October 13, 2009
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I am pretty happy right now!
-I finally got to hear the lecture I've been waiting to hear about since last year! I am stoked! A professor here does diving in ANTARCTICA (!!) to find chemicals that may have pharmaceutical functions. It was quite interesting; he didn't dip much into chemistry, probably because then a fraction of the audience might not understand. @_@ it's easy with chemistry to make things complicated. He showed us pictures and all, it was quite fascinating. One thing that made me laugh was how he was talking about how for there was one type of algae that was studied that had proteins that could be extracted to help fight influenza. Well, apparently some nutraceutical company found a related algae plant from South America rather than from Antarctica that had the same influenza fighting properties, and made some pills for it. Well, the company failed to include the protein that actually was noted to have influenza fighting effects. So, yay for some expensive pills that won't work (maybe placebo). O_~
Sea butterfly and amphipod.-I received this in my e-mail today:
[:D]
I can imagine my little brother to be exponentially more happy since it is shipping home, not to my college address. But then again, I bought the book for him, not for me, so even more reason for him to be happy. But I'm not calling or forwarding this e-mail to him so that he'll have the excitement of checking the door every day for a package. It's always exciting to be expecting mail! Which leads me to...
-I bought stamps today, finally. I've been meaning to for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it. Unfortunately they didn't have any collection-worthy designs, only the Forever Stamp; but I suppose that is the most pragmatic kind anyways. I've collected more than enough stamps. (Heh; but they're AWESOME to look at! Seriously!). I don't think I can write again until after Monday, courtesy of Physiology, Orgo, AND Latin exams that are upcoming. O_O
-I donated blood again finally, unfortunately it left my finger unusually bruised, which I forgot when I was picking up a container of cooked pasta. (eyes watered *_*). Today my blood had a much better flow (last time was a fail since my blood clotted too quickly --> dehydrated?; the time before, it was so slow and was from a side vessel that they guy had to hold and rotate the needle constantly O_O). I was a little dismayed because usually they give me a warning ("this might pinch a little") before yanking out the needle, but the lady didn't do so (mild surprise?).
-It was such a busy day (chem discussion --> lab [oh fail! lol, jk!] --> dorm/change --> donate blood --> UGRB mtg --> lecture!), but because of donating blood I couldn't afford to forget dinner again! So I've replenished myself with the same thing I've eaten for maybe three days already. Bowtie pasta (my fav!) + pesto sauce + olive oil + bacon bits! I eat the same thing for lunch everyday too: Chik-fil-a sandwich, minus pickles. Almost everyday. Not sure what happens when I get tired of it...I haven't had dinner so late yet this year! O_O!
-For sitting in on a two minute spiel about Windows 7, I received a $10 card to fye.com, so I just bought MOAR MUSIC!
! The newer Matt Costa CD and the old Augustana. Not sure why I chose those two, but I'm pretty excited about that. 
! Windows 7 sounds kinda cool...-Happiness is carrying over from yesterday's favicon discovery. Little things make me happy :]. A lot of little things.
-I found that I am more focused when I study with classical music; it evokes happy memories from childhood, and the only singing it makes me want to do is warbling opera (Mozart! Though I don't know any Italian or whatever it is in O_O). I will spare my roommates though, and save that for when I am driving home next week or whenever.
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Comments (7)
yay!
Can I tell you I am glad to see you so happy . You have a generous soul , Melinda .
I was surprised by the fact algaes are gowing in Antartica producing interesting molecules .
I suppose you are a chemistry student.
In friendship
Michel
interesting blog
wooo! is the favicon the icon that's in my tab? [i see the red cross sign!!]
@shortstuff3157 -
Yeah, it is!
I was surprised it worked on Xanga too!
There's a prof at my school that works at a base in Antarctica too. He's a marine/microbiologist I think...maybe they know each other
Nice find...I didn't know there was an Xkcd book. Is your brother as nerdy as you are?
@a_drunken_cellist -
Definitely possibly! I can't imagine too many people go over yonder. He said the NSF generally funds them, and he heard by rumor that about 10 years ago, it cost to send 1 scientist for 1 day $30,000. And since then perhaps that has risen some. He scuba dives there too! Brr! They make holes in the ice sheets sometimes, and put a make shift building over the hole with a heat generator. That way when they finish their dive they can be relatively warm and there isn't wind
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It just came out recently!
And I think it comes with annotations from Randall Munroe. Perhaps I can post a picture from a page in there some time. But not until I get home and look at it. 
! My brother is several degrees nerdier than me. Crazy with math and chess (and anything else) skills. Except I would say he is more scatter brained than I am, and significantly less organized O_~...but that might make him a bigger nerd actually. O_~!