seduction step 1

another day of domestic bliss: cutting up herbs to make sweet little herb ice cubes, baking homemade bread that i am having an incredibly difficult time not pounding into my face every 5 minutes, looking up haircuts from the 1930s so i can figure out how much to get chopped off tomorrow. and, ah yes.... seducing the neighborhood hottie using my oh-so-subtle technique. that would be seeing him approaching as i'm walking proton, deciding that i am going to say hello since i see him all the time and he needs to realize that we are destined to bake rosemary-spiced bread together, and then making the move to greet first. however, i made that decision a bit prematurely and that resulted in me yelling "HELLO!!!" from a uncomfortably far distance. and then ssssooooooo mmmmuuuuucccchhhh tttttiiiimmmmeeeee until we were actually close enough to permit conversation to erupt at a normal, un-fog horn decibel level. unfortunately, he seemed a little rattled by my screaming greeting and just said "hi" as i stared at the ground and tried to imagine that i was invisible and could remain so as long as both proton and i had our eyes squeezed shut. another fantastic display of the art of seduction by yours truly. tomorrow i may try out an equally subtle net gun technique.

my mistake

“I’m sorry I treated you like adults yesterday.” At first I thought she had misspoke. But no… immediately following that statement, teacher X (that same teacher who had been the victim of rogue humping and was soon may be the victim of rogue paintballing) proceeded to delve into a diatribe of condescension and patronizing that awoke the sleeping beast of rage lying dormant in my belly. It’s a fairly interesting social experiment to observe a group of teachers be treated like disobedient children. College, med school, grad school-educated people resort to writing haikus and limericks about how they want to poke their own eyes out with firecrackers, doodling pictures of dragons eating teacher X, and not-so-subtlely daydreaming about all the different tequila shooters they will be doing later that evening.

Other delights that escaped her wrinkly little lips: “If some of you think I’m a *b* because of this, I’m ok with that.” “Perception is reality.” (that gem has been stated at least 65 times in the past three days) Also, every sentence or two ends with one of the following “K?”, “Does that make sense?” “Are you getting that?” “Is that clear?” All right?” UUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH.

The highlight of the session would be realizing that the Bulgarian physics expert who’s supposed to be leading us through parts of these sessions hates teacher X as much as I do. I leaned over and asked Ms. B. whether she would be teaching us, and she said “I thought I was… I keep getting bullied out.” She also was muttering awesome quips like “I’m going to commit the suicide” and “This is the worst day of my life” under her breath the entire time teacher X was telling us how awesome she is. And then, the best… I look over at Ms. B’s computer at a point and she’s opened up her new Mac’s dictionary and is typing in “f-u-c-k.” Then BOOM. There are the definitions. I start laughing super hard and she says “I just needed to see if it’s working.” YOU, Ms. B., are the best Bulgarian physicist I have ever met.

twix tricks

ahhh yes. another fun-filled day of anarchy-inducing, zombie-fying teacher school sessions on classroom management, the best way to distribute and organize binders, and writing letters to ourselves to serve as "pick me ups" six months from now. you would think we were a group of lobotomized hamsters. with limited use of our front paws. i have had far more interesting interactions with the resident terrapin turtle in the room than with the folks leading these infantile discussions. and that lucky bastard gets to stick his head under water every minute to drown out the droning instructions on the best way to arrange desks and how that crafty student faked humped teacher X when she was leaning over to explain something and wasn't that a great teaching moment... a great chance to display classroom management skills. our four hour morning session was concluded with a twenty minute exercise trying to fold a dollar bill into a box. TWENTY MINUTES. i stopped 30 seconds in and began to practice sleeping with my eyes open.

and at the completion of this morning session, after the twenty minute origami nightmare, all i wanted, all i was yearning for was a delicious sweet chocolate treat. just one. i scampered down the steps to the candy machine and saw that YES! twix bars were one of my delightful scrumptious options. I popped in my box dollar (no way... no boxes), eagerly pushed "D1", and watched my candy dream plop down. I reached in to grab it, and as i pulled it out, i noticed something was very odd about it. it felt like one big fat piece of twix that had been vaccum packed into the twix wrapper... as though the candy bar was inseperable from the wrapper itself. i asked my friend what his take on it was... and he was correct in assessing that "that's what happens when candy bars melt." NNNNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!. are you serious? sure enough.... peeling open the wrapper pulled half of the twix treat with it. so there i was ten minutes later... outside in the 103 degree weather, reading my irish crime novel, sweating through my pants, using my index finger to scoop out as much caramel and chocolate i could from the mad mess of what used to be a twix bar. alone. no shame. licking every last chocolate molecule i could from my hands like a pacified plebian.

three. more. days.

SHUCK

Today was great. Lots of time at the dog park, reading up on how the science as an institution developed through very conscious and calculated maneuvers by elitists, intellectuals, and all sorts of folks threatened by artisans, and, of course, SHUCKING CORN. Shuck shuck shuck. Who knew that all of those hours spent sitting in the garage, tediously pulling the sticky, icky corn silk and green shuckings away from those sweet ears would pay off. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a pro, but I would venture to say I've got 200+ hours of corn shucking under my retro belt. Although the setting today was a bit different: beautiful weather, sitting on my deck, watching Proton and Doobie take turns peeing on my bok choy plants, thinking about sweet corn blanching in my sweet big pot. Contrast that to: Midwest mosquitos, sitting in my parents' garage, the Cure blasting on my headphones running on 60% battery power... but that slurred, dreary moan/singing being so much better than listening to my sisters screaming about how awesome their C+C Music Factory gymnastic routine was.... those morbid tunes echoing in my ears as I threw shucked corn remnants into a steel garbage can, counting the minutes until I could escape from the labor and back into my room and Stephen King. So. much. angst. And now: so much corn! Boop dee boop boop.

aaannnd.......

She's back. Again. And it's only been 4.5 months.

Updates in the life: back in baltimore (wooh hooh!), living in my sweet ol' neighborhood, tending my awesome awesome garden, and soon to be teaching at an amazing science high school in the city. SO. EXCITED. The Professor is absolutely elated to be back and visiting the dog park daily and hunting rats and pretty much just being awesome.

So some dandies to kick off my return to the land of the interweb..... courtesy of my always deprecating and confounding mother....

Last night I was talking on the phone to my mom about my plans buy some fish and an aquarium. Her response: “ooh… taking care of fish is really hard.” Mine: “Mom, I already own a dog. And I have my PhD in biochemistry. I think I can manage taking care of a fish tank and some fish.” I also told her that my friend Gabby is a therapist at a woman’s prison in Maryland. She asks “Wait… they spend state money on giving those people massages in prison?” No. No they don’t. I believe I cleared up the error by calling Gabby a “brain therapist.” My mother finished the conversation by reminding me that raising a child alone is really hard. I'm guessing slightly harder than maintaining a fish tank. I had to remind her that I'm 32 and not dead yet. Although apparently the chances of meeting a person to share child responiblities with post-30 are, as we all know, statisitically improbable. I'm asking for the best turkey basters EVER for Xmas.

this is not a science lab

today my little science brain almost exploded. i continue to struggle with why half the people i teach are in college. is it obligation? is it because their parents pushed them to? is it because they have nothing better to do but drive teachers who are super interested in science to the point of throwing test tubes? could be a combination of all three.

my journey towards apathy-induced insanity started today when i had to set up for a lab my class is doing on friday. the lab manager likes to not tell me where things are, or that she's setting up stuff for my labs, and seems to enjoy telling students how to do things during the lab exercises even though that's not what i would like them to do. so, i'm running around the lab, trying to find some 1 M TE which is a freaking STAPLE of any lab and nope. nobody's got it. and the five people who were in the lab seemed to have no idea what i was talking about. are you kidding? and yes, i appreciate that you can call ralph and have him come in and make it, but i need it right freaking now and how the hell are you running what you seem to think is a lab when you have zero freaking stock solutions of anything, students are spending 15 minutes trying to figure out how to dilute a 5X stock to 1X, and no. don't call me stephanie. my name is dr. larson and we are not friends. especially now. MOVE so i can actually get some science done. this is not a science lab. this is a freaking joke and it's making me seethe with rage.

and then lecture. i had the pleasure of interviewing in baltimore this weekend and observed a freshmen biology class that, interestingly enough, was at a level very similar to that of the college class i am currently teaching. insane. so i started the lecture by asking a question that should have been a no-brainer. we'd been talking about regulation of gene expression for WEEKS, the students have homework on it, and please. you're supposedly biology majors and i'm going to kill you if you can't answer this. so i say "ok... so we've been discussing the different levels of gene expression regulation: at the level of DNA, RNA, and protein. so if gene expression is being regulated at the level of DNA, what mechanism or proteins might be involved in that?" TICK. TOCK. nothing. nothing. nothing. then someone says "bacteria." WHHAAAATTT???? "bacteria?" are you out of your goddamn mind? i about jumped across the room and ripped her lips off. instead, i said "no. not bacteria." a muttering of "transcription" following that.. and i said "ok.. that's right. transcription is being regulated. so how?" TICK. TOCK. again... nothing. and then i decided this was going to be a freaking college lecture. so out poured the science babbling. no time for questions... i'm going to spout out so much information that if you're not confused, which i'm sure you are because you're proving to have the intelligence and gumption of a drunk puppy, i'll make sure to add enough detail and nuance that you will have trouble trying to remember what class you're in and how to turn a CD player on. done. i am done. and no. i will not tell you the answers to the homework. and no. do not complain to me about your grades because you're LUCKY if you pass this class with the sloth-like motivation you're showing. and if you ask me about extra credit i'm going to puke on your shoes.

physical abnormality therapist

my A&P I class has somehow turned into a venue of catharsis, a place where those with physical oddities and abnormalities feel free to give spoken life to the interesting bone arrangements, butt crack issues, and outrageous flexibilities they carry around with them. the impetus for these declarations was our first lecture on the skeleton. quite soon into it, a girl in the front raised her hand and proceeded to tell me that two of the bones are her foot are fused together, resulting in her having zero lateral movement and having to wear ankle braces all the time. awesome. that was quickly followed by my learning that:

- another student has some weird bone indentation in his sternum. this isn't to be confused with the ol' "chicken bone" syndrome apparently plaguing rutland. that's when a bone actually sticks out of your sternum like a little chicken teepee and must somehow facilitate your strutting around all fowl-like with your chest out.

- 55-year-old men have no problem trying to put their leg over their head during the middle of a lecture. and i say "trying" because in no way did he succeed. somehow talking about contortionists and what their little bodies can do signaled an "OK GO!" response in this man's brain that resulted in him exclaiming about how he was able to put his foot behind his head as a kid and then he tried doing it. in the middle of class. in his chair. i screamed and turned away and started sweating.

- there are people walking around with crooked butt cracks. after the gushings of things wrong with people (i somewhere in there heard mention of a third nipple on someone but chose to keep the lecture moving), a student came up to me during break and told me she had something wrong with her. and kind of looked at me..... and then said "my butt crack is crooked. how could that happen?" um............ before we talk about how, let's really talk about what a crooked butt crack is. are we talking a 45 degree angle of crookedness all the way across? a little hook in there? turns out the crookedness is just at the top. thank goodness. wow. pretty amazing how just teaching an A&P class makes you an expert on abnormal tush features.

so... the new nicknames of the class: "fuse foot", "divet chest", and "san andreas trench."