Evolocution.

WHEN MY PROTOCOL WORKS THE VERY FIRST TIME

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:20:39 -0500

CAN’T STOP FIDGETING WHY AM I NOT BETTER AT TWIRLING MY PEN Isn’t staring at the...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:35:53 -0500

CAN’T STOP FIDGETING

WHY AM I NOT BETTER AT TWIRLING MY PEN

Isn’t staring at the computer screen all day supposed to wreck your concentration? - COME ON MACBOOK, MAKE IT HURT SO GOOD.

I think my PI has confused me with a software engineer.

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:25:30 -0500

I think my PI has confused me with a software engineer.

devidsketchbook: Photographs of ice structures by Jessica...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:17:21 -0500

devidsketchbook:

Photographs of ice structures by Jessica Rosenkrantz

"Going into the garage where I work, and trying to do my work and trying not to think about, “Oh,..."

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:20:07 -0500

“Going into the garage where I work, and trying to do my work and trying not to think about, “Oh, what does this reviewer from The New York Times say,” to find myself preoccupied and distracted by all kinds of what are really petty and immature and vain distractions is very educational. It may be that the only way in America to produce pure art would be to remove oneself from the public sphere and produce that art only as gifts, where there’s no money involved and no attempt at publicity or publication involved. The problem is that if everyone does that, then there is no public arts here. So it all becomes really a paradox that I’ve spent a lot of the last years thinking about, and I don’t have an answer.”

- David Foster Wallace

staceythinx: Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism by...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:51:40 -0500

staceythinx:

Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism by Josiah McElheny

About the piece:

Deploying the most sophisticated and virtuoso glass-working techniques combined with a conceptual rigor, McElheny creates sculptures and installations that explore crucial moments in the development of modernity, its visual and theoretical undercurrents. Over the past four years, McElheny has produced a series of works based on a conversation between sculptor Isamu Noguchi and designer/architect Buckminster Fuller that took place in 1929 during which they discussed a world of form without shadow; totally reflective forms inhabiting a totally reflective environment that would be totally self-enclosed - the perfect utopian environment. ‘Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism’ presents the viewer with a seemingly infinite repetition of reflections of modernist design (decanters, vases, boxes, and bottles based on designs from Scandinavia, Italy, the former Czechoslovakia, and Austria from c. 1910 -1990) that attempts to depict the capitalist notion that all objects are eternally repeatable, that everything can be remanufactured endlessly without regard to era, geography, or culture. McElheny has stated that he aims to explore how “the act of looking at a reflective object could be connected to the mental act of reflecting on an idea.”

Spending binge.

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:59:00 -0500

I meant to drop a couple hundred bucks on shoes, a fleece to replace the ugly black NorthFace I’ve been wearing for the past three years, and some jeans without holes in them. Normally this isn’t a problem. This time, however, I have bought books. Non-technical, bona fide literary books. First time in years this has happened. I feel like I’m rebelling against something. Maybe the soul-crushingly technical drabness of my existence. Or just the fact that it’s sunny outside and I’m inside writing Matlab code. (Which, incidentally, I don’t mind writing, but which begs a return to things like breathing after a while.)

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
The Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace
Consider the Lobster - David Foster Wallace
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again - David Foster Wallace
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene

I’m looking at another $200 - $300 for a bookshelf. There go my shoes.

That being said, I’m looking forward to spending some sunny weekends reading these and forgetting I give a flying fuck about anything else. And, apparently, not reading technical papers for once.

And so goes life in the ivory tower of academic research.

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:54:00 -0500

And so goes life in the ivory tower of academic research.

Riboswitch, how do I love thee!

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:41:22 -0500

But soft! The romance of the kissing loop is least authentic when faked as a pseudoknot.

Nothing like 9AM biophysics to finally peel me off of California time.

Piled Higher and Deeper. >:)

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:03:39 -0500

Piled Higher and Deeper. >:)

Neurophysiology

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:51:00 -0500

So, third and possibly(?) final rotation - and I’m going to be working on songbirds. Specifically, I’ll be studying auditory learning in songbirds, and in doing so, I’m going to be analyzing a lot of electrophysiology data. I’m not entirely sure what my professor wants me to do yet, since so far all he’s wanted me getting up to is a lot of background reading - but I’m reasonably sure that whatever he has in store for me is going to involve a lot of math. Calculus, multivariable statistics, programming. Plus, he seems like a taskmaster. Fix it or get it done. Which I think has panned out well for him, publication- and prestige-wise.

To that: I think this is the first time in a while that I’ve been thankful to have majored in engineering (and to have lugged all my huge math textbooks out to graduate school). But it’s also kind of intimidating. I was “an engineer” - that doesn’t mean I actually accomplished anything beyond scraping past my cores and not having to take Electricity & Magnetism twice. Terror on the benchtop!

Oh well. >:) Here we go.

I might just get through the next few days now

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:13:00 -0500

There is something about finals week that fills me with all sorts of slap-happy, pointless, and thoroughly inflated drama. Finals week is the only time of the year that I ever listen to Def Leppard, Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, Lady GaGa, and The Lonely Island all in the same day. On repeat. Like, really, my only goal right now is to just get through everything without saying or doing anything completely stupid. Undergrad was more about the grades, but grad school so far seems to be much more about leaving people with the right impressions. Which I guess is somewhat less artificial? I don’t know.

I was pretty sure my developmental bio professor thought I was an idiot, but he sent back our graded midterms today and the only ink marks I saw on my paper were scratched over a couple of hastily-overlooked typos. And the word, “Outstanding!”

- Haha oh God. I really had no idea. I thought for sure he was going to say something like, “Did you READ the paper you just reviewed?” In any case, I’m so sleep-deprived right now that I can barely think straight - giving my research talk tomorrow is going to be fun, considering it’s 7PM and I STILL have more microscopy to do - but 1) what else is new about finals anyway? and 2) that was a little boost of much-needed motivation right there.

…Okay. Back to it. LALALALALALALALALALALALALALA

Why God never received a PhD. - Imgur *Uncontrollable cathartic...

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:16:07 -0500

Why God never received a PhD. - Imgur

*Uncontrollable cathartic giggling*

Finals

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:02:00 -0500

A confluence of academic suck. Though they do seem to get better as you age. Mostly because, after a post-grad degree or two and your fourteenth or fifteenth cycle of finals, they just start to get boring.

I think this is actually cycle #16 for me. - Wow I’ve been in school for a long time. That being said, I guess I should be happy that these are finals and not Quals. Yet.

Anyway, LOLWORMS:

Haha I want one.

POUR SOME FLATWORMS ON ME / IN THE NAME OF LOVE!!

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Thu, 08 Dec 2011 02:04:00 -0600

"Give your children words, about themselves, and their body. Naming is powerful. Teach them that they..."

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:30:17 -0600

“Give your children words, about themselves, and their body. Naming is powerful. Teach them that they have a right to their body, that no one, not even you, own them, or have rights to their body. That they always and forever belong to themselves, always. Teach them what bodies do. Yes, even at a young age. I promise you, keeping kids in the dark will not stop sexual exploration. It will not magically make them innocent. It will just make them alone in the dark.”

- somaticstrength (via hatingfactories)

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Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:20:26 -0600

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Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:40:00 -0600

towirr: Found your new favorite planet.

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:04:20 -0600

towirr:

Found your new favorite planet.

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Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:56:46 -0600