It’s been a while since I last remember seeing sunlight before heading to bed. This week, however, has given me plenty of opportunities to revisit those good old times. Hello, sunrise… we meet again. Over the past week, I’ve been surviving on less than 4 hours of sleep each night working first on that journal club, and then my fellowship which I managed to submit right before the due time of noon today. Heck, I was EARLY. It’s just 11:58am right now 😉 I’m actually surprised I haven’t crashed yet. In fact, I’m running on so much adrenaline I have trouble going to sleep! Anyway, I just have to present my poster at the HST forum this afternoon and then do a review session for my Pharm class this evening, and it’ll soon be Aloha from the Pacific!

My mind’s been so cluttered lately I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve got a study card due tomorrow, though I’m still not sure what to take. I also have a fellowship due next week which, after staring at it for 2 weeks, I’m just too tired to care about anymore. On top of that, I’m supposed to present the departmental journal club on a paper that’s about as interesting as a small block of wood. Meanwhile, I’m also juggling like 8 different experiments which I can’t keep track of ’cause my boss keeps asking me how they’re going. By the way, if this is beginning to sound bitter, that’s ’cause I am. For some strange reason, I’ve also got this old Red Hot Chili Peppers song stuck in my head. You know, the one that goes: “How loooong… How loo-ooo-oong will I slide… Separate my siii-iii-iiide…” It doesn’t help, of course, that I keep it looping on my mp3 playlist, but such is the way of the obsessive-compulsive. All in all, the week’s been turning into some really warped acid trip for my little brain.

This weekend consisted of good music, some magic cream, and a full-body massage… not all at the same sitting, of course (though the thought IS coming to mind as I type =P). On Saturday, we headed over to the Kresge at MIT for the regional semifinals and finals of the ICCA, which among the various collegiate a capella groups from the Northeast, featured the professional vocal group Ball In The House. These five guys literally blew me away with an amazing performance combining pop rock, R&B, and hip hop with no other instruments but their voices. First place ultimately went to BU’s all-male group the Dear Abbeys who was clearly a class beyond their competitors. Though I was starting to zone out toward the end of the 4 hours, it did bring back some fond memories of my bygone days in chorus. On Sunday morning, we invited a few friends over as test subjects for some new recipes Melody found, including a quiche lorraine with spinach, a souffléd corn pudding, balloon puffs (biscuits with marshmallows), strawberries with amaretto, and some magic cream (a heavenly concoction of Cool Whip, vanilla pudding, and milk which we just experienced at a wine & cheese party on Friday). After the brunch and some work in lab, we drove to the Bella Santé day spa at Lexington. This being my first massage experience, I was initially taken back by the sensation of someone gently trying to break my back. Walking out of the spa, however, left me floating like a kid in Neverland. It’s too bad I couldn’t stay there forever, as thoughts of lab experiments (i.e. punishment) soon crept back into mind.

After dealing with my new iPod Shuffle over the past several days, I’ve come to realize that one simply cannot triumph over a higher power. Despite the new features and lower cost, it’s still just an Apple product, which means that it’s not gonna let some silly little thing like its USER tell it what to do. Not only did it require the cumbersome iTunes nightmare to put songs onto the device, it even forces a monogamous relationship with my desktop PC. When I tried to sync it with my laptop, it deleted all my songs. It’s like, ‘do what we say and no one gets hurt’. Though I tried almost every 3rd party software I could find to overcome these limitations, even a control freak like me had to succumb to their control. All hail, o’ great one!

It’s true. I just want them for their bodies. I don’t really care about their brains. By “them”, I meant rats of course (what did you THINK I was talking about?). Since our animal protocol in lab has been held back by some administrative red tape recently, I’ve turned into a vulture of sorts, leeching rodent parts from other people doing dissections in neighboring labs. It’s been tough though not only adapting to different kinds of specimens, but also to other people’s schedule. I love the whole idea of community and collaboration in science, but sometimes, it’s just a lot more efficient working alone. The weeks have thus felt longer and longer, and what little time I have off has mainly been spent indoors. The lull has only been broken by occasional outings for food, and intermittent impulse buys ranging from wireless headphones to a see-thru scanner. Looking back, buying stuff off the internet just isn’t the same as the old days, when I would spend hours scrutinizing the product packaging before pulling out my wallet. Sometimes I feel like I should read all the retail package labels and pamphlets, just because I’m paying for it after all. Or maybe I’m just weird. Anyway, this month, I will also be donning a pair of white earbuds as I become assimilated into the Ipod collective. Ah… So many toys, so little time…