I Wish I Could Say I'm Sorry

When I started this blog, specifically the posting of my college experience, I had two main purposes. The first was to express myself and the second was to just document my experiences for myself and for others who I thought might be entertained by them. For the first half of my first year, I was pretty sad. I didn't go to the school that I had intended, I was in a new environment, and for the first time in 4 years, the people I had been used to seeing pretty much everyday suddenly weren't there. To some extent, expressing this sadness and my feelings and having not much to do contributed a lot to my posting to the blog.

 I'm happy to say that I'm happy in my life right now. Sure classes are still stressful and I have a way to go as far as career building and working to get into grad school, but I'm happy. With that being said, I feel bad for not posting for the whole of last semester and will start posting regularly again because I feel as though me in my happiness should be as well documented for Future-Ron as my not-happiness.

 I figure I'd go through the high-lights of last semester and the end of my year, starting with the above picture. I collect bubble wrap in one of my drawers for stress-relief purposes and foam pads from packages for absolutely no real reason other than the fact that they're soft... When studying one afternoon in my downstairs office, My Grad Student and another grad student knocked on the door and led me upstairs to a lab bench covered in bubble wrap and packing peanuts. It was very nice of them, even though I had to clean it up. It's the little things that go towards making you feel part of a family and I'm definitely glad that I have my lab family.

Promoted

 I was promoted last semester! As you all know, every semester we do decorations for various seasons. This year during Halloween, I got promoted to Senior Decorating Officer. I'm too lazy to post all of the pictures, so I'll just show you my crowning achievement to date in my new position. I'll definitely get better this semester and trust me, they're going to be absolutely amazing.



Culture and Stuff

Last semester I came to the conclusion that I would much rather spend my money on experiences rather than things. The first result of this decision was me going to go see the play "Warrior Class" which was an awesome political drama and probably my favorite play at the moment. I initially planned to go see it with a certain girl that I am now dating (Probably talk more about that later... the blog is called "Girls Cars & Science", but it seems to be more science than anyhting else), but that didn't happen. I met some cool grad students on the train to theater, enjoyed the play, met Buddhist monks, and met this lovely couple that decided to start up a series of hot dog stands on a whim. The day was definitely worth the $33 play ticket, $5 train ride, and whatever I paid for the hot dog.

Also: When I got back to my room there was a blanket fort... Life.

Poster! 

Presented my first poster. It was an on-campus event and was nothing big, but I got plenty of compliments and great suggestions. I have a bigger, still on campus, event coming up in March. It was really cool to see my work on a big piece of paper that was orange.


Mmmmm

I thought about having a certain order to this post. You know, something sensible like chronological or importance or something like that, but I'm too cool for that.  For the yearly Thanks Giving party where everyone makes food I made a sweet potato casserole and it was delicious. We also played pin the feather on the turkey and I almost won the sexiest science-themed Christmas ornament to ever exist, but I got second place to one of the peeps from the enemy lab (But not really. We love them). We had to do a pin-off round in order to determine the winner and I lost by a few inches.  A pin the tip on the pipette game was also prepared, but the turkey antics lasted a bit long. We'll save it for next year.

Random events in not as much detail as I would like, but it happens. I'm definitely looking forward to 2014 and becoming a better scientist and person.

P.S. I forgot about the girls and cars parts. My car was crushed by a tree (it happens) so I got a new one and its name is Enris. It's not as cool as my baby Felicity that was brutally murdered by a tree, but she's a classy gal. I have a recent girlfriend and she's nice and makes me food. That about covers it.