Ridiculous outfit

It's still cold in my room, although I've turned on the heat and covered the AC window with a towel (I am not sure if the heat is working).  But to keep warm:

Tank top, leggings, sweatpants, sweatshirt, socks, slippers, bathrobe.  Brrrrrr!

My room is cold!

It's late fall in New England, although if you're going by New England standards and not actual equinox/solstice dates, it's winter for sure.  It's been consistently freezing (30°F highs) for the past week.  And I have issues.

Many people who know me well know that I have problems with being organized and clean.  I'm working very hard right now to keep my work life organized in every way possible, and I'm making some headway (been helping organize common areas that have been messy since I got here a year and a half ago, cataloging protocols, making master lists of freezers, etc.).  Now it feels like all of that energy directed at work is sapping my energy to be responsible at home.  My room got pathetically disgusting for an entire month.  Horrendously, embarrassingly gross.  Coming home was upsetting for me because of how terrible my room was.

Gathering up the energy to clean my room became more and more difficult.  Halfway through the month, I was thinking about starting to clean when I was struck down with illness.  As I've detailed earlier, I got sick with a weird mild virus on Saturday after Thanksgiving, which turned into a sinus infection, which turned into a pretty decently bad chest cold.  I'm still recovering; I've got congestion still and my voice is still what I call my man-voice.  It's going to be difficult to sing karaoke on Monday!

While sick, getting to the grocery store for essential food items was my only priority besides sleeping.  I ended up with plates, bowls, and mugs (formerly containing either soup or tea) in my room, along with clothes strewn about, trash, Loki's mess (he took a bath in his seeds, and now that he has wings, he likes to fly everywhere, pooping and molting), and everything else.  I had done some major laundry back in November, including my comforter cover.  I still hadn't made my bed (like, sheets, not making things look nice).  Oh, it was bad.  Very bad.

So I was sick, and then it got freezing.  Because of the mess, I hadn't yet put shrink wrap on my windows (it's effective, by the way).  I also hadn't taken out my AC unit from the window right next to my bed.  There were reasons, all related to the mess.  With the mess, it was difficult to get to the AC.  And there was nowhere to put the AC once it was out.  And I couldn't invite even a roommate in the room to help me remove the unit because of how embarrassing the mess was!

The other night, I was so cold that I allowed Loki to nap on my warm computer.  I also made the mistake of warming my hands by sticking them under my laptop.

Do not warm your hands by sticking them under a hot laptop.  At the time, it felt nice and it helped.  Now, I've discovered first degree burns on the backs of my fingers and hands.  Not joking.  WHOOPS.

Last night, I had a field day cleaning my room.  It's not finished.  In terms of general presentation, I need to put away my clean clothes, put my dirty clothes in my hamper, throw out 3 bags of trash, get rid of a bunch of boxes and other trash, donate a bag of clothes, put some items away, clean Loki's cage, and vacuum.* Tonight, I got home too late, but when I have time this weekend, I'll finish up, and weatherize those stupid windows!  And then maybe my room won't be so darn cold.**

* In terms of real cleaning?  I need to throw out a ton of shit that's in my closet and storage unit.

** Yes, I've thought about the heat.  But it'll drive up our utilities, it's stupid to turn on the heat when I literally have a WINDOW OPEN, and I'm also reasonably sure the heat in my room doesn't work.  I don't know for sure, and it would be stupid to call the landlord to complain if I have a WINDOW OPEN.

Sickness roadmap

A week after I first got sick, I'm still sick!  Chronology:

Friday night: Fine, just a slight headache
Saturday: Congestion, fatigue, low fever (99.2)
Sunday: Slight congestion, fine by the end of the day
Monday: Feeling fine, congestion is fading
Tuesday: Congestion is a little worse, but generally, feeling okay
Wednesday: Wake up feeling horrible, heavy face, congestion, serious fatigue, fever (99.6-100.2)
Thursday: Feeling a bit congestion, mild fever later in the day (99.1)
Friday: More congestion, no fever, scratchy throat
Saturday: More congestion, no fever, scratchy throat, cough

So here's what I think happened:

I stayed out late on Thanksgiving and the following night, leaving me with a mild virus on Saturday.  Since I thought I was better by Sunday, I stopped taking steps to treat the cold, and it turned into a sinus infection, sidelining me on Wednesday and Thursday.  By Friday, the sinus infection was gone, but I was pretty much draining all of the fluids, which landed in my lungs and throat.  I also stayed out late again and didn't dress very well for the cold.

So: Mild viral infection turns into sinus infection turns into cold.

HOORAY.

New meaning

I'm watching some Castle right now (decent show, quite goofy), and in one particular episode, the suspects are animal rights activists.  It's said that the worst thing they've done is break into a lab and free a bunch of mice.  It's said as if it's really not a terrible thing.

Weirdly enough, I haven't heard any references to breaking into labs and freeing animals in a while, maybe since I started working in the lab last year.  And now, all I can think of is that if some asshole were to free the mice in our animal facility, it would be an institute-wide crisis.  We'd lose months of work, in addition to a loooot of money.  I mean, you'd have to pay for new mice, and for the facility to be cleaned (we've got rules to keep the rooms very clean, rules that activists would probably break).  And then there's the fact that some of the mice are very, very special knock-outs or isoform mice that are rare and pricey.

So next time you hear about activists freeing animals from labs, whether the references are fictional or real, FEEL BAD for the researchers!  Seriously.

Tales of sick in bed

Usually, when I take a sick day, I wake up feeling crappy and call in sick.  By the afternoon, I'm feeling better, especially if I take a nap.  Sometimes, I'm ridiculously sick, like when my UC flares up, or the time I had the Hamthrax.*

A couple of times, though, I've come to work even when I don't feel well.  Recently, especially, I've started loving my job, and so I actually want to come in to work, get things done, and see people.  So when I woke up this morning with my cold returning full-force, and with stuffy, painful sinuses, I got up, and brought in the food for lab meeting.

And I got sent home as soon as I got in.  The only annoying thing was that there aren't a lot of outbound trains from Boston around 10am.  And by the time I finished walking back to my apartment, I felt SO lousy.

Now I have a fever, and my symptoms aren't very much better post-nap.  Awesome.

So what happens when I'm home during the day?  I check OKCupid to see if I've got a message from this guy I'm seeing, since he's going to pick a restaurant for us to go to tomorrow night.  And then I get an IM.  Crap.

I check and see that this dude has visited my profile.  Okay, that's good, because he'll know that I'm picky and generally don't date guys who can't make an effort to type properly.  Except not.

Dude types badly in his IMs and on his profile (or what little of it I could see when I searched; I'm not interested in checking it out).  He then asks me what I do, something that's at the top of my profile.  Now he's asked me if I swing, and if I want to fuck (I answered no, and he asked me why not).

I don't want to be with my ex, and I'm okay with being single.  But man, I'd forgotten how obnoxious online dating is.

EDIT: Oh, even better.  He messaged me because he saw that I was Jewish and thinks that it means I put out easily.

* H1N1--swine flu.  I usually call it Hamthrax or The Swine.

Random updates

HEALTH:

Thursday, felt great.  Friday, felt great till about midnight, when I had a headache.  Saturday, woke up feeling OMG HORRIBLE.  I could barely get out of bed all day, took three naps, kept having to reheat my tea.  I only had one can of soup, which I ate.  Ended up with a fever, in addition to headache and congestion and OMGKILLME feeling.  I figured I'd be out of commission for a few days.

Sunday, woke up feeling a bit gross.  I was able to hack up a huge glob of gross, and then felt better.  Managed to go to work and then the grocery store for more soup and juice.  By about 5/6pm, I felt all right.  By the time I went to bed, I felt almost fine.  Woke up this morning on very little sleep feeling great!

Importance: I NEVER recover from illnesses, especially colds, so quickly.  It seems that at age 24, my body has finally started to take advantage of all of the lessons it's learned from the colds of winters past!  Yay!

APPS:

On Wednesday, I arrived home and discovered that my transcript had FINALLY arrived.  But that I had forgotten the cover page and my CV I had printed at work.  I dug my printer out of the pile of books I'd left on it, and I easily downloaded the software, but then I realized that after not printing anything for a year and a half, I had mysteriously lost all my printer paper.  Ran to Walgreens, bought some paper, ran home.*  Printed everything, called the post office to confirm that they were on normal hours.  Dashed up to Beacon Street, struggled mightily to fill out a mailing label (three carbon copies!  I wrote as hard as I could, and you could barely read anything!).  Then I went up to the counter and, kid you not, asked, "How much do I have to pay to make sure this gets to Chicago by Friday?"  Delivery guaranteed.

Today is Monday.  My UChicago app tells me that they're still waiting on my CV and transcript, and they're due Wednesday.  WTF.  Am calling in an hour and a half.

Meanwhile, BU says it doesn't have any recommendations, but they replied to my email confirming that they have my transcript and GRE scores.  Johns Hopkins and I had some emails over the weekend because I DID send GRE scores, so I'm supposed to check again tomorrow, and call if my app still claims they're missing.

The lesson learned here is ... nothing.  I did everything right.  So the lesson learned is just not to apply to graduate school.

* I guess it's misleading to imply that Walgreens is even a little bit of a trip.  I live directly next to Walgreens.  I almost live IN Walgreens.  We are surrounded on two sides by the building, and on a third by the parking lot.  A trip to Walgreens is the easiest thing on the planet.  I have to stagger my trips so the employees don't notice how much junk food I buy.

Grad apps

Applying to graduate school should involve receiving a degree all on its own.

I vaguely remember applying to college several years ago.  I know that many of my applications were online, and most of them took the common app.  It was helpful; I applied to seven schools and five of them took the common app.  So I had to fill out my information about 3 times total, and the supplemental applications for individual schools involved a few extra essay questions.  I did have to mail in some things, specifically my flute CD,* but I know my mom took care of that, as well as my SAT scores.  My guidance counselor took care of sending off my high school transcript.

It wasn't easy or pleasant, by any means, but the college admissions process is at least somewhat streamlined.

The easiest part of graduate applications has been sending my GRE scores.  ETS lets you select all your schools and departments, and then you just enter your billing info, hit send, and weep openly as you look at the bill afterwards ($345!).

Transcripts?  No guidance counselor this time.  I have to send them, one at a time, using the Tufts system.  I have to enter my billing info for each one and pay one at a time.  There's a character limit in the address boxes, so I've been sending lots of applications to "The Office of Grad. Aff."  Awkwards.  I just had to call Tufts because the system didn't register my billing info for a couple transcripts.  I would have just canceled and re-entered my info, but one of the transcripts needs to be sent TODAY, so I was panicking a little.

My CV?  It's sort of important, especially for schools that either don't give me space to write much about my jobs, or for ones that assume that I'm applying right out of undergrad.  In some cases, I have to mail my CV because the online app won't let me upload it, just copy/paste.  But what about my gorgeous formatting?!

So I've got transcripts I have to send, and not only is it hard, but some of the schools haven't told me where to sent the damn things.  Half of the schools don't seem to want my CV.  What else?

Oh, there's no common app.  I've got some apps on Embark, and some on ApplyYourself, but neither system saves your information for auto-fill.  And the rest use school-specific application sites.  So I end up having to write out my address six hundred times, and my recommendation letter writers are probably so confused, I'll have to send them emails letting them know when to send letters to which schools.

Finally, certain schools want information mailed, in addition to completion of an online application.  The biggest culprit is the University of Iowa, which has just been killing me in terms of all of these problems.  I had to fill out an application on the biology department's site, THEN the general application.  I now have to mail them my personal statement (yes, they require it mailed), my CV, a waiver request, and an application for graduate funds.  I also had to mail two transcripts, and they have a form for letter writers to fill out instead of writing a letter.  They're also the school that assumes I'm just graduating from college; everything they ask either implicitly or explicitly assumes I'm in college.  The recommendation form refers to my letter writers as if they've had me in a class, etc.

So, where's my special degree for sorting through this mess?  Yikes.

First application is going out very soon (University of Chicago).  I'm waiting on one last once-through from my mom on the personal statement so I can send the electronic application, and as soon as I get my transcript in the mail, I'm sending it with my CV straight to the biology department.  I'm cutting through the chaos, and I'm finally embarking on the next stage of my life: PhD.

* I spent years playing flute and piccolo, and at one point, I was considering going to conservatory and going professional.  Not because I was that good; I would have been if I had practiced more often.  That was actually a factor in my decision not to become a musician.  Not only would my profession not be immediately helpful to anyone, but I'd have to actually practice.  Not gonna happen!