RBOC: Brain Dump Edition

So, well, yes. I’m exhausted. And I have no idea as to why (I went to bed early last night. I’ve had my coffee this morning.), but there you have it. I’m so tired, in fact, that I was at the bench doing something and Advisor came up to ask me how things were going. And it took me about five seconds to remember what I was doing. I’ve been doing things like that all day, much to my amusement. So, as much as I’d like to write a very profound blog post, I’m just going to do a brain dump– bullet point style.

-Oh why oh why did Awesome Undergrad (AU– a little chemistry pun… ok you can stop groaning now) have to graduate? Now I’m stuck with Untrained & Flighty Undergrad (who desperately needs a shorter pseudonym). I just need to keep reminding myself that they all come this way and that once-upon-a-time I, too, was Untrained (however, I don’t think I was ever flighty). Patience is a virtue.

-I’m making progress on World’s Most Uncooperative Plasmid. I’m pretty sure that I’ve gotten 3 out of the 7 constructs that I needed (still need to confirm this via sequencing). Really though I just need 1 more and then I can test my hypothesis– that’s all I really need for the poster for Major European Conference. I’m just hoping that I can keep on a roll long enough to just tease out one more.

-I biked to and from work yesterday. Of course it poured in the afternoon/evening when I was biking home. But it wasn’t really unpleasant. The rain cooled things down a bit and made the drivers a bit more cautious. That was nice. There’s this stretch that is a two lane road with no bike lane and drivers want to begrudge me my little two foot clearance from the curb. There is a sort-of spotty sidewalk, but it’s poorly maintained and tends to have lots of broken concrete. Hence, I stick to the road. So, that was a grand total of 13 miles (20.1 kilometers) of biking yesterday– Go me!

-The Dixie Dog loves the squirrels. They still haven’t figured out that the yard is no longer safe. I caught her doing a three foot vertical jump in the air (on her hind legs) trying to get one yesterday. I’ve got to get a picture of that!

-I’m doing fairly well on NaComLeavMo. So far I haven’t fallen behind. However, it’s a much greater time-suck than I thought it’d be. There are so many good writers out there and I spend a lot of my time reading their posts. I’m fairly certain that Google Reader is about to explode with all the new blogs I keep adding.

-Labmate has set a tentative defense date. Advisor told me that I need to start focusing on getting data. He said it’s getting close to the time when I need to start thinking about my dissertation. That completely threw me for a loop. I’m not expecting to get to that point for about another year. However, Advisor said the time to start thinking about my dissertation would be in another six or so months. He does have more experience than me with this, but then again… I can’t possibly be close to the beginning of finishing everything by then!

-I’m getting together with the Girls for Girls’ Night^TM tomorrow night for Indian Food… yum! That’ll be my Eating Out for this week. Some of the Girls are coming over to my house tonight for dessert/coffee. It’s nice to have company.

-I’m going to have to go food shopping for this weekend. I wonder if I should attempt doing so on bike. After all, I do have the shopping bag panniers. Hmmm….

I’m going to leave the lab slightly early (shhh! don’t tell anyone). And by slightly early I mean about 15 mins early today. I got in early and so I’m going to leave early. So, yay for that!