Milk...

I realized today in class how disgusting I actually find dairy to be now.

An undergraduate in a class I am a TA for brought in doughnuts, orange juice, and a gallon of 1% milk.

I watched, basically horrified, as half the class eagerly sipped the bodily fluid of another being intended to support the other creatures young.

Yuck.

Tonight...

I am writing a portion of a book chapter on missing children.

I am reading about abductions, kidnappings, and other crazy depressing shit.

And I am sitting alone in a dark building. With only the random door down the ROTC wing to send echos through the halls.

Good thing I am so tough. And never get scared.

**Shifty Eyes**

You know what is awesome?

When things you forgot you ordered arrive in the mail.

Like coats.

Warm amazing vegan leather coats.

I already have my Obama button carefully pinned to the lapel!!!

One of those hard conversations...

My grandfather called this evening.

I love my grandfather very much. He is an amazing man. He has pulled himself up from nothing. He was born blocks from the local stockyards, the son of an alcoholic mechanic and a garmet seamstress. He is now a millionaire who owns a sliver of land on Clearwater Bay in Florida.

He is also the most racist man I have ever had any extended contact with.

This evening we finally started discussing what I was spending all this time working on.

"It is called the Other Race Effect. It refers to the way that people of one race are able to remember faces of their own race better compared to faces of another race."

The response I get is a longwinded talk about how the cells in the brains of asians are closer together than the cells in the brains of the caucasians, which are closer than the cells in the brains of blacks. And that, you see, is why asians are better at math. He read it once. But people stopped talking about it because it became taboo.

I was basically speechless. I tried to explain synaptic branching, but it is hard without bringing up rat research. And everyone knows animal research doesn't matter, since we are God's Children, not "glorified apes".

It is stunning to be working on research on prejudice (explicit or implicit, neuronal or cognitive) and realize that your own flesh and blood embodies exactly what you are fighting.

Not that this is really a fresh realization. But it still hurts.

I love you, Grandpa.

WHY??????????????

This morning I am sitting in the lab at school. In the same chair I am sitting in now. And I am checking my email and my blog roll.

PZ Myers linked to a post over on about Chuck Norris' new book. In the book Norris complains that his nephew, a "strong young Christian man", received an F on a biology paper recently.



He received the F because instead of writing about biology he wrote a nice essay about a common creation myth.



Right as I am reading this one of my colleagues walks into the lab, and asks what I am laughing about. And I responded that I was reading about Chuck Norris.

"His nephew apparently got an F in biology because he refused to write a paper about evolution in a public biology classroom. You would think Chuck Norris could afford to send his kid to a Christian school."

The colleague who just walked into the room stops, turns to me, and says "Yeah, but he shouldn't have to."

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY???

I am enrolled in a PHD program. In EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. We should not be pandering to mythological fairytales in our public schools.

Our science classes should teach science. I would understand if a burger flipper or a taxi driver didn't get the concept of teaching science in the science classrooms. But this guy IS a teacher. He is teaching introductory psychology courses THIS SEMESTER!!

Arghsz.

University of Central Arkansas shooting...

There was a shooting last night on the University of Central Arkansas campus.

This, geographically and academically, is close to where I am. A lot of students have friends that attend here, and many of the professors have strong academic links with this campus.

My thoughts and atheist prayers are with those in Conway, and those in surrounding academic institutions dealing with the effects of this event.

I...

... just had a beautiful 26 hours.

From 1:30 Sunday morning until 3:30 Monday morning.

The sort of hours that leave you rejuvenated, feeling good about life.

Hours filled with amazing food, a long walk in the park, sleepy warm sunshine naps, and comfortable conversations.

In this crazy world we call graduate school we prioritize differently. Your days are filled with mundane grading, hours spent down in the research lab, and hours staring at a computer screen. And suddenly those few hours where you get to laugh and play become so much more valuable.

And you learn to cherish them so much more.

Palin versus Drosophila

New post over on Teh Juggernauts. Ranting about Sarah Palin.

I don't know who that "Amber" girl is, but she really echos my sentiments. Exactly.

=P

And I am driving her to the airport tomorrow morning...

My light-load day, which should be spent on research, has been focused on the highly-hyped visit of a prestigious professor from another university to our department.

I am really interested in what she has to say, but I still wish that she could come on a day I could skip classes to meet with her for breakfast, sit in on an hour lunch discussion with her, and then sit through two hours of lectures this afternoon. Instead of skipping working on my research.

=/

(She is actually really smart, and I am lucky to have a chance to interact with her on a somewhat personal level. I am just bitching.)

I <3 Jay Smooth

In practicum today...

... we were talking about love.

Specifically about long term relationships. And how they play out in academia. And their tendency to be stressful and pull people out of successful positions.

It turns out that at least three faculty members here have significant others who live far far away. One professor's wife lives in Oklahoma where she has a teaching position. One professor has a wife living in Maine.

The professor I was talking to has a serious girlfriend living in Pennsylvania.

Do you know how daunting it is to be basically apprenticing for a job that may make it impossible for you to form meaningful romantic relationships with any sort of stability for the next ten years?

=(

... not that I exactly have boys beating down my door to even take me out to dinner...

=P

PhD Comics for the lose...

Just when you think the daily gritty nothingness cannot get any worse, you can always count on PhD Comics to bring you down a notch. (Click on the image to see the graph in all of it's crisp glory!!!)

Oh? You are spending the next five years staring at computer screens and jumping when the big boys say jump? You don't get enough sleep, and you do it all for a barely-living-wage?

You also are never going to be appreciated as much as the dumb jocks, and you ovaries will still drag you down.

How long do you think it would take to throw something that elaborate up?

I am very inspired by this image I found over at my friend LA's blog. It apparently is from the artist K-Guy.

Pickles...

Good news and bad news...

Good news... I bought a mini-fridge for my office this weekend. I went in halvsies with another girl in the office, so it only cost me thirty-five bucks. I think it will help my pocket book and my stomach/body enough to quickly recoup the expense.

Bad news... As I was bringing a case of Diet Coke and a bag of groceries... (vegan sandwhich fixins, pickles, bread, chips)... up to my office, I realized that this basically means that I live in my office. I now go home to sleep and walk the dog. Besides that... I have no reason to leave.

Grad school is an interesting experience. =/

This is a perfect explanation for my "no Christians" rule...

I live in a box....

It is actually a series of boxes. I move from one to another.

I leave my sleeping and cooking box around seven or eight each morning. Sometimes it is still dark, and I don't even get to see the sky as I walk between boxes.

I arrive at my sitting box, leave my food and other supplies for the day, and go to my computer box.

Sometimes I have meetings in the other boxes. They are brief, only an hour or so. After the meeting I return to my other box.

Once in a while I get to go to the book box. You get to walk under the sky to get to it. But you have to be careful, because the book box steals your time. You go inside when you can still see the sky, and when you come out it is dark again.

That means it is time to walk back to the sleep box. And sit under a small light reading until the sleep catches up to you.

All day... sitting in boxes.

zzzzzzz.....

PhD Comics sometimes captures my life quite well...

leeching internetz is teh suck.

Just FYI...

I am leeching internet from the high school across the street. And the high school hates Blogger.

So my blog is only being updated when I am at work. And I don't have time to update it when I am at work.

So it isn't being updated.