Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Happy/sad

Happy:

1. Going to New York for the book donation, plus seeing Pallav, Linda, Dave, and Linnea (and apparently a falafel judging? We shall see...and Dave? You better do a tripod picture for me!)

2. I passed quals! I am now officially a doctoral candidate.

3. Scooper Bowl Ice Cream festival! A fundraiser for the Dana-Faber Cancer Institute, this all-you-can-eat ice cream extravaganza has raised over 2 million dollars for cancer research.

I had:

Baskin Robbins (wanted to try the Rock n Pop Swirl, this concoction with Willy Wonka candies that was bright green, but again...too full!)

Ben and Jerry's: Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road (chocolate ice cream with all sorts of goodies)

Breyers: Cherry Vanilla (oh-so-smooth)

Brigham's (wanted to try black raspberry, but I was full)

Edy's: Take the Cake (odd and bright yellow. But tasty!)

Garelick Farms: Maine Lobster Tracks (fudge swirl and lobster tracks that were these red and cherry-dipped cone tasting bits)

Häagen-Daaz: Chocolate (mm) and Bailey's Irish Cream (oh. so. good)

HP Hood: Fenway Fudge (my favorite - lots of fudge, lots of chocolate...my kind of ice cream) and Cookie Dough Delight (delicious! not enough cookie dough, though)

Spasso: Amaretto gelato as well as coffee gelato (delicious, although the gelato in general didn't stay as smooth as the ice creams in this sort of a setting...kind of a shame).

That's ten scoops of ice cream. That's a lot.

4. I expressed, induced, and ran protein on a gel. And it kind of worked! (see below)

(gosh isn't that just beautiful?)

5. Farmer's market strawberries. And hopefully a pick-your-own lab field trip sometime soon! I also contacted someone about learning how to can, and hopefully this person certified as a "master preserver" can teach me all the tricks of the trade.


Sad

1. My roommate's flour had flour beetles and infested our apartment. = Gross. But she did help clean our entire kitchen with detergent (mm...smells like Tide!) so that's nice at least.

2. Still don't believe my professor passed away. I looked on my bookshelf and remembered that he loaned me a pathology book...and I don't know what to do with it now.

3. Old friends "breaking up" with you. I know it sounds really middle school and all, but jeez. We're old enough now to be able to articulate opinions like adults, and hey! not be jerks.

4. Boston in June is really odd. There is a beautiful May spring, and then this June gloom nonsense for about two weeks...gray, cold...all that. My apartment is freezing. I'm sleeping under two comforters.

5. Pratt and Whitney get a big thumbs down. I contacted them about Harold Fairchild and archival materials, and the receptionist said, in an aghast sort of way, "Well of course we don't have records that go that far back! We have very little of the history and information from that far back. And I mean, thousands of people have worked here! We don't have information on them!" ...um...this man DIED testing your product and you don't have information on it? Really? Good for you. It's even funnier because there is an entire section of their website talking about how Pratt and Whitney has contributed to the history of aviation. They'll be getting another call next week, that's for sure.

3 comments:

L-ANN said...

I'm glad to see that you made it to the Scooper Bowl. :)

Sorry about all the sad things. And happy for you about all the other happy things. My parents can lots and lots of tomatoes each year along with lots and lots of homemade applesauce if you want to know about those two items.

M. said...

Are you going to try to can in your apartment? Have you heard about how miserable that process is?

bridgetwhoplaysfrenchhorn said...

My mom said the same thing, M. I've never really done it before, and I'd like to try it once with someone who knows what they're doing before I decide I hate it...the lady that I might do it with seems like a good place to start. I just want to try it, that's all!