I Heart Diatoms

I know it's a little late, but here for Valentine's day is a heart shaped diatom!

Of course it's marine....though we won't hold that against it.

(freshwater rulz!)

Aaaaand We're Back!

Hi Everyone!  I really want to apologize for my almost 2 month hiatus from blogging.  I made (whoever it is that reads this thing) promises and I do intend to keep them.  Let me tell you my excuses:

Comps broke me:  I studied every day for a month, literally, 8 hours a day...sometimes more.  My friend and I were to the point where we didn't like seeing each other because it meant we were going to study.  In the couple of days leading up to comps, I couldn't eat more than a mouthful at a time because I was freaking out.  And then there's the comps themselves which are a 6 hour test taking marathon where you find out that you did/didn't study the right things after all.  I won't say the questions were unfair, but I definitely felt screwed.  In the weeks after comps, my brain has been slow to come back to its old self.  I just couldn't make it think beyond the basic things that I needed to do to get through a day.  It's now finally taking orders again, only grudgingly.

Snow days: Part of the reason it was so hard to get my brain going again was that the weather kept stopping it.  One of the things that I like about academia is that I can plan my life 5 months in advance and know what's going to happen every day of those months.  But with sporadic snow days thrown in there, I couldn't get in a rhythm.  But now here we are, almost 2 weeks without a weather related interruption!  I'm getting a grove on, and now I can start adding complexity to my life.

I'm freakin' busy: Since my advisor was nice enough to not harass me about research while I feel really obligated to work my butt off to make up for it.  Especially since I'm getting research credits, for an actual letter grade.  And I got some money from the school. And I am supposed to be presenting a poster at the end of May.  And before the conference I'm going on vaycay...so I gotta get shit done.  I'm up to counting 3 slides a day!  Now if I can just get into the lab on weekends to do fatty acids, then we're all set!

So, long story short, I'm back!  I'll have bloggy posts soon.  Already got one in the works.  Please keep on me to keep writing.  I need people to feel responsible to.  I can be held responsible to just myself....