An open letter to Oncogene

You suck.

Seriously, its 2010 and the oldest PDF's on your website are from 1997! WTF Oncogene. Do you think that science prior to 1997 is not important? Do you think that we newbie scientists don't want to read them? I mean seriously, Annual Reviews has older PDF's as does the American Physiology Society and you, part of Nature Group can't get you shit together?
You wasted 1 hour of my time as I had to hunt down a freaking library copy card - most people don't even know what those are. Then I had to walk across campus to the library! You're lucky it was a beautiful sunny day otherwise I would've been really pissed. Yes I know, too you whats 1 hour to walk out and get a paper. Well for me its 1 less hour to spend reading and thinking about science. And since I'm currently banned from actually doing science till this freaking grant is done, it 1 more until I can actually do science. I don't have all day to do this shit people. I have from 9-5. Thats what happens when you have child(ren)!

Seriously, get your shit together.

An open letter to my asshat neighbour

Can I start by saying Fuck off?

I understand that waking up at 8:00 am on a tuesday morning is a bit much. Not all of us work 9-5 so I get that you don't necessarily want to hear a dog howl mournfully for 2 hours before going to work. But I've been living on my little corner lot for > 5 years and have never ever caused any problems. No noise, no loud parties, no massive domestic fights. So leaving an anonymous, bitchy note about the fact that the dog was howling and the need for me to find less disruptive solutions was a bit dickish. Firstly because its making me announce to my readers that we have new dog, in a less then happy look at my dog way, secondly because I haven't ever caused any problems before. Do you think that I didn't give a shit? How about knocking on the door and asking me if I need any help? Maybe you could ask if something is wrong with the dog? Something along the line of we never noticed before that you had dog, did you rescue hir? Is she anxious from being abused? Or how about leaving you fucking name so that I can come and apologize and let you know that we just got her and we're trying everything to ease her anxiety, from leaving the talk radio on, crating her, not crating her. Walking her >1 hour in the morning before we leave for work. Spending every waking minute with her for the first 3 days, even in the freezing fucking rain. Why? because we didn't want her freaking out and waking the neighbours. Mr.SM sat with her all fucking night the other day so she wouldn't cry and disturb the neighbours. Want to know what the next door neighbour said? Don't worry about it, we're so happy that your little guy has a friend. We don't mind, it happens while dogs adjust. Because we've been here >5 years and never cause problems dickwad. So if you want me to take your compliant seriously, have the fucking balls to tell me who you are so we can actually have a conversation that might lead to some solutions. Oh and you're not living in the freaking burbs asshole. This neighbourhood has alot more noise than a freaking dog.

Yours truly,
SM

*** I have never ever complained about dogs being noisy. Thats just fucking stupid in my books. Dogs bark and howl. Whatever. The amount of noise a dog makes is nothing compared to the freaking ambulances, trucks, and other freaking noise out there. You're living in the subarbs

and the dog is amazing. monkey is in love. will post about it when i'm not pissed at the fucking neighbour

First dates

I feel like I'm going on a first date. I'm having dinner with a friend for the first time in > 5 years. We lost touch after she married a complete ass. Yet I've always thought about her and missed her. We've gotten back in touch recently and are having dinner tonight. I'm currently waiting for her to arrive. I hope this friendship can be re-kindled.

But OMG am I ever nervous!


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Cath won't blame will she

If I say that's how you play a hockey game. It's not like LA can score 6 goals in 1 min:))

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Earth Day

Today is Earth day and I'm sorta in a whatever mode about it. Possibly because I feel conflicted about large portions of the environmental movement. I think we need to do alot more as a society to reduce, reuse and recycle. Frankly we buy way too much shit, or we (as my little family unit) until I became broke ass due to the birth of a monkey.

I don't need to have a bunch of knick knacks or the latest trendy clothing and I'm sorry Mr. Carpet Salesmen a $1000.00 area is NOT something I think is disposable if it gets stained. I want to be able to steam clean shit out. Sorry I don't think I need to buy new couches simply b/c my current ones are 10 years old. They should be built sturdy enough so that I can simply re-upholster them. Sorry but I don't need to replace my 5 year old ipod simply because its not as trendy as the newest version. Why does apple need to refresh it every 6 months? (mind you I was so annoyed waiting for the latest macbook update....)

However, I don't agree with the whole organic food movement. Organic is not better because its organic and buying local isn't always the best choice. Large farms are not the enemy simply because they are large. I may be have a bias since Mr.SM's family business deals with agriculture and because I'm training to be a geneticist and I understand the simply because something is genetically modified does not make it inherently bad for you. Its a bunch of grey zones, which is why I can go to my local snobby grocery store and find organic bananas that are cheaper than the non-organic fair trade bananas. You can't just look at a label, you have to actually think about and know who is doing what. There are larger farms that treat their employees well, pair fair wages and try to minimize their environmental impact because its the right thing to do, without a lot of fanfare. They've always done that.

Still because I believe that Global warming is happening and that we should make changes to our lives to minimize our impacts we have in the past year:

started car pooling
started composting - we have 1 small bag of garbage a week. If monkey could learn to poop in the freaking toilet, so we could start night time training, we'd be down even less.

oh and we use natural light whenever etc etc.

Beat down

I've written out and submitted to my PI the first 4 parts of my mock grant (the written portion of my comprehensive). Its have been a hard and brutal process. In good way. If that is possible. I am constantly getting my ass shredded to itty bitty bits by questions, things I need to know, things I need to think about. I just want to do science people! Stop haggling me with all these hypotheses, caveats and plan B's. I'm a genius don't you know! I have amazing hands and my experiments will work, giving clear and interpretable data!

No, i'm not a genius and yes I know these things are good for me. I swear this is the best place to be having this torture inflicted upon me, if there is such a thing as having a "good place to inflict torture". I just need to remember why I came here. Oh Yes that's right, I wanted to learn how to do science properly. WTF was I thinking??!!! This doing science the right way, learning techniques so that I'm not bullshitting and I am respected is HARD people. Its freaking hard. Oh gosh yes its nice at the end of it all to know that I am respected, my work is valued and trusted but damn it my head hurts. My brain, throbs at the end of the work day. I didn't know that my brain could actually throb in pain from thinking too hard.

So I've completed three re-writes of the first 4 parts of the grant. The lit review, the prelim data, the General and specific questions, you know what I thought was the hard part. Hehehe. Uhm, yeah how am I going to answer those questions? What am I going to do? Exactly. Not maybe sorta, possibly, I was thinking. But EXACTLY.

I didn't think my brain could hurt even more.

The Mother of All Scientist Meme

Have some of you noticed that ScienceMama from Mother of All Scientists has not posted in awhile? I remember she had given congrats to Arlenna when she became a new mum and left a comment or two over at Isis's place, but other than that there has been little activity. I'm hoping its because ScienceMama's new little one has arrived and between a newborn, a young active girl and life, she just doesn't have time for us in the blogosphere.

I'm not sure if ScienceMama is reading blogs with no time to comment or is just lost in real life. Either way it would be nice to get an update. I also don't know how noticeable my little heading will be, but if we all post a shout out to her, maybe she'll pop by? I would do what Dr.Becca did with CEiA, but ScienceMama don't have no email posted! Is everyone in?

What do you do when you don't like your family

I don't like my family. If I'm honest with myself, I never have. I can remember being little and wishing I would find out I was adopted, I dreamed of running away all the time. I tried leaving for my undergrad degree but I coudn't afford to leave on my own and my brother (the only one I actually get along with) was very upset at the thought of me leaving. At seventeen, my sense of family prevented me from deciding to leave.

In my last year of undergrad, I started looking into moving away for grad school, but then I met my husband and fell in love. If it wasn't for him, I would've left. Now we're tied here, because of his awesome family and his involvement with the business. I really do love his family. Yes I have a crazy SIL and my MIL irritates the crap out of me at times, but everyone has their moments. Overall she's a good a person, who treats me with respect.

My parents and sister on the other hand....are selfish and expect the world to revolve around them. I'm supposed to be there every other night, every weekend. I'm bad mom because I choose to go to school fulltime, because I have my kid on a routine. I don't call them every day.I don't let them interrupt bishan's night time rountine. How dare I ask my dad to bring my kid home before a certain time. How dare I expect my dad to ask me if he can take my kid swimming before he asks or tell my kid he's going to take him swimming. And he does that on purpose. He wants to my kid swimming (which is nice that he wants to do that) but instead of asking me, he tells my kid. Putting me in the position of having to say no or agree despite whatever plans we have. I'm sorry thats manipulative and just plain disrespectful.

Shit

I've ingested large quanities of beer and must now ski downhill to get back to my cabin.

That's wasn't very smart



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I should be proud and happy

But I'm sad. I feel so sad.

Mr.SM really really really wanted to get a few more ski trips in, so we're up at our cabin for the Easter Long weekend. Since I really really have to get this proposal finished (initial draft sent and received back), I was not willing to come. It was negotiated that I would come up and spend time with the family in the evenings, while the "boys" would ski during the day. Monkey's skiing consisted of going to daycare and having a 1 hour lesson.

This was a hard decision as I strongly feel that when we're away from home monkey's shouldn't be in daycare. Yes go in ski camps etc but he's in daycare all week, all year so these vacay days he shouldn't be in. Plus I wasn't sure how he would react to a new place.

Well ran in to the care place with NO issues - which I was actually happy about.
Mr.SM just picked him up and apparently my little monkey LOVED it and went down the BIG HILL!!!! This was his first time on ski's and he's bombing down the mountain!!! The little majic carpet was either broken or the wind made the conditions not very good there, so the instructor took my little boy, LITTLE boy up the chair lift and down the big mountain the FIRST TIME. And my child LOVED it.

I should be happy about this is, but I'm not.

I'm terrified because my child is my heart. And like me at his age, he has no fear. Have you been on a ski hill? Have you seen those freaking 2 foot speed demons bombing down the runs? Have you not seen the nutty thing kids do! My child will do those. I haven't nicked name him monkey just for kicks. And so I'm a terrified. I will not say anything. I will be proud of him and I will cheer him on and I will pray all day long.

I should be proud of him, how much fun he's having. But my little boy is now that much bigger and I am sad. I haven't posted much about how much he's growing, how independent he's getting. How he doesn't need me anymore. Yes I know he needs me, but not in that you're my security and I don't like it when you're not around way. Yes I know its good and its great to have the freedom. It is nice to know I can go away and he's OK. But it also hurts just that little bit. That little bit that I don't acknowledge. Its just happening too fast