1079

This has been a wonderful pre-Christmas week.

At my last day of work before Christmas, Wednesday, I found out some interesting things about myself. It was lets pick on Kaitlyn day which I don't mind. I feel sometimes I am so gullible and naive that I deserve this. It started when I was literally elbow deep into a sheeps rumen collecting their rumen contents. Despite the fact that I smelled the exact opposite of lovely and had a thick layer of rumen liquid pretty much covering every square inch of my body. For those of you who have not worked with ruminant animals. Here is the low down... Ruminant animals are those who have 1 stomach with 4 compartments. The largest compartment being the rumen where bacteria breaks down a good portion of their food before it actually passes to their intestines and what not. So this rumen fluid we sample we are looking at the bacterial content... bacteria smell. Let me tell you. They smell really really bad. But, despite this fact, I was excited because I said that in less than 1 hour we were already half way through. Which I was thrilled about because everybody thought it was going to be a dreadfully long day.

One of my co-workers quickly told me to be quiet and not jinx our luck! From this started the conversation about how I was so optimistic. Which really was the biggest shock I have ever heard. Not once in my entire life have I ever been called optimistic. This is because I'm rather skeptical and realistic... and to be honest pretty pessimistic about life's outcomes. I am definitely the glass is not even half empty... it's actually three quarters empty and there is a whole in the bottom of the cup. So the rest of the contents are about to be on the floor.

But my coworkers started talking about how I am the one person in our lab who is actually positive about the outcomes of our experiments and the time it takes to get them done. With this it was decided that research was the perfect field for me because of this. Which made me feel pretty darn good. At least I am going into a field I enjoy and can hopefully continue to be positive about, when everything else in life sucks!

Just kidding. Life is pretty good actually, considering. I did not however get the HHMI fellowship I applied for. But honestly, I wasn't expecting to. When they only pick about 9 people out of hundreds and I didn't get to spend as much time on my application as I would have liked... I find it quite understandable that I didn't receive it. I do feel a little disappointed in Charbie though. I think he has officially abandoned me. Or maybe he is just working hard on those grad school applications for me and couldn't allocate his time appropriately. I am choosing to believe that for now.

But the best part of this all is that work is done for a while. The sheep trial is over and now we just have to run the samples up in the lab. But what this all really means is that I don't have to wake up at 5:30 every morning for a while!! It means I had time to actually go to a bar and hang with people and get in at 1:30 in the morning because I didn't have to wake up early. Granted I woke up at 7 yesterday and 4:10 today. Which really ticked me off! But I didn't have to leave... I could at least sit in my bed and pretend to myself I was sleeping in a little more. And I have time to take a nap now so it really doesn't matter. Oh sleep, I have missed you so much!

With work closing though, means I don't get to see my sheepy. I don't actually like the sheeps. But they have become familiar little annoying faces in their pens. Most of which have been named due distinguishing characteristics or personalities. Some names like Pauli, Smalls, Stompy, Charlie (as in Charlie Sheen... he's beyond crazy. As a matter of fact, he has tackled me. Twice. I don't care for this sheep), Blue... you get the picture.

But one sheep, my favorite sheep, was not deemed worthy enough to receive a name. They said he was too plain and rather boring. But he was so nice. Mr. 1079 aka Pen 15. He let me pet him and was never really afraid of me. So I took pictures with him and started singing "Talking bought my best friend." That is when my coworker decided on a name for him. He is Big and I am Rob. You know, Rob and Big? If you don't know who they are I feel very sad for you. You should watch Rob and Big or Fantasy Factory. They're pretty hilarious. Big is Rob's body guard and I feel this adequately describes our relationship. So I must say I will miss him. But he is out gallivanting around the outdoor pasture... enjoying the freedom!

Also, today I woke up to snow again. Twice in 1 month is pretty darn impressive for Cruces. Quite a lot actually. I hope it continues to snow and stays in place until Christmas. The last time we had a white Christmas I was a little girl. I do miss it.

My mom already had off but my dad didn't. But with the snow came a call from his boss saying he shouldn't come in today because he didn't want him to drive on the icy roads. Oh how I love how our city/state shuts down at the first sign of anything snow. Sorry to all the people trying to come in or leave Cruces though because I don't think the roads are staying open for long.

Just found out that they are now charging for the Yule Log on TV and no longer offering it for free. Oh happy day!! I dislike watching that thing.

Sorry for the randomness of this blog. It is what it is. Now, I am going to enjoy a family breakfast since everybody is home. Then Christmas Eve and Christmas. Even this scrooge is actually rather enjoying the holidays.

Here's to dreaming of  a white Christmas...

Happy Half Birthday

Today is my third favorite day of the year!! My first being Thanksgiving and my second being my birthday :) Though in reality, I don't actually celebrate my birthday big every year. I prefer a mellow day. And on the rare chance that I get a mellow day... I LOVE my birthday.

But do any of you know what today is? It is St. Nicholas day. BUT more importantly... it is my half birthday! These two occasions collide every year on December 6th and it is amazing. Usually I am smack in the middle of finals week. Which I currently am. Boo. Just 4 finals left though.

So officially today I am 21 and a half years of age. Which I can celebrate Thursday with my little sister (sorority related sister) who is in fact older than me. Almost everybody is older than me. It's something I have learned to accept and now that I am 21, I actually quite enjoy it because everybody will always be older. Which means when they are turning 40 I will still be in my 30s and kickin it!

On this momentous half birthday and St. Nicholas day I get my stocking. We don't do stockings on Christmas. We like to spread out our gift giving and start today. It is my favorite thing waking up and finding a stocking full of wonderful goodies. For those 3 years that I lived in the dorms and the sorority house and then a house with some friends, it was the saddest day not waking up and getting a stocking. But my mom always had one for us when we returned home for a visit. Now, this being my last year living in Cruces (hopefully), it is a bittersweet half birthday for me. My last actual stocking I will receive on this exact day in my own house. It really is sad.


 But for now I enjoy the gifts that I got: Gum (yumm), chap stick, a Christmas Moose (I love meeses. They are just so adorable!), sheep earrings (because I work with farm animals I tend to get gifts with farm animals on them. I love this. Even though I dislike actual sheep I enjoy accessories with sheep on them because they are just so cute. In real life... they are not cute. In real life the poop and they pee and they are dumber than any other animal I have ever come in contact with. Therefore, I enjoy these little mementos that make people have a skewed reality about how lovable sheep are. Without these cute little trinkets, people would undoubtedly hate sheep and I happen to like lamb and wool so I prefer this to not happen. Additionally, they will go excellent with my sheep high-top converse. Oh yeah. I have sheep converse.) And now that I am 21, I got champagne mixers. Oh how I love being 21 and have the holidays coming. Lots of delicious wine and champagne to be had!

 All I have to do is get through 3 more days of finals and I am home free. Then it is just a winter break filled with very early morning feeding/cleaning/sample taking... of you guessed it... SHEEP! But after those early mornings, I can sleep and read and have very long Supernatural marathons and enjoy my time off with the family and friends. 

I hope your St. Nicholas day is as magical as mine!! Though it probably won't be for most because I doubt it is your half birthday... though June 6th was a very popular day of birthing and I know at least 7 people who share it with me. Regardless, have a jolly good day and enjoy being alive and hopefully carefree (well as carefree as anybody can really be).

To my readers: I know some of you are thinking this is not as humorous as my usual blogs but I urge you to enjoy my light heartedness. It is a rare occasion. And as most of you know. I am, in fact, a Grinch and I very much dislike the revved up commercialized holiday of Christmas. This is about as jolly as I will be getting with the Christmas season currently being shoved down  my throat.

With that, a snow update: My school is delayed by 2 hours. Which does not help me in the slightest seeing as how I have a 2-4 hour OUTDOOR final at 1:30 this afternoon. Did I mention it is 18 degrees outside? No joke. I just looked at the thermometer. I live in Cruces. I do not own warm clothes. I have TWO long sleeve shirts... I just looked. The rest are short sleeved or 3/4. I am not sure that I will survive this weather. I literally have 1 warm jacket. And my scarves are for fashion not to provide heat. Help me!





10:57 AM - Yesterday

11:01 AM - Yesterday



1:00 PM - Yesterday



5:00 PM - Yesterday

6:00 PM - Yesterday

7:00 PM - Yesterday

8:00 AM - Today

Snow, Spiders, and Sapiens

I know... at this very second I should be studying and going over my 800,000 note cards that I made but this is me taking a break. A very well deserved break I might add. This past weekend I spent about 28 hours studying. For once in my life, this is actually not an overestimate. This is legitimate fact. I don't know if you are aware... but there are only 48 hours in two days. 28 of which I spent studying. 16 of which I spent sleeping. 4 of which I spent driving to and from the library, eating, and taking little breaks.



Funny... that's exactly what I looked like at the lib.



I started with close to 12 hours at the library on Saturday with my friend Val. I was insanely productive that day. And then... it all went down hill from there. Towards the end of the day, I was attacked by a spider. A spider that crawled on my ear, down my neck and into my shirt. I then proceeded to have a very public freak out about this spider. For the next thirty minutes I proceeded to believe this spider was attacking me. I felt like Ron from Harry Potter. I now fully understand his hatred and fear towards spiders. My episode was so similar to his I felt as if I was in the movie/book. For those of you who have ever read or watched Harry Potter you know exactly what I am talking about. And I assure you my situation was the exact same. Except switch out hundreds of gigantic spiders looking to eat you for one small tiny spider probably the a quarter of the size of my pinky nail who I probably ended up squishing in my panic attack. Besides that... I'm sure you can see the resemblances of the situations.

Once I was attacked by this spider, I couldn't get it out of my head and we decided to call it quits that day. I promptly headed home, passed out, woke up and went straight back to the library on Sunday morning. I find I am more productive at the library. I usually do not tend to get as distracted. I don't feel the need to check facebook every 2 minutes. I don't have to spend hours looking at pictures on pinterest. There is nothing else I can do besides study. But when I am at my house, I have dogs, and tv, and cleaning to do. SO much cleaning... Have you ever noticed how when you need to do things you "suddenly" see just how dirty your house and surroundings are. And it is imperative that you clean EVERYTHING that very second... because without doing that you're homework is inexplicably going to get swallowed up into the mess of your surroundings and lost forever and how will you ever be able to study then!?! It's a logical, rational way of thinking about things.

But you don't have to worry about that when you are at the library. So off to the library I went Sunday morning. However, after being there for 5 hours I could no longer feel my feet or my fingers. I was pretty positive the second ice age had officially hit. And had I had a runny nose, it would have frozen into icicles. That is exactly how cold it was. I don't know about you but I am not an effective thinker when my brain is frozen solid and the nerves are short circuiting because they were not made to function in -55 degree weather and therefore can no longer send messages to the rest of my body. This was when Val said she was leaving and I took it as my cue to head home too and study there. Of course, when I got home it took me a full hour to get back into the swing of things. But eventually I went full force only to stop and eat dinner where I then went to sleep again.

This morning I woke up at 4:45 to re-read my notes. This is when I do some of my best studying. I HAVE to study right before a test to make sure everything is solidified and exactly where I want it to be. Without this... I will fail. Then I went and took my first final. After which, I was told I could miss 55 points and get an A in the class... that means I could get a 45 on the test and get an A. I studied for TWO days for this test when all I had to get was a 45!??? I went through an ice age and a spider attack for this! This would have been valuable information to know ahead of time. Obviously, I would still have studied and I would still have aimed for a high grade. I just would have allocated some of my time to my other four tests that I still have to take this week.

Now, I have two major tests left and two tests that are slightly less important. One test of which my teacher was smart enough to inform me ahead of time that I only need a 65 on the final. Which means... I will be studying for evolution for the next two days.


All of this is really hard to do when it is snowing outside. A form of weather that is hardly ever witnessed in the city of Las Cruces. So much so that I have a good 200 facebook updates in my home page about how it is snowing! This also happens when it rains. Precipitation in general tends to freak people here out. We drive slower, we try to leave the house less, and we generally sit at a window and stare outside for hours at the wonderful creation of water falling from the sky. You can only imagine how all of this water and staring is impeding on my studying.



This is my backyard... it isn't cold enough for the snow to stick to the concrete :(
BUT it is stil snowing so who knows.

Updated SNOW pictures!

Alas, I must tend to the radiation of Homo eructus out of Africa and into Europe and Asia which led to... you guessed it... MORE evolution and here I am a modern day Homo sapien. I blame them for my having to study for the horribly dreadful class of evolution. I'd be fine sitting around a fire in my cave eating the lion I just killed with my hand made spear. But nope... we just had to evolve.