Write a little, write a lot

November is NaNoWriMo. I have participated in the past but due to my thesis defense on November 12th, I didn't even start this year.

Oh yeah. My thesis defense was November 12th. That's over. I passed the defense but, alas, still have mountains of revisions to do. Such is life.

Both of these topics are seemingly unrelated, but hey, they're both writing. Lots of writing. More writing than I like to do. When presented with large tasks like this, I get nervous. Really nervous. Palm sweating, eyeball-rubbing, hair-pulling, eat-a-tub of cookie dough kind of nervous. I am not a big-picture kind of gal. I like small tasks, easily achievable deadlines. I also like being surrounded by people, if not to support me in my goals then at least to suffer alongside me. There's no reason every task can't be like this. I shall break down my big goals into smaller ones, and surround myself with the bathing blue glow of the internet! Because that's completely healthy. Right? *cough*

Hence, I am heretoforth setting a goal to write something every day. Whether or not it is long, whether or not it relates to my ultimate career goals, I should write something in its entirety each day. There is nothing more satisfying than finishing something, and tere has been a distinct lack of finishing things in my life as of late.

So, Blogger, expect to see a lot more activity from one Thesis Peon.

The Rare and Exciting Bug Bites of the Amazon Rainforest

Having spent close to two weeks either next to or in the Amazon rainforest, I consider myself a near-expert on the local flora and fauna. I wanted to share a bit of this knowledge with the populace at large and give a quick run-down of the more exotic bug bites I have gotten here.

1) Mosquito bites: not your everyday Colorado mosquitos! Some of these critters are nearly the size of a teaspoon, and boy are they sneaky! Watch your back and wear your DEET, folks!

2) What appear to be chigger bites but are actually mosquito bites: When the bites are concentrated and spread over one area, for example the leg which had been covered by jeans all day and had no possibility of receiving mosquito bites, you might at first think you have been visited by chiggers. But two days will tell you that, in fact, these actually came from mosquitoes with the ability to bite through thick denim!

3) Stings of various sorts: Sometimes you feel a prickly sensation and a stinging, followed by a raised welt. If it's on your feet and you've recently been walking anywhere without the aid of boots, it could be jungle ants. However, more rare and exotic are the jungle mosquitoes! If the welt starts to itch soon afterward, you'll know you had a special visitor.

4) Bites in mysterious places: The bottoms of your feet, the palms of your hands, and yes, even your very eyelids, are all places that you wouldn't imagine you could get bug bites. But lo and behold, every inch of exposed skin is an invitation for a new type of insect. If you're especially covered in clothing, only the boldest of insects dare approach. Some especially rare varieties of mosquitoes actually have developed the ability to blend in with eyelashes and latch onto your eyelid for a quick snack. Even if you never see them, you know you've been gifted with a bite from a very exotic insect.

5) What you imagine to be botfly larvae: After sitting at dinner with a rainforest veteran telling you about the time she brought home a botfly on the back of your leg, you may start to rethink every mole and pimple on your body. Is it a botfly? Fear not, intrepid traveler! Recall that botfly eggs are carried on the legs of the uncommon mosquito. It is extremely unlikely to be a botfly. But just to be safe, keep obsessing over every unaccounted-for blemish. After all, it could, amazingly enough, be another mosquito bite!

6) Bites on bites: When your skin is completely covered in welts and you have scratched through all epidermis on your body, you may feel that the insects cannot possibly get any worse. However, now is the time to be especially cautious. Certain types of mosquitoes are filled with such hateful fury that they bite only those who have suffered the most from their brethren. Do not let your despair overwhelm you, and especially do not resign yourself to the presence of mosquitoes. Constant vigilance is your only way of surviving.

So there you have it, the many different types of bites from a large variety of jungle insects. The rainforest is full of millions of lifeforms, and it would be astonishing if you did not receive all of the above-mentioned bites during your stay here, however brief it may be. However, with a little appreciation of Mother Nature and a 100 pack of Benadryl, you too can happily enjoy your drowsy stay in the Amazon rainforest. Enjoy your adventures, my friends.

Through the Looking Glass

The art just keeps getting better and better!

Lofty Expectations

Most Productive Day Thus Far!

Summertime, when the thesis is easy (relatively)

Well, our NGO's conference is over, I have run the Bolder Boulder, and the first non-snowy hike of the season was taken. Also, I have been taken by a virus, so it's obviously summer. That's how everyone defines the season, right?

The good thing about having a cold is that I've collected loads of papers for my literature review, and actually have motivation to write.

The bad thing about having a cold is that my bedside companions are medical bills and Kleenex.

Caption: This is a caption. 

So anyway, left alignment, Times New Roman, 12 point font.

I have a distinct feeling the virus is eating my brain.

I WROTE A BLOG!

Cornea conundrum (warning: self indulgence abounds)

This sounds like a fantasy tale, but gather round, children, for the story I weave is true.

Approximately two weeks ago, I tore off the top layer of my corneas. How, you ask? I used some mysterious contact solution that caused my eyes to dry out. This caused my lenses to get stuck to my eyes. I took out my contacts and peeled off the top layer of cells. Then I took the bus home because I wasn't about to drive.

Needless to say, it was the most painful experience of my life and I spent the better part of a week hopped up on Vicodin, listening to "Welcome to Nightvale" and bemoaning my life, buried head-deep in a tub of ice cream.

I'm fine now, but catching up on work is yet another major life challenge. It's exhausting, and I can't quite seem to care.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm jaded. There's little wiggle room in life for....life.

I'm also terrified of my pending graduation and leaving the country. I feel like I'll lose all my friends, and potentially more than that. I don't want to start anything new, friendships, relationships, reading books, because I feel like it will all disappear come next February. And yet some part of me really wants all these things, really wants a stable life right here. Some demonic corner of my mind is telling me to cancel my Peace Corps application, settle down at a nice engineering firm in Denver and live a normal life. There's a growing sense of urgency to stop thinking I can change the world and accept what is easy and doable. My soul is crying out for comfort and I'm not finding myself able to actually relax into comfort.

Is this what adulthood feels like? A constant state of near-panic, dredging up twisted memories from two years ago and projecting them onto the totally decent human beings surrounding you, never sure what is going to happen tomorrow, concerned for your family, friends, and partners, flooded with hormones that tell you to procreate before its too late, but facing an impenetrable wall of pressure to do something valuable with your life, which clearly means starting a career, longing for the stability of a traditional family life but afraid of being perceived as a baby machine?

I've been through hell and back again over the course of the last five years. I find it difficult to make close friends anymore, and I'm deeply, deeply afraid of losing the ones I do have.

So, I'm going to scream quietly into this little corner of the internet and hope that in two weeks I'll have enough time to actually contemplate where my life is going.

Until then, I'll grade.

Ethiopia, get ready for the craziest basket case you've ever seen.

Slow and steady wins the race?

I keep telling myself that I'll work on my thesis a little bit every day.

It never seems to happen.

How does one not merely not lose motivation, but gain motivation? Especially in the face of little data and long commutes?

The answer: suck it up!

My goal this year was to finish a thesis. At the rate I'm going, it may never happen. So I need to make an actual commitment.

Starting tomorrow.

Thoughts on the Thesis

It's been a while.

I'm still writing (kinda) my thesis.

I'm still a TA.

I still drink unhealthy amounts of coffee. My kidneys hurt.

I still have demonic gerbils.

But hey, I just got an email asking me to interview for the Peace Corps! I submitted my application a couple weeks ago and apparently everything is good. This has been my dream for several years now, and a welcome respite from thesis land.

On the note of my thesis, I am going to complain about my thesis. I have compiled my thoughts into a concise list:

1) Research is tedious and disheartening. Nothing happens for months at a time; suddenly everything happens at once. No amount of worrying changes that. I have learned to be more zen when my formaldehyde meter consistently measures "0". Research is like yoga for grad students.

2) Advisors expect you to do nothing but read papers about your topic. If you are not good at skimming, please do not consider doing a thesis. Your life will be consumed. This brings me to my next point...

3) Start the literature review early. I haven't learned this the hard way yet, because I haven't started my literature review. I'm about to learn this the hard way. Stay tuned.

4) Sometimes you have to ignore everything and sleep in a very rebellious manner. Also, ice cream is not your friend. It is the skag who talks behind your back after pretending to be your friend during your times of deepest need. Sleep is the oft-ignored introvert who really is just pushing you to be a better person.

5) To play devil's advocate: coffee is your friend. Well-timed coffee is important, though. Coffee and sleep argue a lot so you don't want to try a group movie night. Coffee will study with you (and consistently outperform you on tests, motivating you to try harder), but sleep is the one who's waiting when all the measurements have been taken and you have nothing to do.

6) You're going to start making a lot of weird comparisons between people and the things that have started to replace people in your life. Roll with it.

7) Learning another language is a great way to distract yourself! Case in point: Le chat a une botte rouge. J'aime le chat.

8) Don't try working 30+ hours a week during your final semester, on top of four classes, on top of research. Unless you're stupid like me; then, by all means, go for it. We can console each other when our brains turn to mush and we end up in the loony bin.

9) Romance is not for you. No, believe me. Romance IS NOT FOR YOU.

10) I feel like there should be a tenth point. So here's a paper:

Formaldehyde Fixation Contributes to Detoxification for Growth of a Nonmethylotroph, Burkholderia Cepacia TM1, on Vanillic Acid

Ryoji Mitsui,1,* Yoko Kusano,1 Hiroya Yurimoto,2 Yasuyoshi Sakai,2 Nobuo Kato,2 and Mitsuo Tanaka1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC201235/

Things can use formaldehyde as a growth substrate! Just not my things!

11) Just because. Somebody is microwaving pizza in my office and I'm realizing my deep-seated hatred of the food industry for creating such a tempting, delicious monster of a food. CARROTS ARE COOL, TOO.

Signing out to write a letter of interest for a project that will take me away from research for the summer. Best wishes!

-Anne