One week until committee meeting

Note I am still procrastinating.  (Obviously full terror has not set in.)  I’m doing some follow-up analysis for the manuscript my boss and I are trying to get out about my stuff and I am trying to keep some experiments going in lab but mostly I am being bad.  I haven’t read even a quarter as much as I intended to have by this point.  I don’t know shit about cell cycle regulation of DNA repair mechanisms!

The (mammalian) DNA damage response looking like the clusterfuck it is (from Harper and Elledge Mol Cell, 2007)

When I get back from Christmas in CA, I want to be able to jump right back into science.  We may be able to submit this paper before Christmas and it would be great to be able to just move on to something new in 2010!  In order to do that though, these new strains I am making for the next experiments need to made and the deletions confirmed.  And I need plasmid version 4.0 and that bitch has been a BITCH to make.  Site-directed mutagenesis isn’t supposed to be this hard (according to my advisor, of course). But now I’ve done two rounds of mutagenesis and not gotten a single successful transformant… so we’ll see.

For today I’ve got some more Mismatch Repair reviews on the docket as well as following up on some more mammalian literature.  Still letting this talk I just saw by Anindya Dutta steep in my brain.  Between his talk and the recent talk by Ginger Zakian, I’ve my double strand break world-view exploded.  Sometimes I really love science.

What’s that under the festivus pole?

My mom wants to know what I want for Christmas.  This year, this is a surprisingly difficult question.  I am normally unfailingly materialistic and have a long list of “wants” and “needs”.  However, this year, with my committee meeting taking up all my time and my brain full of recombination intermediates, it’s hard to think of things I want.  Also, I already received the best present I could think of from the new owner of the duplex I live in: I DON’T HAVE TO MOVE IN THREE WEEKS!  (The new owner is moving into one of the two units to make improvements on it while renting out the other one and he decided not to move into mine!  Delightful!  Here’s to not coming home from Christmas early to move all my possessions in the rain and cold of January!)  Additionally, for my birthday I got a beautifully decadent present from my parents: this lovely gold necklace -

tiny key for a dollhouse! I wear it with everything!

I love that necklace so much.  It goes with pretty much everything I can think of and is so tiny and precious, it makes me smile every time I see it.  I feel like it is so much nicer than I deserve as a lowly grad student grunt.

Mr Bandy can also attest that I have been pretty overwhelmed with all my belongings over the past couple months.  My heart starts to race when I think about reorganizing my  bookshelves.  My goal in the coming year is to try and downsize the amount of “stuff” I have so I’m not carrying things around that I don’t really care about.  I’m particularly inspired by this woman’s uber-organized apt (with more info on her blog here) and this AMAZING apt makeover that was featured on the Neo-traditionalist.  I’m even thinking about re-purposing the breakfast nook in my kitchen (that I rarely use) to increase the organization of my crap.  My closet is jam packed and so dark, I often forget about all the beautiful things in there that I love.

All that is a long version of the basic answer that even though there are clothes and bags and shoes that I want, I can’t bear to ask for them.  There are some books and other useful things that I want though:

1.  A new set of knives.  I’ve been using the same knives since I got my very first apartment in 2001.  (Purchased at Fred Meyers in SE Portland when I was in college! )  Maybe I can upgrade?  This set looks like everything I would need and nice quality to last me another 10 years:

wusthof 7-piece knife set with block

2.  An external hard drive so I can back up my photos and music (and clear off the HD in my laptop to hopefully improve its performance).  I think this one should work, since it’s compatible with a Mac and the price is cheaper than what I found at Office Depot or Target.

Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive

3.  I REALLY REALLY want this book on interior decorating since I have been pouring over all these design blogs for months and am looking for more of a foundation.  The women who worked at the now-defunct Domino magazine are still creating trends all over the internet (just look at the buzz over the online-only mag, Lonny).

Domino: The Book of Decorating

4.  I have a gaggle of younger siblings and since we all buy gifts for each other, here are a couple of things that they could buy using their allowance:  A new travel mug.  I bring tea to work every day and I have somehow managed to lose the lids almost all my travel mugs.  Though I know the ceramic ones are chic, I need a plastic one that won’t break in my bag or if I drop it in my morning-stupor.  This is a good option:

Soft-Touch Concord Tumbler by Starbucks Coffee 16-oz.

So you could get one pretty much anywhere.  I just like the ones that fit in my car cup holders and hold about 16oz of rocketfuel.  And still have their lids.  That’s a crucial component to a vessel designed to help you not get tea all over your clothes in the morning.

5.  A set of filters for my digital SLR.  Or just a circular polarizing filter so I can shoot outside and not get a ton of glare.  This is what I’m thinking though I need to figure out the exact size for the standard 18-55mm lens my SLR has got-

the Filter kits generally contain a UV filter, a polarizer and a "warming" filter for using in indoor lighting.

6.  One of those lovely hooks they sell at Anthropologie or Restoration Hardware to hang my outfit on for the next day.  (Can you tell I am trying to get more organized?) I like this one and this one and this one too!

"Bug's Eye View Hook" from Anthropologie

A Raleigh Adventure!

oh sweet jesus.  You want to know where I’ve been?  I’ll tell you.  Preparing for yet another G-D lab meeting.  I had to get up today at 7am (which is not my happy time) to finish up the last improvements to the slides, but it’s done!

Now I have less than two weeks until the BIG DEAL committee meeting so I will probably remain scarce unless I’m being bad and procrastinating.  I have additional data to gather and analyze, as well as a boat load of literature to become familiar with.  (And yes I mean that in the biblical sense)

But while I am still riding high on the elation of being done with this little hurdle, let me share somethings outside the lab that are making me smile: the prospect of cleaning my house.

Love that light fixture! Note to self: keep in file for the KM dream house

There is still pie crust being found in obscure corners of my house.  Dr Bandy and I had a cooking adventure while he was in town for thanksgiving.  While he was here, we also went on an amazing day long adventure to Raleigh (a place I rarely go to, since I hate both driving and leaving Durham.  Going to Raleigh involves both.) He introduced me to this delightful, allergy-attack-inducing antique store in Raleigh: “Father and Son Antiques“.

look at all that junk! (photo by Marc Zawel)

We had so much fun exploring all the crappy junk!  A treasure trove of midcentury lighting I tell you!  When I determine if I can stay in my current apartment, I may have to go back and pick up an awesome geometric table lamp like Nicole a la Making it Lovely:

Look at how great that lamp looks in Nicole's beautiful living room!

The Bandy reason for a trip to Raleigh was (big surprise here) food!  We had an absolutely to die for meal at Lilly’s Pizza.  There was an (over)abundance of NC State football fans but I liked how the kids who worked there looked like they were way into the hardcore scene and yet were serving delicious pizza to girls wearing headbands.  It was pretty awesome.  (But perhaps the delicious pizza is clouding my judgement…  nope.  Just look at the Yelp entry: decidedly awesome)

In addition to those stops (plus coffee at The Morning Times and whirlwind trip to Crabtree Valley Mall to pick up some replacement jeans for the boy), Jeff had a great idea to go to the newly opened FURBISH STUDIO!!!!  I love Jamie’s blog (you can check it out here at isuwannee.com) and I was so excited to see what she had created.  It was just as lovely as it looks in the pictures and all the little details were adorable.  I couldn’t resist buying one of the hand-blown glass Christmas ornaments that she had hanging in the window:

Jamie's ornaments at Furbish Studio

I can’t wait to add it to my little tree!  So all in all, I had a great all day mega-date and Raleigh proved its usefulness.  However I maintain that Durham is the best and no one will ever convince me otherwise.  After all, we have the Green Room.  ’Nough said.

woo! lab meeting, CHECK!

Lab meeting finished, delicious fried tofu from Banh’s eaten, warm socks on my feet … life is good.  I’ve got a little under a month until my first thesis committee meeting so I’ll need to work more on this presentation but for now I can relax.  And indulge in some more polyvore

ginko wallpaper and preppy chic by katemm featuring J Crew

I want the shirt featured in this collage bad.  REAAALLLLL bad.  And it’s backordered until december.  boo.  As is the nearly identical shirt from the gap.  And since not everyone has oodles of money to spend on their clothes I decided to source similar pieces for a cheaper version of this look.  We’ve covered that gingham shirt and the shoes are easy peasy too.  Here is the cheaper doppelganger from Target ($29.99):

 

chic and cheap leopard print loafers from target!

Here is a far cheaper alternative to the military inspired cardigan.  This one is from Old Navy ($69.50) and would keep even a wimpy Californian like me cozy:

Military inspired coat from Old Navy

and a cheaper alternative for that lovely scarf, this one from Ann Taylor Loft ($29.50) fits the bill:

Scarf from Ann Taylor Loft

A red purse adds a nice pop of color and I personally feel like red is pretty classic.  Modcloth offers lots of cheap accessories and this Chanel-style quilted bag ($59.99) is awful cute (but personally, I like my bags a bit bigger so I can carry a shit ton of crap around with me):

red quilted handbag from Modcloth

 

Wear all this junk with your favorite jeans and voila: chic for cheap!

never-ending lab meeting agony

Last thursday I was sitting in front of the TV, watching 30 Rock, and crying into my hot cocoa.  Public speaking is not my forte and I was preparing a presentation for our joint lab meeting that is held every friday at 9am.  I went to sleep that night with images of Holliday junctions projected on the insides of my eyelids and woke up early on friday to put some finishing touches on the slides back in the lab.  I was ready to give that darned presentation. (look here for some  double Holliday junction brain bending madness )

Then, unexpectedly, the phone rang in the lab at 8:20 and it was my boss saying she wouldn’t be able to come in that day and so lab meeting was cancelled.  Temporary reprieve!  I was a good girl and spent a couple of hours perfecting my slides, as I had intended. But then all the other plans to read up on some background papers and do some additional calculations dissipated with the impending weekend.

decadent weekend table (photograph by Simon Brown) via Love.Obsess.Inspire.

Today I attempted to reschedule my presentation and somehow got roped into presenting TWICE in the coming weeks!  Drat!  So here I am, enjoying the third to last episode of the Biggest Loser (my secret joy) and thinking about how much I don’t want to present my lab meeting tomorrow during lunch time.

Thank god for my hot water bottle, this lovely ukulele track by Basia Bulat, and sparkly water.  Otherwise I probably wouldnt survive.

oh my god polyvore

polyvore is the most fun thing in this whole wide world of fun things.  It just ate up all of my evening and I can predict it will eat up many, many more.  It’s a site where you can make digital collages but the items link back to where you can purchase them.  So fun!

Here is what I made:

hollywood regency citrus sitting area by katemm

if anyone wants to buy me a vintage-palm-tree-inspired-chandelier, you know where to send it!

my first love, dilapidation

Besides drinking sparkly water, laying around in bed until 11am and the smell of my boyfriend’s neck, my favorite thing in this whole wide world is dilapidation.  If I could use a camera (besides my fave Fisher Price standby), I would use that camera to take photos of dilapidation and share those images w the world.  But I can’t so here is some amazing stuff I have lovingly jacked from the internets:

Abandoned heavy machinery

what i assume are abandoned railworkers' shacks

This second photo is from a series taken at an abandoned railway in Siberia.  I especially love shots that let you have a glimpse into the lives of the people who worked at this site: the pickle jar, the vodka bottle.

Remember that series of 100 abandoned houses in Detroit from a while ago?  You can see all of Kevin Bauman’s photos here and revel in the overgrowth and safety hazards.

one of Kevin Bauman's abandoned houses in detroit

And if you can’t get enough Detroit, there’s another website with extensive photos of the interiors of more abandoned real estate: www.forgottendetroit.com.  Also, these ones of the abandoned public school book repository are pretty amazing (the photographer’s explanation here is interesting too).

This is my blog so I guess I don’t have to censor myself, but I see these photos of Detroit and am always shocked.  (I guess that was partly the artist’s intent so that’s good.)  What the hell is going to happen to Detroit?  Do we have any sort of protocol for dying cities?  There have been some interesting stories in the past year on NPR about the burgeoning Detroit renaissance.  How it is a haven for artists since they can afford to buy foreclosed homes for cheap and get studio space.  How there are business opportunities for enterprising young people and how it’s like a second frontier.  But all those things are dependent upon the federal government continuing to support the city via the domestic auto industry.

I think bailouts for corporations are wrong and so I guess I am complicit in letting Detroit die.  But I can handle that.  (And I swear it’s not because I love dilapidation.)  Corporations aren’t people and they don’t deserve or warrant charity.  However, we can not continue to ignore the people who don’t have the money to leave Detroit though they may want to.  One reason the buildings in those images are so poignant because can be seen as a metaphor for the citizens of Detroit.  I wonder what we could have done for the people who remain in Detroit if we had spent that money relocating them to a place w a more diverse economy, more tax dollars coming in, better schools, more opportunity for advancement for working people.  I don’t know.  It’s just a thought.

I’m flying to California, in FIRST CLASS!

The best thing about flying 30000 miles in less than one year is becoming a preferred member and then getting a free upgrade to first class! Woohoo! (I know all those kids in consulting fly a lot more than that but for me it’s a big deal.)

Not only do I get to board first but I get a Coke zero right as soon as I sit down. They still have pillows and blankets up here btw. That’s where they’ve all gone!

Now this picture is boring as shit but it’s just to demonstrate how much more room there is up here! It’s awesome! I wouldn’t pay first class prices but I’ll gladly ride up here for free!

This just in: I don’t care about baseball.

sorry guys.  I’ve been at this school that really cares about sports for more than three years.  I tried hard to care.  My sleep and my “laying on the couch in sweatpants” time was sacrificed so I could try to like sports.  I even camped out for basketball tickets three years in a row.  But I can say with certainty that this dalliance is over.

My all-girls high school and college without school sponsored sports did not prepare me well for the hysteria that this community engages in during basketball season.  Being around people who are that happy and excited is often enough for me to feel engaged (even though my parents raised me with the belief that sports were a waste of time and just watching sports was pathetic).  It was a stretch for me to try to learn the actual rules of basketball and the history of the local teams and about the individual players here at Duke but I tried.  ”This can’t be any harder than science” I thought.  That wasn’t a fair comparison though.  Learning about sports may not be harder than learning about genetics but I don’t give a shit about sports and thus it is difficult to pay attention.

With the recent news coverage of the World Series, I thought: “hmm, baseball?  That’s still happening?  I thought that was a summer time thing…”  And I saw this picture of my favorite first lady:

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden care about the World Series?!

Honestly, I don’t think Michelle’s face indicates that she actually cares about the World Series all that much.  Which is good bc again, I love that woman so much and I also do not give a shit about sports.  I want my friends to stop filling my facebook news feed with inanity like “GOOOOOO PHILLLLLIIIIEEEESSSSS!!!!” and such.  When I watch the evening news sports coverage of this stuff, it makes me sad.  These major league teams seem like such a simulacrum of community.  Why do people want to try to connect with their neighbors over such an artificial and manufactured entity?

The only thing I am happy about in terms of sports is this story about A-Rod:

“He had not one, but two painted portraits of himself as a centaur. You know, the half man, half horse figure,” scoffs an ex-girlfriend to the magazine. “It was ridiculous.”

This is not an Onion article people.  This is one of the heroes of Major League baseball just trying to express himself.  And reason 3 million why I am over trying to care about sports.

 

Happy almost Halloween Y’all!

this is as surreal and stupid as that peanut butter jelly time banana I swear.  I think it’s Will Ferrell under there.  Anyone?

Also, this has been all over facebook but I got it from a friend of mine and now I can’t stop thinking about witches praying over bags of bulk candy in the aisles of Target.

And if you haven’t read the article from Wired about the crazies who don’t believe in vaccination, read it already!  There was also this good commentary in Slate about the effect of unvaccinated children on other kids who can’t be vaccinated.

and and and I am gonna replace my stupid “Keep Calm and Carry On” print with this one.  Now everyone will have a better idea of the sort of person I am: an angry one w a serious sweet tooth. Done.

this is an adorable print but this lady needs a better camera jeeeeeez