At Least I'm Informative When I Blabber?

I’ve reached the point in the semester now where I’m in the homestretch. Technically, I have only two more weeks of classes as of this very moment, and I could not be more relieved. You reach a point late in the semester where every project and prelim seems to collapse into the same two weeks (and since you’ve been studying so hard for last night’s pchem exam, when you write the word “collapse” all you can think is “collapse of the wavepacket”.) I am right in the middle of those two weeks, but somehow having pchem out of the way makes me feel much further than halfway. Hence, it has been nearly a month, and I have a breather right now, so I am writing.

Also, I realized when I got multiple “I miss you” texts from home on the same day that I have, from the perspective of the west coast, dropped off the face of the Earth. So what has been going on? Oh, so much.

A communal kitchen is kind of like a breeding ground of passive aggressive behavior. Due to my unfortunately keen hearing, I heard a girl bawling her eyes out a couple of weeks ago. I assumed it was a boy issue or something to that effect. However, when I went into the kitchen later I saw a new message on the whiteboard: “To whoever ate my pizza: you are so MEAN. I come home after a really long day and all I wanted to do was enjoy my leftovers. You literally made me cry. PS: who steals someone else’s leftovers?” Here are a few other (admittedly somewhat paraphrased) examples:
-To whoever stole my glass mugs: could you put them back? I’m thirsty L Thanks! –Andrew
-To whoever stole my Chinese food: I hope you DIE from eating all that MSG. (Complete with drawings of flames.)
-WHOEVER’S DISHES THESE ARE PLEASE PUT THEM AWAY. I AM TIRED OF RECLEANING THEM AND YOU ARE MAKING THIS KITCHEN UNUSABLE. PS: FRUIT FLIES ARE GROSS.

Another joy of communal living is the communal bathroom. As a girl, I have had no problems with this (except for the broken toilet seat... but it was crack when we got here and was replaced within an appropriate amount of time), but apparently for the boys it is a different study. Currently Schuyler (my building) is having a design-the-Schuyler-T-shirt challenge. [Last year’s winner was to take the popular “Ithaca is Gorges” and adapt it to “Schuyler is Where?” It was quite successful.] Accordingly there are posters around with pictures of people wearing T-shirts that say YOUR DESIGN HERE. Fed up with his bathroom problems, someone graffiti-ed the poster in the elevator: “Schuyler: We can’t aim our #1s OR #2s”, which promptly received a “got my vote!”, a “mine too!” and a “mine three.”

My most recently completed group project was to model the breakdown of ethanol in a simplified version of the human body. While the model’s iterations are somewhat unrealistic (reaching a steady-state BAC takes over 100 iterations on a one drink per hour basis, and the steady-state assumption can only be made due to constant urination) I have a way of estimating a person’s BAC. A now appropriate conversation would be: “Are you sure you can drive?” “Have Gina run it through the spreadsheet.”
An interesting thing about group projects is how someone almost always ends up the leader, and how that someone almost always ends up being me. I volunteered to make the spreadsheet for this project because I was slow at making spreadsheets and wanted to improve, and suddenly they were calling me “our great leader” [Yeah, like what the North Koreans call Kim Jong Il.] I suppose I don’t mind being the leader, but it’s weird how it always happens that way.

My other group project is to design a new treatment for small-cell lung cancer, which is kind of a crazy thing to ask of people who have never taken above high-school biology. I think our group has come up with a pretty interesting idea, though. Small cell lung cancer cells have an opiate binding site that is not present on normal lung cells. After a 24 hour exposure, methadone will bind to these binding sites irreversibly, and stop tumor growth. Our idea, then, is to take a less addictive isomer of methadone (methadone is the drug they use to wean people off of heroine…), and attach it to an antibody. The methadone will bind to the cancer cells and stop them from growing. Then the antibody will trigger an immune response so that the body will attack the cancer cells. A big potential problem with this is its effects in immuno-compromised patients. Obviously, we won’t actually be making the drug, but it has been really cool researching it and talking to my professor.
The prospect of making treatments for cancer was kind of the reason that I got into engineering and chemical engineering in the first place. About a week into this project, I wasn’t really as interested in it as I thought I would be and was considering shifting my focus to consumer products or something. (I went to an information session for Procter and Gamble, where I learned that deodorant is surprisingly complex chemically, and has a much wider customer base than cancer medications. It’s also less depressing.) Now, though, I feel like my interest in cancer meds is rejuvenated. Having the professor I have, who’s research specialty is cancer and who was willing to talk to my group about this project for a full hour, has allowed me to learn a lot about cancer and how new treatments work that I would never have learned any other way, and I am extremely grateful. I’m going to see about working in his lab next summer.

Speaking of next summer… I just realized that I may not have mentioned here previously my plans for Co-op (and inadvertently the rest of college [a Co-op is like a long internship, lasting a semester and a summer]) and I should probably do that so you don’t get mad at me for never coming home again… So here is what my life looks like for the next… while.

Thanksgiving: visit Joe in NYC
December 14^th: fly home for Christmas, hanging out, learning Java, and applying for Co-ops
January 7^th: fly back to NYC
January 10^th-18^th: Go to Dublin(!) with Orchestra
Spring: Semester in Ithaca
(no idea what’s happening for Spring break)
Summer: Do research and take fall semester classes (most likely not coming home in between… Don’t hate me Riley!)
Fall: Co-op somewhere
Spring: Semester in Ithaca
Summer: Back at Co-op Company
Senior Year in Ithaca

…and then I’m done with college.

So that’s my life in a nutshell… I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving (and birthday. Just ordered your gift!) and that life as a TA continues to be fabulously hectic.

See you in less than a month!

Lola

Time is a Thing of the Past

I feel like so much has happened since I last filled you in on my life. This is partially because it has been over a month (O.O) and partially because I am so freaking busy. Alright, it's not that bad, but sometimes it sure feels like it. Shall we discuss this last week as an example? Yes, of course we shall. I'm the one typing, ergo I have all the control here. (Side note: Shelby requested I stop using the word ergo. What a foolish girl to pass up a perfectly wonderful word.)

Over the course of this week, I have had two exams, proctored another, and then graded midterms for nine hours straight with my fellow TAs. On top of that, the Introductory Programming Laboratory where I help people as a TA has been completely overflowing. Throughout the week there have been 5-6 bat signals, which are only sent out when there is over a 45 minute wait in the IPL. Previous to this week, we've had one cry for help sent out the entire quarter. I am just thankful I get to work in a place that sends out bat signals. Apparently the CS homework this week has students freaking out and confused to the point where they are regressing to levels previously not thought possible. I don't think I've seen more blank stares in my life when asking what I thought was a straightforward question. Usually, "can you bring up the class website?" elicits some sort of action based response, but this week all I get is a deer-in-the-headlights hesitation. The lack of coherent thoughts from all around has made this week last much longer than usual. Are we sure there are only five school days in a week?

Not all of this filled schedule is schoolwork oriented though. I am happy to report that I am no longer a complete social recluse. I have been doing social activities with other semi-normal students and making friends with all the other TAs. My friend-base has easily tripled this quarter and it's weirding me out a little bit to have this much interaction with people. In addition to having somewhat of a social life, I have started my own version of NaNoWriMo again. I don't know if you remember, but last year I wrote a song/poem thing every day in November in an attempt to make myself a better writer. I have decided that this must happen again and already am slightly regretting this decision. Though at least I am not doing actual NaNo and attempting to write a novel. That would result in a magical novel written with invisible ink. Obviously, it would be an amazing book but only those who truly believed could see it. Also, I ignored the pain in my wallet and bought a smartphone recently. Then I proceeded to discover the free games section of the android market. Whoever thought this would be a good idea for a college student should have rethought that hypothesis. Why are games like Angry Birds so darn addictive? I feel like it is at least partially the catchy theme songs.

And I wish I were kidding when I told you that I only really stop to breathe when my ballet teacher reminds me to. Several times in dance class lately, I have only realized that breathing should be a thing I do when my teacher verbally prompts me. I feel a little bit like a walking dumb blonde joke but then I remember that my hair is still a lack-luster brownish color. If I must have the stereotypical blonde symptoms, then I should at least get to have the most fun as well. And bouncy Marilyn Monroe esque hair.

Being this busy does have it's drawbacks though. My immune system must not be functioning on a top notch level because on Wednesday, my sickness level went from zero to sixty in 3.5 hours. Mid-afternoon I was perfectly healthy and by dinner I had a fever and uncontrollable shaking. Of course this was the day before my physics exam, but I'm a super-trooper and I carry on. But I only managed to rouse myself after sleeping for over twelve hours straight.

Also, apparently what goes around does indeed come around. My silence on here and to my friends in other mediums has manifested into actual silence. My voice has left me and seems like it never wants to come back. You know how much I talk, hum, sing, make strange noises, etc. This forced vow of silence is slowly eating away at my will to live. Right now I've got the few poorly recorded random tracks on my computer of me singing on repeat, just to reassure myself that I haven't always sounded like a 50 year old chain smoker. At least, that is what I sound like when a comprehensible noise manages to come out of my throat.

Hopefully I'll be back to normal in no time. After all, another week is about to start. That means classes, physics labs, helping poor lost CS students and of course gospel choir. How am I supposed to belt about Jesus when I sound like a person with a bag of gravel where their voice box is supposed to be? Well, maybe my teacher will mistake crazed with passionate. They aren't that far off, right? We're just lucky this is a blog and not a podcast; I don't think you would appreciate the guest appearance of the least talented tibetan throat singer.

I hope you are doing well and enjoying the fall weather before winter fully takes hold!

Much love,
Riley