pix can fly

I studied the lymphatic system yesterday morning before the sun shifted mountain shadows away from our bedroom window. I had curlers in my hair and a cat purring in my lap.

For the first time in my life I realized the what-why-how of a spleen. Then made some coffee and looked for my clean scrubs and that Topshop hoodie I keep forgetting to return to Claire (I've been taking really good care of it though. Washing it in cold water and laying flat to dry).

I finished reading Wil Wheaton's book Just A Geek a couple weeks ago and feel like punishing myself with something obscure and Victorian. Will probably just stick to extra long human interest stories in the paper.

We looked at blood smears in lab yesterday and on my search for a eosinophil I found a great clump of red blood cells that looked like inner tubes floating along a river. I imagined those lazy inner tubes floating along my own circulatory system. Relatedly, I got bummed out when we learned erythrocytes (Red Blood cells) can't undergo mitosis like they're couples who really want babies but who are infertile. The bone marrow is like the adoption agency though dot dot dot I can't write that on my midterm.

There's constantly this battle going on in my head whether I want to be healthy thin with small boobs or healthy chubby with bigger boobs which is what I am now. But I guess I don't have "big boobs" according to this girl with two foot long cleavage from the other night at yoda's house. We were in the privacy of the sidewalk shrubbery when I asked her to size me up. It's good to get 2nd opinions on that matter every other year.

I'm really happy abortion issues are stirring up in the real news, state government meetings and internet sites lately. Hopefully it'll lead to baby planning issues which will end up with religious debates and we'll all become atheists. The end.

After Marc's and my second to last fight and we weren't steaming at each other anymore, Marc brought the Tri-ominoes set into bed and we played a round together while I drank a raspberry lemonade mocktail. I just wanted to remember that for next time. (Reading back that first sentence, I wonder if I need to take a high school level english class.)

I found and read this Sid Vicious handwritten letter to Nancy and got all butthurt that Marc hasn't written me something this sweet/kinda gross but then he showed me a sweet/kinda gross postcard he never mailed me but wrote one night we were fighting but decided to go party with our friends anyway.

I thought this was Amy Winehouse, but it's Lady Gaga.

Ze end!

Notes from schooly wooly part 2

Procrastination week:

On Tuesday, I skipped Dr. Tackett's class under the guise of voting. I definitely could have gone to class and made it to the polls before it closed, but it was sunny and I wanted to sit in my backyard with the cats reading the paper so I left early. I haven't yet missed one class or lab this semester (totally foreign behavior for me (also, yay me!)) so skipping was morally a bigger deal than expected. I even came up with the opening sentence for this post, "Hey guys, I Lindsay Lohan'd this week at school, yuk yuk yuk," except that I did vote so my Lindsay Lohan'ing the system by actually doing what I claimed to be doing didn't make sense anymore and I couldn't accurately use my Lindsay Lohan sentence. Plus, that sentence sucked anyway.

Bad grades ahead. Not suitable for school-aged children.

Yikes. I almost literally could have answered every question with a question on this quiz and have gotten a better grade, but we're not talking about Philosophy 541, are we? This is a real fucking program.

And I haven't been handed back my other quizzes from Thursday but it's safe to assume they are just as pathetic as the 3.5. I wrote "inflammation of eye jello" on the medical term quiz dot dot dot double yikes.

I kept telling myself, "you have A's in your classes, man. One more drink at Gecko's won't hurt." "Hey man, Jessica wants to buy you a tiki drink downtown. Stop with the flash cards and put on that little party dress." (Ew, is my subconscious the spirit of Tom Petty??) and look at where that cocky attitude got me.

I even let myself watch John Candy movies. And I hate John Candy movies!*

Unbelievably, I like studying for my classes so the procrastination isn't a symptom of wrong me, wrong career choice. More likely I've been breaking my back getting A's and B's on everything and felt like my spoiled ass deserved a fucking break from studying eye jello. P.S. Figuring out the medical term for eye jello is on the top of my to do list. Jelz?

*hate is a strong word. More like, I appropriately dislike being reminded of the more crummy parts of my childhood** by John Candy movies.

**don't ask.

Hello, world. Meet what I like to call "eye jello".

I promise that this is a dissected cow eye, not an egg. The round yellow piece is the lens. The eye jello is the vitreous humor and the iridescent thing is OH I DON'T KNOW did I not make it clear that I did not study this last week?

Best part of procrastination week: hanging out with Hucklebay Rum at a horse ranch. Girls and horses!!! BEST FRIENDS FOREVER ANDDDD EVERRRRRRRR!!!

Notes from schooly wooly part 1

Midterms, you ask?

I was one of the five golden students who got an A on the A&P written exam. Take that you piece of shit girl who snort laughs when I have trouble injecting a dog with vaccines because I haven't been practicing veterinary medicine like you since I was 16. I ADMIT TO BEING SCARED OF BEING BITTEN IN THE FACE BY A 75 LB DOG, OKAY?

(Out of 60 obviously... although, even if it were 56 out of 100, it'd still be better than my pchem midterms. Womp womp. Sad face.)

I just want to note that there was a rotting dissected cow leg set out in front of me for most of the practical and I still did pretty damn well.

In the other lab practical one of the answers was "cat burrito." Here's proof. I'd explain it, but it'd take the fun out of everything.

Woo!

I have successfully memorized and defined one thousand twenty-five veterinary medical terms in two months. Giiirrllll power!!! My A on the midterm almost makes it worth the photos of broken horse penises I have to look at while studying equine pathology. Moving on... quickly...

I'd like to thank Moshe and Chompers for posing with my papers. Baby was too busy knocking my coffee over while chasing a fly... Cute faint.

ppl skillz

1 and 1/2 week of school update: Scrubs. We have to wear scrubs to class everyday in the name of the dying art of professionalism.

Look! I made the horse skeleton fuse to the cat skeleton! If only there were some pop culture reference about fusing the end of one victim's GI tract to the beginning of another victim's digestive tract creating a sort of many-legged monster resembling a common household insect in an easy to remember camp movie plot, then I could make a hilarious joke here. Right here. In this caption.

I've also had to consider my penmanship and work on my communication skills among other trite courtesies I've never ever ever ever ever ever had to consider as a chemistry student. They never expected us to gain "people skills" in the academic warpath just as they never expected any of the engineering nerds to find themselves a decent haircut that didn't make em look like they spent the week before school napping on Doritos bags in between World of Warcraft benders. I guess everyone just assumed that once you studied the Born-Oppenheimer approximation you were essentially signing your marriage license to the grad student carrel desk of your dreams.

Pfffft. Scrubs.

9 out of 10 because I mistakenly called the dorsal cavity the vertebral cavity. On the plus side, WE GET CAT STICKERS ON OUR QUIZZEZZZZZ!! Finally, a teacher who "gets me."

The scrubs and the penmanship are whatevs. I'm worried about my people skills. There is a reason I am much more comfortable in written blog format than a human contact kind of way. I don't have much practice. I won't cater to people's boring conversations. I don't like putting anyone else before my own feelings. And fuck it if I'm not in a client service based field now. I tried to borrow How to Win Friends and Influence People at the Public Library but they're all lent out. Guess I'm reading the heck out of its Wikipedia entry tonight. Sad face.

Well, step 1 is admit you have a probs, right? On to step two...

strange happiness

Student here. And in typical fashion, keeping the procrastination bug alive and well. COME ON! IT'S A THREE DAY WEEKEND MAN! Homework's for nerds.

Is 'V' the most cruel letter of the alphabet? Let me know, it'd 'splain a few things.

Anyway. School. The last two and a half years of party girl lifestyle turned my The Situation's muscular abs brain into a sugar coated jellybean. Not good. You know how many years it took me to perfect my ability to condense three weeks of homework into one night of studying?? Man... back to studying the hard way :^/

Chompers is helping me study Feline Anatomy. I'M ACADEMICALLY OBLIGATED TO SNUGGLE YOU, KITTY!! Cute faint.

So far, I've made two new friends, one youngish ex-nurse with party girl echos and a 30-something mom who really understands why Fancy Rats make great companions, i.e. the best opening statement every made to me. And I've got my eye on three other cool girls, one of whom looks like she'd know her way around a best of Deerhunter vs. best of the Black Angels convo sqqweeeeeee! This semester's looking good. Not to mention my notebooks...

The pug is my math notebook.

1st week analysis: School is... fun. How capital-W Weird is that? It's not easy. I have about 200 medical terms to memorize by next Thursday and sometime this semester I have to start adjusting to the sight of pained and abused animals which is just unbelievably draining. But this program feels like a song I've loved since I was a kid and I keep listening to it. Hearing the melody as if it's a lullaby, knowing the words before they're sung. I feel like a sigh of relief.

darwin lincoln face-off

Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln's birthdays are today and UNM is having a few events.

events I'm academically inclined to go to:
From 3:30-5 p.m., Distinguished Professor Geerat Vermeil presents, “The New Evolutionary Synthesis: Putting Economics Back into Darwinism,” in Anthropology 163.

From 7-8 p.m., The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, The day ends with a keynote address by David Quammen, author of The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, in Woodward Hall 101. Quammen is a science journalist, nonfiction author, and novelist who travels on assignment for various magazines, to jungles, deserts and swamps.

OMG I'm so going:
Beginning at 5:15 p.m., the UNM Art Museum will present a celebration of Abraham Lincoln
* Have a slice of Lincoln’s log cabin birthday cake
* Dr. Regina Carlow’s Dolce Suono Mixed Chorus sings “Happy Birthday”

Lincoln, obviously, great guy! great deeds! but everyone publicly agrees with the results of the Civil War and 13th amendment. Darwin, on the other hand, is highly misunderstood by a majority of the United States. I'm banking on being pummeled by Baptist Ministry pamphlets at the Darwin events. Wish me luck.

jay's school picture

he told us this year's photo was the best one yet.

travel day five. part 1.

thursday november 20. day five.

bittersweet day. i'd be leaving california on train by 11 that night. but, it gave me the full day to get my san francisco fix and besides that, i would be alone most of the day since rye was busy setting up for the art opening. i've come to realize that traveling alone is preferable. i see more. i think more. i stop for only me. i catch the bus for only me. just me. and the city.

first order of business, i would find the tiny restaurant, crepes-a-go-go, to eat lunch at. the last time i was here, rye took my mom and me to this place and it kind of rocked my world. we got three crepes. a mushroom spinach one. a feta cheese, sweet peppers, eggplant one. and a banana and nutella one. totes drool. this time they were out of mushroom and salmon so i ordered the tomato, avocado, cheese crepe. with a coke.

i don't remember feeling sad here. but my eyes look like it.

afterward i thought it would be a good idea to take the bus down columbus and walk up the steep seven blocks to coit tower. i always figured coit tower was a lighthouse but everyone i talked to said it wasn't. they just didn't know exactly what it was for. and now i'm too lazy and uninterested to find out what it was built for anyway. currently it stands there as a beacon by which people give directions.

i took this pic to see what i looked like after coughing up a lung and sweating profusely. turns out, i'm not that bad looking. my vision, although, was patchy from lack of oxygen. dear future G, you WILL be able to walk up that steep hill without heaving by next year! yay!

coit tower. i had to walk up about 45 more steps to get to a tree garden. i liked the bark on this one in particular. and then above that is the museum attached to the building.

TOURISTSSSSSS!!! it cost $5 to take an elevator up and eyeball the scene from 200 feet above the street. i assumed there were $2 postcards that would afford me the same luxury of view so i took the cheaper option. besides, it seemed like i already walked 500 feet up the sidewalk slopes and observed the view. another 200 feet was nothing to me. there's nothing i hate more when traveling than taking pictures of the same tired place that millions of other tourists have taken. most likely it's on a post card. and most likely it's much better quality. at least that's what i have to tell myself.

i walked back down and found myself in rye's art school neighborhood again. it was almost 2pm and rye told me i could come to her ra meeting with her at the school. but this time i had an easier time walking up jones street.

these are the views from the top of her school. look! coit tower on the top right. that's where i was! can you see the cruise ship?

alcatraz.

the ra meeting was pretty cool. there are five ra's in rye's dorm and the lady who supervises the ra's has a mild stick up her butt. almost like jewish princess personality but i didn't think she looked jewish. i have to remember to research how much an ra supervisor makes. it seemed like the best job in the world. at least in san francisco. and at least at sfai.

rye's workspace. she got a wall this semester which is a step up from a lone easel. i walked around saying hi and being introduced to her schoolmates. she pointed out the good and bad paintings. this one guy there gets shit for painting super realistic images. i saw his painting of a hamburger bun and toy soldier. they were both unfinished. rye said that super realistic paintings don't mean as much as more abstract ones. at least not to his peers.

a detail of piotr's painting.

rye's friend's painting.

we walked into one of the studios where jamie and ida were sitting around watching tom crowbar his paintings off the wall. he draws extremely tiny american life scenes. there are never any people in it. i would at last draw a cockroach or two. whatever. they were eating wasabi chips and offered me some. remember sitting around with everyone from your school all the time? yea. me neither but that's because everyone cept claire in the chem department needed major brain surgery. rye's lucky here.

a painting that made rye laugh.

cindy's painting. rye looks up to her more than anyone here. she's older, never married, never attached. free spirit. happy in a non-abrasive way. a realistic way. i never met her though. and i still don't understand her painting.