Hi, Bambi!

1.) I saw this fellah on the walk over to my friend's place.

2.) I will try to limit my caffeine intake to 2 cups per day...two!  I'm sorry, I've succumbed and now there's no turning back.  Woe, I say, oh, woe is me.  I'll use the excuse that all the cool kids in my lab are doing it and so...

3.) First week of teaching went well, though my students initially thought that I was one of them.  I'm twenty-five!  Also, how do you deal with a student in distress?  I'll elaborate later.

4.) The Draconids are coming!  The Draconids are coming!  Hopefully this meteor shower will be decent, though we still have a little over a month to view.


5.) I've had this Sixpence None the Richer song on repeat for some time now.  Rockin'.
 

Kites and Cell Biology

Here are more photos taken at our retreat:

Absolutely amazing, amirite?

When whales (not pigs) can fly!

In case you thought I was making up this exquisite 2.1 meters of awesomeness, otherwise known as Bingding, the whale, let me prove you wrong.  Here are me and my labmates attempting to fly him at our annual institute retreat.  Unfortunately, film could not adequately capture Binding and all his majestic splendor in the air, but this photo should suffice for the time being.  Et voilà:

 Jealous much?  Well, don't you worry your pretty, little heads.  Someday, I'll bring him home and you too will see a whale fly.

Regal Cinemas are pretty OK

I like franchises (Regal Cinema, Panera Bread, Target, etc.) because they all look the same and hence have that familiarity that so wonderfully reflects home.  Florida on the movie screen, Florida in the pastry window, Florida in the dollar shopping aisle.  Home everywhere and again, see.

I finally finished collecting all 475 vials of flies this past week.  Oh, the agony!  I'm TA-ing Genetics lab and lecture this semester and as a part of our induction into TA-hood we were asked, nay, told to separate the male and virgin female flies into vials in preparation for next week's lab.  As one would anticipate, the experience was neither fun nor enlightening.  And of course, it didn't help that my sighs of frustration would detonate a cataclysmic Hiroshima atomic fly bomb.  BOOM--fly explosion!  But in spite of the grief and toil, I am looking forward to teaching the lab sections.  Muhahaha...oh, they will be at my mercy...the flies, not the students.  Hee hee... 

I finished reading Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude."  It was beautifully written and not surprisingly, I'm sad that it had to end.  You all ought to read it and tell me what you think.  I'd love to discuss it with you.  And with that, if you have any book recommendations, I'd be interested to know.

Do any of you use Spotify?  You can share songs and playlists here so add me (acemoliere) if you have an account!  I always find it amusing when my friends here enter my car and are surprised that I make my own mix CDs.  I thought this was a common occurrence, but I suppose not in Ithaca apparently or at least among my circle of friends.  I typically don't listen to the radio because I have the tendency to listen to a favorite song over and over again...sometimes thousands of times.  I never get tired of a favorite tune.  And now off to listen to another favorite playlist: Sleep #3.

Nighty-o.

Wants

I want to go to one of those museums where you can blow enormous bubbles--bubbles that are so big they can almost envelop you and they flicker rainbows for more than milliseconds--long seconds, 1-2-3-4-5--POP!  I want to sit beneath a starry dome and listen to a favorite tune.  I love planetariums.  I haven't been to one since I was--it's been too long, I can't remember.  I want to plant a flower garden and maybe I'll grow some mangoes because they're my favorite fruit.  What are those trees with the purple and blue flowers called?  I want a yard full of those. 

G'night.