holy crapping jesus, an update!

kiel: pretty darn ok
kie: neb 137, aka the back room of the lab
kio: bgm from "earthworm jim", the "what the heck" level (a combination of "night on bald mountain" and elevator music) from gamingfm classic console (16-bit and below, not counting sega 32x)

wow. i went a whole semester without updating.
much to your dismay, i imagine. you're just so DAMN INTERESTED IN ME!

well what happened this semester? i...

• ta'ed a class (link)
• did lots of lab-type work, which will likely be submitted for publication in january sometime
• sang about poop at the mental notes concert
• was involved in jamie graziano's 24-hour theatre project (jhu n-l review), for which i acted and wrote a play overnight (read if you'd like). sarah played patient 3. quite well, actually.
• applied to 11 grad schools. click the link if you are interested in the status of my applications.
• took grad thermo and grad transport which means i will never have to take any classes at hopkins ever again! (note: "at hopkins" is quite a qualifier, but still joyful news!)
• ran in the marathon relay, around 10-minute miles (my personal goal was to break 10, i fell short of that but on the bright side, i didn't die.) our team finished in about 3.5 hours, a good time indeed. go team evolved protein!
• haven't run a step since crossing the finish line (though i plan on changing that)
• my video card sort of freaked out, but i got one from the resnet office and now the compy is doing ok
• went with dave to the national aiche conference in austin, tx, which comprised listening to talks in the morning and drinking on other schools' tabs in the afternoon... and evening.... yup free beers out the wazoo (well, that is where it comes out). and did a little networking, too. not bad overall. i didn't visit the university at all but austin as a city is fine with me for grad school.
• slept in the lab once. in fact, i spent about 36 hours straight here. it was before my thermo oral exam and there was a chem e holiday party the day before the exam. so i went, not planning to drink that much. and i didn't drink THAT much, if you think 6 beers and some wine isn't THAT much. so then i had to study. it took me about 3 hours to get back into any mode where i could concentrate on anything, so by the time i started studying it was already about 11. i was getting sleepy and decided to take a nap on the little pink couchy-chair thing that i stole from the basement of shaffer. well, before i knew it 830 had rolled around and gurkan was here and i had clearly not left at all. i spent the whole day studying for the exam, which i think i did decently on but the grades aren't in yet so i have absolutely no way of knowing. the professor has decided to leave hopkins and go to ohio state which sort of explains the lack of grades. maybe he'll just go and we'll all get a's. c'est la vie.

i guess that's it. if you can think of anything else significant that i did, lemme know.

here's something i don't like.
when people say "'Nuff said!" This profoundly stupid statement is often preceded by an equally stupid statement. Example: "I'm happy. Bush won the election. 'Nuff said." if enough has been said, then why is it necessary to point it out? also, why spell it as if it were the latest accessory for a pickup truck, e.g. tuff linings thirdly, it's not even a sentence. fourthly, it has an apostrophe. this phrase is often found on web pages and weblogs of those of us with such eclectic interests as professional wrestling (ps that site is fricking awesome and has awesome facts about kane and the undertaker!!!!!!!!! it looks a bit like strong bad's website). bottom line: saying "'nuff said" is stupid. 'nuff said.

what else can i rant about while waiting for iptg to thaw? oh there are so many things. i bought all three extended editions of the lord of the rings movies. NERD ALERT! it turns out in addition to the movie there are 4 different commentary tracks, and each film has about 3 hours of appendices. so, to experience ALL the material on these three discs, you'd need approximately 65 hours and 45 minutes. for the record, that is almost 3 days. straight. wow. super nerd alert. anyway, i'll be watching them in the future. i'm thinking of having a marathon day where we watch fellowship, two towers, and return of the king all in a row. maybe we can even dress up* and wear hobbit feet*! oh, wouldn't it be grand?

*by "dress up" i mean "drink beer" and by "wear hobbit feet" i mean eat chips. it's a local dialect that i sometimes use.

i've also been reading the books. i'm about halfway through "the two towers" now, and i must say i really enjoy the linguistic element (tolkien's original inspiration, after all). it's something you don't get in the movies, except for some quenya-gibberish here and there.

other than that, i've basically been in lab doing important life-changing, earth-shattering experiments. so the next time i update will probably be after i win a nobel prize.

until then, adjö.