impromptu sightseeing

hehe. i'm actually doing one blog after the other. bumabawi. maaga pa e. . .

anyway, i had quite an interesting day today. i was supposed to go to the federal building today to follow-up on my social security number. so i went there and, just my luck, their computers were down. so, i decided to go sightseeing. i took a few pictures since the day was so pretty but i regret that i can't post them yet since i still don't have a computer to upload them into. anyway, i wasn't planning on walking all that distance up High St. but once i started walking, i couldn't stop. there were so many interesting stores and galleries but they were still closed! at 10 am! most of the stores open at 12nn. the only stores that were open were a greek deli and a smoothie place. so i got a baklava and a mocha smoothie. medyo na-cancel out yung calories na na-burn ko from walking. . .

now i'm in the lab and not having much luck with my constructs. medyo nakaka-frustrate pero ganyan talaga. i did get to do the fish behavioral assay with my postdoc, which was pretty interesting. tsaka nag-microinject ako ulit. so i hope i'll have good results tomorrow. . .

turning 23

I haven't blogged since i turned 23. . . yes, I am now 23. . . 23 doesn't sound young anymore does it? it's sounds so . . . in-between . . . alanganin. . . aside from being michael jordan's jersey number, what other thing could you associate with being 23. . . well, anyway, may poging nagsabi sa akin na 23 is a good year so since masunurin ako sa mga gwapo (pareho kami ni shie e) i'm hoping to have a good year. . .

anyway, for those na hindi ko na-email, my birthday went fine, actually, better than i expected. The Lord has been so good to me since I got here and He really went all out on my birthday. The 2-3 days before my birthday were dreary ( you know, they actually use that word to describe the weather in weather reports here. . . strange), especially saturday when it was miserably cold and rainy. But Sunday was perfect fall weather. The sun was out, the trees were changing colors and it wasn' so cold. I was soooo thankful for that kasi kung gloomy siguro, nagmukmok ako lalo. And I got a lot of messages and phonecalls that day from friends and family. so sobrang touched talaga ko. i went to church and had sushi with my church friends. dyahe nga kasi ibinayad pa ako nung isang friend ko. ganoon kasi ata dito, birthday celebrant ang ibinabayad and not the other way around. and then i did my laundry (kasi sobrang kailangan talaga). pero while waiting for my clothes to dry, i walked around looking for cake. hindi pala madali makahanap ng cake sa street ko pag linggo. but i did find one very good chocolate cake. i've been avoiding that place since then kasi sobrang tempting. . . so that's how my birthday went. salamat sa lahat ng nakaalala. . .

payback

the fishies are getting their payback. i massacred them last week, now they're trying to give me a heart attack. it's another exciting day at the lab for jona. . .

anyway, so i was microinjecting fishies again. my last microinjection, incidentally, was a success. which is weird since the last time i did it, stuff were just spewing out of the needle and the fishies were covered with it. but the beads got to the right place and all that so it's actually good. so back to today, i was microinjecting again (duh) and the air tube of the rig burst. it sounded just like a gunshot and it almost blew out my eardrum. in fact my left ear is still ringing. good thing i didn't scream or anything because that would have been embarassing (and hysterical). since i couldn't hear, i was denying the fact that the sound came from my apparatus (stupid). now i'm still feeling shaky and my heart is still beating fast and i'm jumping at every sign of movement. i almost screamed when someone opened the door. . . must calm down. . .

i don't know, it's a mystery

1 month and 9 days. . . that's how long i've been here in the US. Well it hasn't been a very long time but it sure feels like a lifetime. I'm sure there are a lot of things i've yet to learn about this city and the people here but for now there are a couple of mysteries about americans i would like to explore. solving these mysteries would really help my sanity. so if you people out there have any insight on these things i'll mention, please feel free to comment. . .

mystery #1 : How (and why?) do americans walk so fast?
I swear, I think every single american can outwalk me. short, tall, fat, thin however unathletic, I always end up eating their dust. i don't know why i find it so frustrating to walk on the sidewalk and have every single person overtake me. and i don't consider myself that slow of a walker. i have tried matching their cadence (?) once i feel someone approaching from behind me but it just doesn't work. I couldn't go that fast for too far because i feel like i'll be getting cramps on my leg any time. and collapsing on the sidewalk would be even more embarassing. . .

mystery #2 : "Hi! How are you?"
I think this statement drives more foreigners crazy here than you would think. i think for most normal non-american a "How are you?" would actually mean "How are you?". I mean, you would expect to have a substantial answer to the said question, definitely more substantial than "Fine. And you?". I can't tell you how many times I've replied to this question in what to me was a normal manner only to find polite disinterest in the face of the person who is asking the question. this soooo pisses me off. why can't they just stop at "Hi!" and get on with their life? so when i speak to someone who is actually interested in knowing how i am, i hesitate to tell them anything, and i come out as the snobbish one. so how do you tell the difference between a perfunctory "Hi! How are you?" and a true blue, sincere "Hi! How are you?". . .

mystery#3: "Awesome! Wonderful! Totally!"
At a grocery store, the clerk would ask you "Find everything you need?" and I would answer "Yeah!" "Wonderful". What? What's so wonderful about finding a bag of ice and a liter of coke? These words and others like it have lost all meaning here. I can't help but wonder what americans would say if and when they do encounter something totally awesome and wonderful. They don't have the words anymore.

so there. i know i had another question earlier in my head but i can't seem to remember it. if you can enlighten me on any or all of these mysteries, please comment.

**********

on another note, nanay, ate me, kuya bobby and kuya jessie left this afternoon. they were here in columbus over the weekend. they arrived here saturday afternoon, which was a game day. good thing the bucks lost because things didn't look as crazy as it did when they won (don't tell anyone from osu i said this because i would be in so much trouble). We did a lot of shopping (well, i did anyway) and it was fun to have other people in my apartment. i was so bummed when they left that i didn't go to the lab this afternoon. hehe. it's awfully quiet again in my apartment. but i do have a week's supply of pan de sal, kaldereta and more than a couple of month's supply of spanish sardines. That will have to do for now. . .

6 days to go . . .

blah, blah...

they're dead. all of them. . . my fishies i mean. i injected close to 80 of them yesterday. 21/2 worth of work in the microscope. . . i went home last night with an aching back and teary eyes. . . all for nothing. . . well, i have to start again i guess. . . o well. . . i actually like the microinjecting part because it is pretty cool. that's why i did 80 of them when 20 or so would have been enough. ka-o.a.n ko lang actually. still i was hoping that at least a couple of them would be successful since ang dami ko namang ginawa, but no. . . and my transformation was a flop. got the wrong size band. i guess i can't have 2 good weeks in a row. may be next week would be better. . .

it's getting really cold now. it got to freezing this morning, would you believe. it's supposed to be fall right? mild weather, a bit of clouds, leaves falling. i didn't know it would be so hard to breathe in cold air. my nose is always cold for some reason. . . but they said this will pass within the week and we'll have more "normal" weather by the weekend. i'm not sure what they mean by normal though. these americans have antifreeze for blood. i'm all wrapped in a sweater and a coat and they're running around in short shorts and t-shirts. geez.

i can't' seem to be able to write anything substantial in this blog. i get a lot of ideas that i could write about when i'm on the bus but once i sit in front of the computer, blank. nothing. all i could do is blabber on about this and that.

must have original idea for a blog soon. . .

20 mins starts now....

i have 20 minutes to write this. . . here goes.

just opened the blogger page when my PI walked in. gahleng. i couldn't minimize it kasi lalong magiging obvious na guilty so flash na lang ako ng big smile. hehe.

I''m transforming cells now and i have 19 minutes left in my incubation. i've been doing this type of thing all week. i'll be doing it again next week. . . and so on and so forth. . .

at least it's the weekend. i'm not sure what i'll be doing this weekend, probably my laundry. but definitely not shopping. i just paid my rent so that set me back roughly 500 bucks (ouch). utility bills should be coming in soon. i never had to do this kind of thing before so i'm getting a bit nervous. and we get our pay end of october. i'll probably be a pauper by then. . . and my birthday's coming up too (hint hint). hehe.

it's getting really cold now, especially in the mornings. it will reach the low 30s by sunday, so the weatherman said. brrrrr. . . but it still gets pretty hot by noon to early afternoon. so it's really hard to decide what to wear. grabe jona, laki ng problema mo. hehe. but i tell you, it's not easy being cute and staying warm at the same time. . .

speaking of cute, i just figured out who my cutie classmate looks like. . . he looks a lot like nick stokes from csi. o diba. and i had coffee with him this morning. . . well, ok i was with two other classmates and he went and sat with us. . . but i did do most of the talking since both of us had difficulty understanding our chinese classmates. . . he though the assigned paper for our DNA transactions class was interesting. . . so dreamy. . . hahaha. . .

but i couldn't make myself call him "pogi" like prek challenged me to. hindi ako kasing tapang ni shiela. hehe.

ooooohhh. . . have 8 minutes left but nothing left to write. guess i'll go stare at the incubator then. . .