There is nothing in this world that can replace the smell of baking something in your own kitchen.  I love how the fragrance of past meals wafts though the air as the oven preheats.  I enjoy the gentle, rich aroma of cooking oil and the way the eggs swirl and mix right before they are swept into the rest of the batter.  As whatever baked goods are slowly cooking the apartment is filled with the pleasant, heartwarming fragrance of kitchens past, my mother's, my grandmother's and probably her mother's as well, though I have never been there.  Better still are the smiles the finished product brings.  Other than the addition to my hips, I can't really think of a downside baking.  It's a wonderful thing.

In other kitchen related news, maintenance replaced our refrigerator while we were out.  Not only did they replace it but they carefully rearranged all the food in the new one so that it was in approximately the same place as it had been in the old one.  I really like the maintenance crew here.  I've put in several requests and each of them has been completed quickly and properly, plus the guys are very polite and friendly.  And also there is no mold smell when I open the freezer!  Yay!
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I hate obligatory clapping.  I've used obligatory in two posts in a row.  What a strange word to use repeatedly.  Anyway, I'll clap when I think it's appropriate, and if I just sat through a long, boring presentation I really don't think I should clap.  Shouldn't clapping be a reward for a job well done.  If I spend an hour nodding off repeatedly while I could have been in the lab working...well...I don't think that's a job well done.  I'll clap when someone makes a really good joke that really makes me laugh.  I'll clap after a play or concert if the performance warrants it.  Heck, I'll even clap when someone gets an awesome headshot off in a game.  But, I refuse to clap when all that someone has done is wasted my time.  Same thing with tipping. I'm not going to give a good tip to a waitress that wastes my time or gives me poor services.  Maybe I'm just a cold hearted asshole who worries too much about the value of my own time, but I've only got so much time on this earth and I'd like to make the best of it.
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Sometimes I feel invisible when I have headphones on, so much so that if someone speaks to me when I am listening to music it confuses me.  I'm surprised and startled, not because it is a surprising sound to hear someone talking but because I didn't expect them to see me.  It's as though someone has broken into my safe little music box and ripped me from my pedestal where I dance in my tiny pink tutu.  I should invent headphones that produce some kind of light refraction field around the user that blurs them so much so that they are almost invisible.  That would be a lot of effort to validate an imagined situation only inside my head, but I guess that's science.

Traveling stresses me out.  I hate leaving my apartment because I always feel like I will get back and someone will have robbed us.  Also I always forget that we are traveling and buy groceries like we will be eating meals at home, resulting in a waste of produce in some cases and left overs going bad.  Another problem is that I don't sleep well when I'm not in my own bed.  I don't know why but I've always had that problem.  And while we got to see our parents and my best friend and her husband...well...we didn't get to see a lot of the people we have been missing because they are particularly bad at communicating with us when timing is an issue. 

I've gotten lots of messages about how much we are missed and how everyone wants to come see us and visit and all that...but when it comes down to it I just can't put in ALL the effort and time required to basically "force" people into spending time with us.  If someone drove a couple hundred miles to visit I would try my best to make time for them.  I guess we just shouldn't visit on Saturdays because people have plans that are more important than us and I guess I should have made a facebook event but that just seems so impersonal and obligatory.  And I guess that's fine.  It just really frustrated me because I also gave up four separate opportunities to spend time with my new friends here so that I could travel over the weekend.  I guess I'm just living in a dream world where people care about one another a lot more than they actually do.

The moral of the story is that I won't be traveling again for a very long time, and not because I can't but because I don't want to.  I don't want to suffer and worry while wasting gasoline and put time and effort into seeing the people I care about if they just aren't that interested in the whole thing.  And I don't really want to waste my spring break doing the same thing, so I will be spending it here in my nice little apartment.  If anyone wants to see us THEY will have to be the ones visiting.  End of story.
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I couldn't play Mass Effect on my laptop.  When I think back that wasn't the greatest reason to buy a new desktop, but what the heck.  I started undergrad with a new desktop.  It was fine and did what I needed.  I had virus protection software on it and I enjoyed the pleasures of being able to visit any porn site without worrying about viruses or the destruction of my computer.  Then my husband got a new computer and gave me his old one, which was quite a bit faster than mine.  However, it did not have virus protection software.  I didn't really think about this and used it for quite a while without any problems.  Additionally, my parents bought me a laptop for one of my classes where the professor was insane and gave tests that required computers but not in a computer lab.  Whatever.  Anyway, things happened and I visited one too many shady sites and destroyed the hard drive of the computer my husband gifted to me.  Thankfully, I have an external hard drive with all my pictures and things on it that was left unharmed.  I resigned myself to making do with my laptop since it was perfectly capable of doing everything I needed.

However, now I'm in graduate school and I would certainly like to have a computer completely dedicated to research.  Then my husband wanted me to play Mass Effect and my laptop just couldn't take it.  I couldn't even win fights in easy mode with all the settings at their lowest because of the lag.  These two things kind of converged into one idea that I needed a new desktop.  And now I have one.  It's basically fantastic.  It's more than I need, but I'm really happy to have it.  Windows 7 is fine.  I'm not very picky about my operating system as long as it will run games (i.e. not an Apple product).  The Radeon 5850 is treating me well so far and having a quad core is something I've never experienced before.  It makes the computer seem almost like it's connected directly to my brain stem because it runs so fast and boots so quickly.  Because we built it ourselves there are no clogs of HP or Dell programs slowing down login or startup.  It's strangely beautiful.  I named it Harold.

I'm so relaxed now that I'm back home, my computer is constructed and functioning and I completed my first laboratory assignment.  Life is so much better than it was before the trip to Missouri.  Again, I hate traveling and I'm so done with it right now.
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My first laboratory assignment was to rewrite the cloning protocols in the lab.  That may sound stupid and boring, but to me it was really the perfect first assignment.  Not only did I have to look up and define a bunch of terms I didn't understand, but I also had to translate that into words other people could understand and then use successfully to clone DNA.  It really opened my eyes and pulled together all the training sessions I had with the post doc.  I answered all the questions that were in my head, I guess.  I now feel confident that I could prepare my first petri dish and go from there without significant trouble.  It's a good feeling, going from a complete loss to moderate understanding.
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I finally feel like making cake truffles.  I'm going to go do that now.  Chocolate or red velvet?  Some decisions are harder than others.

My mind is in a million places right now.  How much more "catching up" do I have to do before I'm given my own portion of the DNA sequencing project?  How long will it take to get pregnant?  Will I ever get pregnant?  Would purchasing a house be more cost effective in the long run than renting this tiny apartment?  How hard is it to raise a child in an apartment?  How long will my husband keep his job?  How much will we have saved by the time my husband can't take it anymore and quits?  Will it be enough to move somewhere after I complete my PhD?  Will I complete my PhD?  Why does the fridge still smell really bad even though there isn't anything rotten in it?  What was that weird mold-like substance in the freezer vent that I could only reach with q-tips sprayed with bathroom cleaner?  If I can see mold in the vent, isn't there mold throughout the fridge that I can't see?  Is the mold in the fridge the reason for the smell as well as the painful inflammation in my neck and throat that my doctor suggested was simply allergies?  Why do I feel so weak all the time even though I'm working out and eating right?  Why can't I sleep at normal time intervals?  Why have I suddenly started sleeping either 2 hours or 12 hours a night?  Why do I suddenly feel so awkward?  Am I this vulnerable to stress?  Why am I so stressed?  Is my professor disappointed that I'm traveling back home this weekend for a quick break and to pick up my new computer?  Why can't my husband work from home?  What should I make for dinner?  Should I get started on dinner now?  When will my husband be home today?  Why can't I lose ten more pounds and have a flat stomach?  I look really dumpy right now, but I don't want to buy new clothes until I've finished losing weight.  Can you nominate yourself for What Not to Wear?  Is a two bedroom house really that much harder to resell than a three bedroom house?  Maybe when I'm on my deathbed I should write a book about my life and all the choices I did and didn't make and their outcomes to serve as a warning to others.  Is that called a biography or an autobiography?  Why do I feel so lost?  I'm so lost.