Life of flies

So I'm studying, like any good graduate student, and I open my window because, well basically it feels like summer out. But also, it's October. Meaning my window has not been open in weeks. I go back to studying, window open, nice night air blowing in and I realize there are two ridiculously excited flies buzzing around my room. Apparently, from what I can gather, they had gotten stuck in between my window and my screen. For weeks. And they were not happy when they got out. It was like a 2nd grader who had been stuck in his desk for too long and then the recess bell rang. Amusing, but almost scary. So I drop my studying (who can focus with two hyper flies taking over the room?) and I'm swatting at them with my classy yellow legal pad. But they're flies. And they have a million eyes so I can't get them. Giving up, I return to my study of the molecular mechanisms of the auditory sense. Before I know it, one fly is in hot pursuit of the other. He/she chases the other he/she into my light fixture. Here's when it gets weird. They buzz around in circles as though they are the coins that kids drop into the fun circular donation tub where you watch it spin around and around until finally plunking into the bucket. And then you do it again (giving them more money) just because you like to watch it spin. And then the first he/she fly tackles the other one! And the previously excitable rhythmic buzzing noise becomes a very odd, stable buzz that dies out. Not quickly though. Rather slowly, in fact. And basically I'm pretty sure they both fried on my light bulbs because the buzzing finally stopped altogether but I am not about to stand up on my bed just to check out the state of that couple. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Obviously I'm kind of procrastinating now, but based on the number of things I could add to this post, I'd say I'm using up most of my self control by only writing about that little story.  Someday I will write about my trip to New Orleans, the graduate student reception where I danced with neuroscientists for 2 hours straight and then my trip to Galesburg for homecoming. Someday. In the meantime, enjoy the summer-y weather tomorrow!

PS. The post title is in reference to the book and soon-to-be-in-theatres movie Life of Pi. Check it out.

Must be doing something right

So last night at ballroom dance class, as I got into waltz hold with one of the leaders, the following conversation ensued:

Him:  "You look like a scientist. Are you a scientist?"
Me: "Yes, I actually am. How could you tell? Or was it just a lucky guess?" (It wasn't like I was wearing lab googles and a pocket protector or anything)
Him: "You just look and seem like you would be a scientist. Biological sciences?"
Me:  "You're right again. Neuroscience."
Him (obviously pleased with his accurate assessment of my academic interest): "Oh so you know Dan Tranel!" (Dan Tranel is the head of the Neuropsychology clinic and one of my professor and all together awesome and a little intimidating.)
Me: "Yes! He teaches one of my classes. He's fantastic!"

And then we talked about Dan Tranel the entire time we waltzed.

The secondary point is what a small world it is (although it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Dan Tranel had some connection to pretty much everyone in Iowa City), but the main point is that I'm actually incredibly pleased that somehow, even without conscious attempt (because it is something I would try to do...if I had thought of it), I managed to give off the scientist vibe. I really don't know what it was about my belted red jeans with the tucked in button-up shirt, accessorized with my gold ballroom shoes, but the fact that I seem like a scientist to a complete stranger, even when I'm completely out of my natural laboratory habitat...well, it weirdly enough gives me an added boost of confidence in my career of choice.

Then again, maybe it's in my perfume. Whoever would've guessed "White Citrus" really has a secret ingredient that smells like science.

Ok, this was admittedly an odd post. Hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Goodnight!

Hemodynamic

: literally means "blood movement", in reference to the study of blood flow or circulation

I just wrote this word into a grant application so I figured I should truly understand what it means. For me, it's referring to the way the fMRI records the ratio of oxygenated blood:deoxygenated blood. While we don't exactly know what this means, it is (now) a commonly used way to study brain activity.

Speaking of which, I participated in a pilot trial for an fMRI experiment the other day and then I got to see my structural scan! So, the structural image of my brain. I got to see my brain. It made my day. If you find that at all interesting, you might just be a neuroscientist at heart :)

That's all!

"If you are going to make a mistake, make a big one."

These classic words of advice were oft-spoken by one of my elementary school music teachers, Mrs. Bryant.  In no relation to music whatsoever, I followed her advice to the T Wednesday night.  Let me start at the beginning and give you a run down on every single embarrassing thing that happened on Wednesday. Be prepared...it's a lot.

Wednesday morning: For the last few weeks I've been going to a hip-hop exercise class at the CRWC (the big, fancy, awesome gym on campus). It's not very far from my house, and I usually ride my bike but this Wednesday I needed to go get groceries right after, so I had to drive over. Ok, I am from a small town. We don't have to pay to park. Ever. You just park where there's a spot and you only get a ticket if you parked where the curb is yellow or if you parked in the teacher's lot and you're not a teacher. And even then I highly doubt you'd actually get a ticket. Anywho, there is a parking lot right by the gym that you have to pay for and then there is metered street parking, if you prefer that. Normally I do prefer street parking. But I was kind of in a hurry so I decided to just try out the lot and suck it up and pay for it. Everything went well until I had to leave. There are multiple exits to this lot, but only one is the "public exit". Apparently all the others are VIP exits, or something like that.  The "public exit" has two lanes that lead to the outside world. One was obviously a cashier window and the other just had a small box by it. For whatever reason I thought it was just one of those self-checkout things, with a swipy thing for a credit card. So I pulled up to and then sat for minutes upon minutes (ok it was probably like 30 seconds) and stared at this box. I came to the unfortunate realization that it was not for credit cards. It was for some fancy-pants secret card. Which I did not have. The girl in the cashier booth opened up her sliding window and asked me if I had that fancy-pants secret card. I told her I did not. She said I'd have to back out and come around to the other side.  Nooooo problem. Except that there was a ridiculously long curb/median in between the lanes. Why? Why would they put that there? It made my embarrassing moment multiple times more embarrassing because I had to slowly back out of that long lane (and yes, I did run into the curb. Twice) and then drive up to her window. To top it off, as I paid her my $2, in quarters, I dropped one of them on the ground. This brought on a rather sympathetic look from her as she said "It's ok. I will get it later. You can just go."  Thank you, cashier lady. I really did not want to get out of my car and pick up that quarter. That was enough embarrassment for those 10 minutes, thank you very much. 

A little bit later Wednesday morning: Hy-Vee on a weekday morning doesn't have too much potential for embarrassing one's self. Yet somehow I managed.  In the cheese aisle, I maneuvered my way past a Hy-vee worker who was smiling, pushing boxes and chatting with some other workers further down the aisle. As I start scanning the wall of cheese to figure out what I need, the aforementioned worker turned to look back into the aisle and said "Need some help?" I thought she was talking to me so I instantly responded "No thanks, I'm good." It took me a good 3 seconds before I realized she had been asking the other workers, the ones she had just been chatting with, and not me. I'm pretty sure she chuckled a bit before walking away, and it wast rude or anything, but nonetheless I think I turned a not-so-lovely shade of pink. I wouldn't be surprised if all the friendly smiles in that aisle at that moment were a result of my eager response to a question not even directed to me. 

I realize these things (and the ones I decided not to tell you about) are all fairly small, insubstantial moments of embarrassment. But never fear, I told you earlier that I eventually did make a big mistake and I stick to my word. So here comes the big shebang.

Since I had just gone to the grocery store, which meant I finally had more food than cereal and goldfish,  and I didn't have night class until 7 pm, I figured it was the perfect time to make a legit meal. I wanted to stick to my usual pasta and chicken, but decided to be a little adventurous and try and make a marinade for the chicken so it wouldn't dry out if I left it in the fridge for a few days. I found a simple recipe made of red wine, olive oil, scallions, garlic and salt. And since I had 3 out of these 5 ingredients, it was a perfect match. I poured the red wine and olive oil in the saucepan to get it boiling and, as the recipe told me, boil it for 10 minutes. At the same time I was cooking pasta, cutting chicken and slicing a tomato (with different knives! Don't worry.)  The marinade did eventually start to boil so I stirred it a bit and then let it boil, thinking the alcohol would mostly evaporate and it'd turn out perfect. Except then it exploded. And not a little explosion. A huge, splattered-red-wine-all-over-my-kitchen, kind of explosion. Thankfully I was not standing close to it, so I only got a few hot drops on my arm. But my cupboards, stove, floor and ceiling were not so fortunate. 

The weirdest part, besides me not understanding exactly how it exploded, was that it had been on the back burner, which is underneath the shelf that holds the microwave...so how on earth did that cursed oily liquid manage to curve around and splatter my high cupboards and ceiling?? I just don't understand.

I was able to make the floor less red-wine-y, so now it's just oily. And I wiped it off every horizontal surface and off most of the cupboards. Unfortunately the textured ceiling is still proving to be an obstacle. I just bought a magic eraser, so I'll be giving that a try during my one-woman cleaning party that is supposed to happen after I write this blog. Otherwise I may end up pulling a Michelangelo and repainting my entire kitchen celling. That sure sounds like a fun Christmas vacation project.

So there you have it, the story of how I succeeded at following Mrs. Bryant's advice. At least I didn't catch anything on fire. That was last weekend...when I almost burned down Emma's birthday cake. You're probably assuming I just almost left it in the oven too long. But you would be wrong. I actually almost burned it down when we were lighting it and she was about to make her birthday wish. The bigger the flame, the more likely the wish is to come true. Right? 

I will end on a good note because right now it sounds like all I do in my life is make mistakes. Last night I successfully made adorable mini stuffed peppers. No burning, no explosions and they tasted delicious. And all around success.  Oh and on Thursday I presented one of my research projects at our lab meeting and it went even better than I expected. So I guess that also kind of makes up for the whole kitchen-explosion thing :)

As always, thanks for sharing in the overall excitement that is my life! 

Happy weekend. Stay warm. 

So you can teach an old...Rachel new tricks

In all fairness, I realize I am not exactly old and it is maybe a little silly to implicitly refer to myself as a dog, but stick with me. The metaphor fits. I think.

Tonight I learned 3 new ballroom moves within 30 minutes. I had grown so accustomed to only dancing the moves I already knew because in the last 2 years because I have not had a ballroom lesson taught by anyone other than, well...me. I signed up for the Intermediate American Smooth lesson with the Hawkeye Ballroom Dance Co on Monday evenings, and this was actually the first Monday that I've been able to make it. When the lesson started and he announced we'd quickly review the 2 new moves from last week and then learn a new one, I got that little panicky feeling of "Everyone knows these moves and, of course, I've never even heard of them!" My palms probably got a little sweaty but I geared up to  learn them as best I could. And what do you know, it appears Rachel has her groove back because I picked them up immediately and furthermore, totally fell in love with them. The 3 new moves were in Waltz and I had just forgotten how much I love gliding across the floor, feeling (even if it's mostly a self-bias) rather graceful. It truly is rewarding to gain fluency in a particular move or step and then it's even more rewarding to be able to silently cooperate with another person to make that move even more beautiful.  And that is what a lot of tonight felt like. And then there was that old guy who was honestly just adorable and was so happy to be dancing that I didn't even care our feet weren't lined up and our rhythm was a little off.  More power to him :)

I feel a bit lame for the shortness of this post but I am trying to take care of myself so these allergies don't have as much of a chance against my immune system, so I suppose I better get to bed.  More to come soon.  My life is bound to be interesting enough in the next few days that I'm sure I'll be inclined to fill you in. Tusind tak for reading!

Goodnight, moon.