Today we are having the first real snow storm of the season here in Boston. Predicted to start at 10am the snow actually came around 1pm. For about 3 hours now strong winds have been blowing snow past my window, completely eliminating visibility of downtown Boston. Although I am looking forward to walking home in the snow, seeing as how I have warm waterproof boots and a long down jacket with a great hood, I think I will wait until the winds subsides a little before venturing out into the cold.
Nights like this, I like to curl up with a good book (currently reading Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami) or watch a feel-good type of movie. I guess I'll have to see if the video rental place is still open when I make it back to Somerville. With only a week 'tll Christmas I find myself in a state of restless excitement. I am eagerly and somewhat impatiently looking forward to the coming vacation while at the same time thinking of all the things I still need to finish before I leave. For tonight, though, I think I'll just relax with a movie/book (once I make it home through the snow!)
Friday, December 19, 2008
Snow
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
waiting
One thing that I constantly have to work on is staying present and existing in each moment. It's very natural for me to get lost in thoughts or daydreams; sometimes it's a very convenient escape from dealing with what is in front of me. So to get anything done, I constantly have to remind myself to be present. It is the same when waiting for something to happen. Life is punctuated by a series of pre-planned events: deadlines, vacations, special occasions. It is easy and natural to become absorbed in planning for and anticipating these events.
For me, I find that I can become so absorbed with future events that I lose sight of the present, what's going on here and now. Life doesn't stop in between events, I know that, but I often manage to forget. The worst is when the expected doesn't happen. I feel lost. What should I do? go on as if nothing was supposed to happen? try to figure out what prevented events from happening as planned? I usually end up obsessing over such things and find myself in a state of suspended animation: unable to accomplish anything until the issue is resolved, or the day ends. This is A WASTE OF TIME. I am constantly frustrated with my self for being this way. Therefore a long (long!) distance relationship with a man who lives in a place with a fourteen hour time difference often leaves me exhausted and frustrated. I expect to talk with him, at a certain time, but if he is not answering, I find myself at a loss. Is he just busy? Is he going to become available very soon? Should I just wait until we can talk? Sadly, I'll admit that I do wait and the result is that I feel anxious and frustrated. I know its all in my head and that it will be fine when we actually do get to talk; I just really don't like waiting!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Stress
I'm the kind of person that is very prone to stress. I think too much. I anticipate trouble, so if I have a deadline, or really any kind of upcoming event (travel, exam, dentist appointment) I tend to get stressed out.
The thing is I know that I'll be doing that, but so far I haven't figured out a way to neutralize the stress. The stress often makes me feel trapped and I end up not preparing as well as I could, because I waste a good amount of time being paralyzed by stress. Why is this relevant? Next week I have a meeting with my thesis advisory committee. Basically it is a group of three faculty members that I meet with periodically and they advise me on how to proceed in my research. This is really for my benefit, but I always get stressed out thinking that I should have done more, and that now is really not a good time to have this meeting. However, afterwards, I always find these meetings helpful. I just wish I didn't stress out as much before hand and prepared better. I find that when I feel stress, I suddenly realize all the things I'm interested in/rather be doing other than the work that is causing the stress. In addition, I have a midterm in the Japanese class I'm taking on the same day! I don't think I'll have a very relaxing Thanksgiving, but on the plus side, it will all be over with in just over a week :)
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Rest in Peace, Michael Crichton
This morning starts with sad news. Author Michael Crichton has died of cancer at age 66. (link)
Michael Crichton is the author of one of my favorite books, Jurassic Park. Although obviously fiction, this book showed me the potential of science and is one of the reasons I became interested in genetics.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween!
I came to the US when I was ten years old. Up until that point I have never heard of Halloween, as we didn't have this holiday in Russia. Even having lived in the US for a few months I had no idea what this holiday was all about, so when our school organized a Halloween festival, I just thought it was something to do with fall and harvest. My whole family went to this festival, and it was here that I first encountered a haunted house. The school had set up the trailer normally serving the function of a gym, as a haunted house. I asked my dad what a haunted house was, he didn't really know and translated it as a 'hunter's house'. Envisioning it to be like a comfortable log cabin with moose heads and a fireplace, my sister (13) and my brother (4) ventured inside the 'hunter's house'. My sister was in the front, carrying my brother, and I followed behind. Inside it was dim with spooky sounds, fake blood, severed limbs, and cobwebs. We were confused, but we saw that it was organized like a winding corridor, so we moved forward. The first time someone dressed in a costume jumped out at us I shut my eyes and started screaming. My brother started screaming too. My sister kept moving forward, but pretty soon we were all screaming 'we want to get out of here' in Russian. We didn't know why people were trying to scare us, we just wanted to get out. I didn't open my eyes until we were outside. Once we got out we started crying and it took some time for us to calm down. I don't think we stayed at the festival much longer after that. So my first Halloween was traumatic. We didn't know about trick-or-treating at the time so we didn't even get candy that first year. In subsequent years I grew to like Halloween. It was fun to make costumes and go around asking for candy. I think I still went trick-or-treating in highschool figuring I missed out all those years I was in Russia. Now I associate Halloween with Ray Bradbury books. He is my favorite author, and he is actually the first author whose books I read in English on my own. The way he writes you could almost see, smell and hear the events he is describing. Something wicked this way comes. is a great Halloween read. Another favorite is From the Dust Returned So tonight I won't be going trick-or-treating, and I will probably get home too late to pass out candy. But I'll probably end my day with Ray Bradbury.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Actions have consequences
This seems fairly obvious. If you leave home late you will be late to class. If you make an inquiry you will receive and answer. If you take a step forward you will see what is around the corner; conversely if you take no action you will remain stationary.
Sometimes the consequences are predicted and expected, other times they cause surprise. Sometimes the acticipation of a certain outcome prevents action or conversely the desire for a certain outcome drives action, but in both cases the outcome is not guaranteed to be as expected and sometimes leads to surprising and unexpected revelations. There are also those times when you do something just to make anything happen, because inaction can no longer be tolerated.
Monday, October 20, 2008
A lovesickness gene? and find out how toxic your make up is
Lovesick voles as a model for the human condition? What's more the result of this research seems to be a drug to cure the pain of separation. Read the story here.
Also, I read about an interesting resource called Skin Deep. It is a searchable database containing information of the safety of ingredients in various beauty products, from shampoos to lipstick. It is interesting to find out all the potential hazards that the impossible-to-pronounce ingredients of the bottles pose to my health, but a criticism that I have of this database is that is doesn't mention what doses elicit the harmful effects described.
