature is changing by about 10 degrees every single day (and amusingly and completely coincidentally, the subject to my previous post confirms this)!  Really weather, consistency is all I ask!

Which is actually a nice segue into talking about Tom Stoppard.  Went to see Travesties last night.  So good.  So very, very good.  I'm not going to describe the plot because, quite frankly, I don't feel like it (so much of my praise will make little sense I realize).  I would totally recommend it to anyone, although I would also probably recommend reading the play beforehand because there's so much dialogue and it's so quick, that everything is just that much easier to follow.  But really, it's so much better live than just reading it.  The scene in limerick form was fabulous.  The guy playing James Joyce literally pulled a rabbit out of his hat, which was fabulous, actually, the guy playing James Joyce was generally fabulous.  Really, the whole cast was great.  The butler danced randomly a lot, sometimes even with Joyce, drank copious amounts of champagne and had wonderful and amusing facial expressions, made all the better by the fact that they were fairly subtle.  The guy playing the main character Henry car has to go from being quite elderly (he's narrating his memories) to being about 30, and the transition was really, really well done.  I was impressed when he did it.  Also, there is much referencing Oscar Wilde, and much quoting of The Importance of Being Ernest.  Once scene is even transferred into song form.  There's also a bunch of Shakespeare references, including one of my two favourite lines from Much Ado About Nothing, "I was not born under a rhyming planet."  I love Tom Stoppard.  In his honour I present my new Icon, courtesy of things_imagined

In other news, my flow data is not normal, nor are my residuals.  Typical.  You know what else isn't normal?  My log-transformed data or it's residuals.  That sound you hear, that's me banging my head against my desk.  

Statistics can die in a fire. 

On the other hand, AMOVAs are supposed to be fairly robust to violations in their assumptions right?  Right?

Tags: stupid statistics, theatre, weather
Current Mood: restless

Bonjour,

I have returned for an update. Lab work is still not working in general (have just discovered that along with the AFLPs still not working, I have wide-scale contamination issues! Huzzah! Actually, sadly was kind of happy about that because it does allow me to explain in part the random crap I keep seeing), or really odd. Is sad. Am now actually analyzing flow data though. Of course when I told my supervisor about the results of said analysis (because they are crazy) he actually asked me how this sort of thing kept happening with my project. Am glad to have confirmed that the amount of random crap that has happened with this project is much higher than that normally associated with a Master’s thesis. It’s somewhat comforting to know that I’m not doing anything wrong; it’s just that the universe hates me. My new goal is to have something so ridiculous happen that supervisor just puts his head down on his desk and doesn’t say anything. I’m pretty close. We were talking about how we would only expect to see one haplotype in the Canadian population. When I pointed out that since that was the case I’d probably find seven, supervisor just said “Yeah. You’re right,” Aand laughed. Post-doc was confused, and supervisor (not me, mind you) explained that basically this has been my entire project. Post-doc seemed to accept this. Although, he may have just been being polite, when really he thought we were both crazy.

In other news watched the season premiere Murdoch Mysteies on Wednesday with roommate. Roommate had only seen show once before, so had to explain that it’s not really the best show in the world, but I still love it.  Roommate seemed to accept this, but of course roommate already thinks I’m completely crazy/has come to accept my love of television shows with elements of the ridiculous. 

( The rest of the (lengthy) description is behind the cut to spare those of you that don't want to read it. )

In other news, have read A Great and Terrible Beauty, The Monsters of Templeton and Ysabel. Loved the last two, not sure about the first one. The Monsters of Templeton is kind of hard to explain, but it’s basically about a grad student who has a personal crisis, goes back home (on the same day a monster surfaces in the lake) and goes on a quest digging through her ancestry to figure out her father’s identity. It’s a really good read, despite the fact that her whole family is a bit soap-operaish, but I read it in a day because I couldn’t put it down. Ysabel is fantasy, and it’s totally fantastic. A 15-year-old on vacation in Provence stumbles into the middle of a Celtic myth basically. It’s great, not what I was expecting going in, but still fantastic. A Great and Terrible Beauty is about a boarding-school girl in Victorian England who’s mother dies, and then she realizes she has supernatural powers and can enter special realms. It’s not bad, and it’s kind of interesting, but I guess my problem with it is that no one’s very likeable in it. And it’s also much darker than I was expecting. Plus I feel like some of the stuff that they do is unbelievably unrealistic for the time period, though I admit that I could be influenced by Jane Austen… So, maybe if you’re thinking about reading that one, be forewarned. It’s not bad, but I just thought it would be better. Although, the last couple of chapters are pretty good, and I kind of want to read the sequel to see what happens next. Actually, it’s more that I don’t want to read it, but I want someone else to and then tell me what happens, and then I can decide if I actually want to put in the time or not. I’m undecided about whether or not I’ll get the sequel. However, I would definitely recommend the second two.

Oh, last week went to go see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in Guelph on the spur of the moment. That play is fantastic live. I love Tom Stoppard.

I guess I should go and do something productive now though…

Tags: books, lab woes, murdoch, theatre
Current Mood: amused

Guys, I have to write 100 words by tomorrow.  100 words of what you ask?  Of a bio-sketch outlining by background and expertise in the subject I'm presenting about at the conference I'm going to in a couple of months.  Now, I know 100 words is nothing, really it's about 8 sentences.  It's just that I really don't want to.  And I've been procrastinating for about three days.  Besides, what are they expecting?  My background and expertise?  What background and expertise? I'm a grad student at the University of Guelph and I've been studying this for a year and a half.  That's my background and expertise.  Of course, if I made the language a bit more pretentious that'd be about 100 words...  sigh... I know it's childish, but I really really don't want to.

Oh god, do you think it's supposed to be in the third person?

Tags: procrastination
Current Mood: cranky

Oh lj, how I have neglected you.  I knew that eventually I would again of course... at least it's only been about a month and not a year or so.

The reason for this neglect, general frustration about my project I suppose.  At least the flow cytometry is pretty much settled.  If the chloroplast sequencing has magically worked I will be content, because at least the AFLPs appear to be moving forward even if they aren't working per say.

Although today I am annoyed.  I needed to pick up enzymes today.  Unfortunately place where you can pick up enzymes closes at 3:15.  3:15!  What office at a university closes at a quarter after three?  Four I could see.  I knew it closed early, and expected that early meant four o'clock.  Guess what time I showed up?  If you guessed anything other than THREE STUPID FIFTEEN you are very incorrect.  So now I have to get my enzymes tomorrow.  But I can't even do it first thing in the morning because it doesn't open until 10.  mutter... mutter... mutter...  gnashing of teeth...  Gnashing is really an utterly fantastic word by the way.

 

( More below )

Tags: kyle, lab woes, movies, television, the mentalist, words
Current Mood: amused

Guys, the peaks have shifted on my flow cytometry data for no good reason.  I know this means nothing to you all, but trust me, it's not good.  And it means that I might not be able to use approximately 250 samples that I just did last week.  And I was so happy that things were getting done and stuff was finally working, because really, has anything worked well at all this entire project?  No.  It keeps working, then being annoying for no good reason.  Now I get to go to a meeting in a little less than an hour and tell my supervisor that something else has gone wrong. 

I'm unbelievably depressed.  The only good thing that I can figure is that I don't see how it could possibly be my fault.

Tags: lab woes
Current Mood: depressed