Today, I learned about fly genetics, ate some cashew chicken, and demolished a whole bunch of Milanos.
I also realized that the trick to blogging every day is to not expect to speak volumes of wisdom each time you blog. Between finals and work and class, who has time to impart wisdom? I don't even know if my brain can handle any more information at this point.
Except this: at Starbucks, never get the Skinny Peppermint Mocha. The regular one is great, and delicious. The Skinny is not worth it. Ever. It's watery and gross. Don't do it, people. Just....don't.
I didn't sleep well last night. Maybe I was too warm because I kept waking up all sorts of thirsty. Regardless, I feel remarkably out of sorts today. I haven't felt this way in a long time, maybe since high school or the early years of college. It's the kind of day where I don't feel like talking to anyone, where I'm not happy, but I don't know why. I can turn the feeling off when I'm in class or have to interact with people, but the moment I am alone, all I really want to do is lie in my bed and listen to sad music. There's this sinking feeling in my chest that I know didn't come from the coffee I drank this morning, and if I close my eyes, my thoughts look like dark blue knots of water, if that makes any sense.
This feeling is different from my "need to recharge" feeling. Recharging for me usually consists of watching fun movies or fangirling over people on tumblr. It's antisocial, but I'm still a ball of happy. This is...not the same thing.
It's not that I'm tired. If I close my eyes, I don't fall asleep. I'm not angry. No one has wronged me. I'm not sad. Even though a tear or two leaks out occasionally, I don't have anything to be sad about.
I know that people can't be happy all the time. It's just not realistic. And I embrace what I'm feeling right now. Because I'm not unhappy. Even though I know I can probably force myself to act happy, it seems a little silly to conform this societal expectation that people should be outwardly pleasant all the time, especially when there's no one else around.
So really, I just woke up tossing and turning and don't have a good reason for feeling boneless and antisocial. That's all.
Also, took 2 naps. Totally crashed during each of them. I'm not ashamed to admit that had they gone longer, I would have been drool-y. This means I need more sleep.
First, let me say, that sometimes, I write about firsts. I am still young. I am still learning. And I hope that in the future, I will have many more firsts. There are enough experiences in the world so that one can conceivably have a new first every day, but we get stuck sometimes in our mundane lives without remembering that (sometimes terrifying) thrill one gets from doing something for the first time.
Today:
I poured and ran my first gel. I got all the DNA in the wells. Yay me!
[I also watched, with some apprehension, as the plume of what I can only assume was steam came barreling out of the agarose/buffer solution after I took it out of the microwave.]
I plated my first bacterial colonies. There was ethanol. And fire.
[I tried not to smell the bacteria.]
I got started on my first Secret Santa shopping experience.
[I think I got this.]
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I also had my third morning coffee in a row today. I haven't had coffee for caffeine in over a month. It's been...rough times. End of semester. Waking up early. Needed to know things. Bah.
EDIT: IT'S ALSO MY 100TH BLOG POST ON THIS BLOG!!!!
First of all: first final of grad school - DONE. :)
Next.
I have no problems eating alone in dining halls or cafes. If you have something with which to occupy yourself (like reading or writing or...blogging), you will probably look marginally less sad and pathetic to those who derive their energy from others. But for me, a person who gets drained very easily by exams and large-scale social interactions, eating by myself is a nice way to escape into my own thoughts or my problem sets or a rerun of 30 Rock, while letting the white noise of the dining room wash over me. I don't have to worry about people judging what I eat or how fast I eat it; I don't have to worry about making dinner conversation, which, let's face it, can get a little stale, like that bread you accidentally left on the counter last week.
Obviously, I'm not a shut-in. I like people. I like my friends. And I like to have dinner with them. I realize that I can much too easily slip back in my old habits where I just avoid people and do work and watch movies in my room. This is why I try not to say no when people try to make plans with me. Social interaction is good for me. Ultimately though, when I am tired and haven't made plans with anyone, I like to be alone, to recharge. I won't say no to a friend if they want to join me, but when you're an acquaintance at best (and not a very good one), please give me the time to be by myself. I simply do not have the energy to navigate the conversations needed to make friends with you when we have very few things in common. Making friends is a process for me. It only works when I'm ready to expand my social circle and am feeling friendly. I cannot feel friendly when I don't have enough food or sleep (both of which occur often in the dining hall).
Again, not averse to making friends and being friendly. But when your starting line to me is that I look sad or lonely eating alone, it makes me much less likely to want to talk to you. Also, your line that "no one should eat alone" doesn't sit right with me (see paragraph 3).
So do come up to talk to me if for some, inexplicable reason, you find my sullen face and furious typing intriguing. I'll welcome you, even in my sleep-drunk state. But don't insult me by mistaking my lack of interacting with you for an inability to interact with anyone, and don't try to get me to talk to you by trying to undercut my self-confidence as if my choice to eat alone was due to lonesome desperation.
Point 1:
Yesterday, I wrote about how it's pretty vital to have a good guy:girl ratio at certain events. However, this does not mean you can't enjoy yourself if you go to things alone. Obviously, if you have friends who enjoy the same activities as you do, it's much better to go with them, seeing as how they're your friends and you'll be likely to enjoy each other's company. But when one friend forgets to come to a Christmas carol concert with you and decides to make soup instead, you shouldn't just not go because sh'es not going. It could turn out to be a nice break from thinking about homologous recombination and pedigrees and you might get some good music out of it as well.
Point 2:
It was a beautiful day, the kind of warm and balmy day that makes you wonder if you haven't been transported into the springtime where the trees aren't hibernating, but just waking up. Wearing just a fleece in December is glorious.
Point 3:
Can I just say how glad I am the FW is back to teaching my class? I can? Well I am. I am so glad. That doesn't make my problem set any easier but it makes going to class so much more fun.
For most of my youth, my friends have consisted of mostly guys. I was much more of a tomboy back in the days when my muscle mass was about equal to the average smaller-than-average boy my age. I could kick serious butt at handball, was a fearless jungle gym climber, and was a pretty fast sprinter (fie to 23andMe for saying my SNPs reveal an "unlikely sprinter"). Although I wasn't completely devoid of girl friends, if I had to choose, guys were just easier to get along with. There weren't any politics or backstabbing or tears and they didn't care how I was dressed or what my hair was doing that day. (Neither did I, so it was a great relationship.)
At the end of middle school, when everyone except me grew two feet and started being awkward because of body changes, I resisted conforming to girl world. It may have been that I was still super awkward and looked like I came out of a hard day's work at the mines, but I still think that boys were less judgmental of how I acted because I was a such a bro.
Then I learned how to dress myself. And started living with girls. And started connecting with lady-folk through excessive fan-girling and cuddles. And that's when things got tricky.
Because now that we're "adults" there are these functions that don't quite work out if you don't have a date. Like Winter Formals where all you do is waltz. Of course, you can go with all your girl friends, but for dances where the partners have very specific gender-encoded steps, it's difficult to do without, well, men. You could argue that the partners don't have to be of different genders, etc. etc. and that is absolutely true. But if you've been taught the waltz from your perspective, it's hard to switch it up when it's "just us girls." You have to make sure that you've got enough guy friends to make it work and it's just all complicated when it doesn't work out because somebody has to dance with a stranger.
I'm not at all sure where this is going, but I think the moral has to be: in grad school, with groups of friends, ratios matter. Not only in terms of having different perspectives and conversation topics, but in terms of waltzing logistics. I feel a bit obligated to say that it's not necessarily a gender thing. It's a "who's leading" thing. If you've got enough people to lead and enough to follow, you're golden. You just better make sure everyone will be there.
A couple days ago, after work ceased being too crazy, I had a crazy thought. I am going to do Blog-a-Vlogmas, where I write a blog post and make a vlog every day until Christmas. This will no doubt get harder on the days where I actually do get busy (still have finals and papers and problem sets) or when I don't feel with it enough to make a video or have nothing to talk about (which I often don't; my life is pretty mundane to most people). But I'm going to try because I feel like this year is slipping by so quickly that I don't know what to do with myself.
I should probably give myself an incentive to finish this project, but at the moment, this is still an idea from the whimsy of my mind, so we'll worry about that later.
Today's topic: Poor-ish Life Decisions
In my life, I admit, I have made a few poor life decisions: staying up and watching movies until 4 AM when I have a 9 AM class, not eating when I'm hungry because I'm too lazy to get out of bed, getting dehydrated when I know I could be/should be drinking water, etc. These seem pretty tame, mostly because I am not the type to get raging blackout drunk and have scandalous affairs that I can't remember due to my insides being completely jumbled up.
I have also made some questionable choices in life, mostly through my interactions with other people, though, because they have helped shape me as I am today, I don't regret most of them. There are times I could have spent my time more wisely, people who I should have spent my time more wisely with, etc, but overall, I am ok with how I turned out and where I am in my life.
Then comes last night. We were supposed to just watch a movie and have a pretty laid-back night, but the movie was sold out so we went back to BM's house to play some board games. Fine. Board games are wonderful. However, B has a pretty extensive liquor (and liqueur) collection, so there was some experimentation. Let me say that Rum Chata, Kahlua, Spiced Rum, and milk tastes like a coffee milkshake and is freaking delicious. This was not a poor life decision. In fact, there were no poor life decisions made last night - only poor-ish life decisions. Such as my decision not to sober up a little before going to sleep, which ended up with me waking up at 8 AM really, really cold due to not enough blankets and/or pajamas. Such as my decision not to go to the bathroom before going to bed, contributing to the rude awakening at 8 AM. Such as my decision to try to go back to sleep even though I really needed to pee just because it was too cold outside my covers to get up. Full disclosure: it's snowing right now. It's pretty darn cold outside.
All things considered, I had a really good night. We lost horribly at Cranium (not totally my fault), got creamed at Boggle (siiighhh BM/HH), and almost, but didn't really, come back at Catchphrase (which makes it seem like I had a really bad night at board games, but I didn't really mind). I drank more than was anticipating because I wasn't anticipating drinking anything, but have suffered no adverse effects besides dry mouth and cold feet. It's snowing outside, which is awesome. I've been waiting for it to snow. And Winter Formal is tonight. Even though there's someone I want to be going with, I have accepted that this cannot happen now, and have chosen to make the best of the situation. After all, Christmas is not that far away.
