Whole new attitude

So. I have had an epiphany. (OK I must stop here to brag that, apparently, I spelled epiphany right on the first try. Go me!). About Grad school, or possibly about my advisor.

See, my advisor and I butt heads a lot. She is a very confrontational, controlling person, and I won't stand for any bullshit. It is very stressful.

But I realized...it doesn't have to be stressful. I care too much what she thinks of me, and it distresses me that she doesn't respect my professional opinion. But I realized...she doesn't trust ANYbody's professional opinions, even those people who have years and years more experience than her. Why should she respect me scientifically when she can't respect her scientific superiors? No, that would be illogical.

When I started in this lab, she pushed for a much closer relationship than I was used to, and I think that was to my detriment. She said she sees her students as her kids. That she wants to protect us from failure. This has fucked with my head bigtime. I allowed myself to think that this was true. It's not. It was a device she used to try to get me to open up to her, and a device she uses to justify her paternalistic behavior towards her employees. In all fairness, I think SHE thinks it's true, but it isn't. Or, to put it another way, if she treats her actual daughter the same way she treats her employees, than she's a pretty shitty parent. But if I can sever this "close" relationship and move towards a professional one, like I had with bosses before here, than I can protect and distance my emotions from her constant negativity. I will never have her approval, nor should I desire it. She is not, and should not be, a parental figure for me. Her approval or respect don't matter. As long as I can finish my thesis and get a decent recommendation letter out of her once I go job hunting, nothing else matters in the meantime. I will no longer let her manipulations, her misreadings of my personality, and her berating my not being perfect bother me. Screw that noise.

And you know what? I've been living with this new attitude for the past week, and I feel great. For the first time in 3 years I feel the knots in my stomach loosening.

Free Association Friday: Pus-filled tonsil edition

Yes folks it's time for another installment of Free Association Friday!

Today's word is: quinsy (n) inflammation of the tonsils, with formation of pus. Root: Greek kyon, dog; anchien, choke.

OK first? EWAH. I could have happily lived my life not knowing that such a condition existed. Thank you, Webster's. Thankyouverymuch.

Also? How do we get from choking dog to pus-filled tonsils? I mean, yes, they both involve the throat area, but other than that I don't see the connection. To my recollection as a dog owner, dogs are not particularly prone to being pus-y. Especially in their throat.

In regards to tonsils, I do not have them anymore. I had a tonsillectomy at age 2?3? Something like that. I used to get very bad sleep apnea, and when the docs investigated, they found that my tonsils were about 4 times the size they should have been. Mom says when I snored she could feel the floor shake. So they got rid of those right quick. I remember waking up from surgery, and I don't remember much at that age. I remember being soooooo thirsty and sooooo lonely, but then they gave me my special blanket (which I named Kiki) and I felt much better. But they wouldn't give me anything to drink. They said I could have a popsicle and I wanted grape but they were out and all they had was orange, and if you remember orange flavor in the early 80's...ew. So I sulkily ate my orange popsicle and that's really all I remember.

ZOMG Craziness!

So the last week has been just nuts. But first, the good news: Remember how I was going to fail a class because I missed 3 sessions (I didn't even know GRAD SCHOOL had attendence sheesh)? Well, I was just informed yesterday that my petition for late withdrawal was approved. Woot! The email included something to the effect of "This is a one-time get out of jail free card. Savor it!" So that's a load off my back.

But the rest of my week? Pretty shitty.

So for the last 4 weeks or so, I have been feeling pukey along with what LB tells me was heartburn (he's the expert in that, and I personally have never had it before in my LIFE). Then in the last week, I started getting a constant sharp pain in my stomach, like some alien baby was thinking about poking its way out. I took a pregnancy test just in case, and it was negative within like 10 seconds (it's supposed to take 3 minutes), so that wasn't the cause. I figured I caught some bug or something, so I went to the doc. I have gastritis! The precursor lesion for an ulcer! At 26! The doc said the three causes at my age are usually excessive alcohol, excessive caffiene, or excessive stress. We could easily rule out alcohol and caffiene, since I have 1 a week and 2 a day, on average, respectively. Doc asks "Have you been under more stress than usual lately?" to which I laughed sadly and nodded my head. Let's see:

• The class thing which would have been my first failing grade EVER since that one pop math quiz when I had been out sick in 3rd grade.
• More work than usual because my advisor has turned in 3 grants in 1.5 months, with one more due in a week and a half.
• One postdoc had to stop working to wait for his visa to get renewed so A piled half his work on me, in addition to my own.
• We got 2 new lab members which I have had to train on top of postdoc's work and my own increased work load.
• A is being a raving lunatic and yelling at everyone for even thinking about maybe placing half a toe out of line or not being supercrazy productive or perfecter than perfect.
• I have my annual works-in-progress talk, an hour long talk about my research in front of the entire department, on Wednesday and my bi-annual thesis committee meeting the following day.
• My f-ing WATER HEATER DIED. It had been leaking (slowly) for a while but in the last week decided to leak rather quickly. And everything in the basement got moldy and the cats wouldn't go in their boxes (located in the basement) because the humidity was making their litter wet.
  

So. Yeah. Bring it the fuck on.

Last night LB and I spent a good 4 hours cleaning out the basement, aided by a window squeegee LB found at his store and a dehumidifier and two fans he borrowed from his parents. It was gross. It was sticky. It was stuffy. But the basement is more than half dry at this point. New water heater is coming in bright and early Monday morning to the tune of $800. Goodbye tax rebate.

Oh yeah and to prevent further flooding? We turned off the water. Because lucky us, we don't have separate hot and cold water shut offs. Nope. Just one. So I filled every jug and tub and nalgene last night. We're manually filling the tank of the toilet for every flush (and now we have to live by that disgusting phrase "If it's brown, flush it down; if it's yellow, let it mellow"), and he's showering at his parent's and I'm showering at the gym. Oy.

So. That's what I've been up to.

To borrow a meme from velocibadgergirl, Listening to: Today I hate everyone by The Perishers.

I picked the WRONG day to neclect to bring a coat or umbrella

Taken from my front porch. That white stuff is hail.
Waiting for the bus? Was not fun.

Max, as usual, tried to escape. I let him, thinking the rain and hail would get him to forever stop asking to go out. I was wrong. His grass-tasting tour of the yard was uninhibited. "Oooh," says Max, "ICED grass. A rare delicacy indeed!"

Free Association Friday

Yes, I'm starting a meme. It's MINE ALL MINE.

OK but not really.

What I'm gonna do, is pull out my good ole Webster's New World Dictionary, open to a random page, and with my eyes closed, put my finger on the page and the entry it's closest to will be my inspiration for my free association. (Hm...wondering if I might need a newer dictionary...mine was published in 1971...holy crap it's 10 years older than me!) After picking the word I will just type away until my fingers decide they're done.

Today's inspirational word is: Immutable

Immutable, as in, this is an immutable law of the universe. What laws are immutable? That husbands are silly. That cats are psychotic but loving. That Thai food is the bomb diggity. Well, maybe not all Thai food, but all Thai food I've had. I once had this dish at a little hole in the wall Thai restaurant on Lake Street in Minneapolis. I ordered my bean dish 4 out of 5 on their 1-5 spicy scale. I should have ordered a 3. I figured, OK this is Minnesota, right? Minnesotans, as a general rule, are pretty intolerant of spice. My mild is my mother's hot. So I figured, OK I like it spicy, so...normally for a Thai restaurant I'd go 3 but they probably dumbed it down for the locals...so I ordered a 4. Which was very good that day...a little much for me but nothing I couldn't handle. But when I re-heated it in the microwave? Did you know that when you reheat chili oil it gets hotter? Yeah me neither. And OMG was my mouth on fire. I had to walk around with it open for a while. But I'm stubborn, right? So I kept eating it because, dammit I was not gonna throw out perfectly good food that I paid my hard-earned money for! Tears were streaming down my face. Gallons of water were consumed (and later pissed out). My fist was pounding the table and my feet were twitching. But, by God, I finished those beans.


If you want to participate, leave a link in the comments!

I am Uteressa, from the realm of Vulvacular

So. I am a gamer. And I happen to be born with a set of genitals that confers the female status. Some people would call me a girl gamer. I mean, yes I'm a gamer, and yes I'm female, but why does there have to be two categories: gamer, and girl gamer? Nevermind the fact that I haven't been a girl for nearly a decade; I think I can very safely call myself a woman.

Gaming is an interesting beast for female gamers, especially those of us who enjoy MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). The first time I publicly admitted to being a female while playing WOW (in my n00b days), the conversation went something like this:

General Chat - Some Player: There aren't many girl gamers. I'm a girl and I'm like the only one.
General Chat - Me: You aren't! I'm a girl (well I'm over 18 so a woman) and I know other women who game. There's lots of females on WOW.
Private Chat - Some Player: I'm glad to see other girl gamers! Would you like to chat?
...wait 10 seconds...
Private Chat - Some Player: I mean like sexy?
Me (offline): Headdesk

I've seen players who publicly (online) identify as female get harassed as being not as good players (even though it wasn't true), have rape jokes about them told online, or get hit on. After a few experiences as such, I became much more reserved about grouping with other toons (characters) who I didn't know.

I tend to be very protective of my identity now...the only people who know are my guild members. I never go on general voice chat. I just want to play, dammit.

But some female players revel in their...um....femininity? Just today, I ran across a toon named Fallopia and another named Ovaree. Now, I don't see male toons named Vas Deferentia or Testicuole, and I wonder, why would you want to name your character after your reproductive organs? That's a little too...girly? For me. If you want to "come out" as female online, go ahead, more power to you, but naming yourself after your reproductive organs? Hm. Maybe I'm just too private (heh I heart bad puns) or maybe I'm just not the "I am woman hear my uterus roar worship the earth mother goddess wombs rock!" type of person.

To each their own I guess.

My ass is kinda big news

So this saturday, Freki and I participated in the Paws & Claws Pet Walk. Paws & Claws is the shelter from which we adopted Freki, and I have volunteered there for a while, although not as often as I would like!

Everybody at the dog walk, hangin out

We got there early with a friend of mine who was volunteering to walk one of the shelter dogs. We hung out, got registered, got my t-shirt and Freki's bandana, played a little fetch to tire him out (it didn't work) then we met and walked with two of my coworkers and their dogs. Great fun was had by all.

Tired dog walkin

About midway through the walk, we stopped by a river and Freki begged me to go in, so I obliged.

Freki in the water

He was only mildly upset with me for not letting him off-leash to romp and swim. I tried explaining to him that this is not the dog park, but he didn't understand. He was like "Bitch, please. This is water! There are geese! Little doggies need to PLAY!"

After the walk, we hung out for a little bit to see if we won anything in the drawing, and we did! We got a grab bag of toys, a Sigg bottle for me, and some doggie supplies which were unfortunately too small (which really isn't surprising, Freki is a bit of a beast). I'm sure we can find someone who will use them though.

Afterward, we were both very tired. I dropped the boy off at home, then went out to lunch with everyone we walked with at Pannekoeken. Twas good. After that I went home and napped with Freki. We were both very tired. Max and Milo joined in, just for kicks.

Tonight, as I was preparing to write this entry in fact, and I hear (in babytalk), "Is that Freki? Yeah is that you? Is Freki on TV? You're on TV! And mommy's butt! And leg!" Apparently LB was watching the local news, and we were on TV. I asked, "So did my ass look terrible?" To which my well-trained monkey man says, "No it looked fabulous."