Middle

Please ignore all of the enzymes/coenzymes/substrates of the Kreb's cycle... I like this heart. How did I do it? I'll never reveal my secret.

PS. your heart is not lopsided. When you pledge allegiance and put your hand over your "heart" it's more like you're putting it over your left ventricle (though even saying that is a stretch). Your heart is centered behind your sternum (bone between your boobies/man boobies). The left side of the heart will be slightly larger and more muscular due to the fact that that side of the heart deals with oxygenated blood, but use logic to think about it... if your heart was on the left side of the thoracic cavity your left lung would be a misshapen balloon and would be incapable of oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange. It drives me insane when people think hearts are on the left side. Just saying, as usual.

Pesticide

The main purpose of going to my GI lab is to fail at research and get made fun of by my grad student. It's kind of fun though...

J: "Did you eat?"

M: "Yeah I did. Eating is good. You should try it sometime."

Update about my interviews: Everything is progressing well... evil laughter.

Update on my stomach: Still as flabby as ever. Actually, as surprising as it may seem I've been overexerting myself on weekends by running and biking. I'm kind of shocked that the outline of my two lopsided abs has come back. It is almost bikini season... not that I go around biking in my bikini like some ridiculous people here, but you never know. Not to mention gas is now $4.35?! Sigh. If I could bike everywhere and not be late I would just do it. 

If you italicize a period does it slant?

MRSA

Has anyone ever seen those giant stuffed animal microbes? I think they're so cute. I like cavity (for obvious reasons) and cholera. What I find amusing is the fact that they're pretty dang accurate. Their algae even has a heterocyst. Good stuff. Okay, I'm probably the only person that finds these things amusing. I wish I had a bunch of money to blow, so I could spend it on useless things to entertain myself. Instead, I'm paying for bills and insurance. Psh, who needs insurance... I say that, but I almost got hit by a car today. The light was green for me to walk, but the car ZOOMED and turned right. I had to jump back. If I wasn't paying attention I would be a rotting afterthought on the side of the road right now. This is a dangerous world we live in.

Primavera

It was so sunny and warm today it made me happy. I love spring. LOVE. You know what someone told me though? They said that people tend to like the season that's associated with their birthdays. I don't really think that's true. I would like Spring regardless. Winter is too cold, Summer is too hot, and the beginning of Fall is okay, but it has a tendency of being very... gray. Spring is... well, perfect. The only thing that's wrong with Spring is the fact that I'm constantly reminded that I need to redevelop my abs (or.. semi-abs). When I was outside today I realized that sooner or later I'm going to have to stop wearing these large articles of clothing. Sigh. Winter makes me so lazy. I haven't exercised in forever. Blub blub blub.

So... I have a question. How do you know when you like someone? Don't jump to conclusions. I'm just asking. Geez...

The future

G: "Do you knowJeremy Lin? He is on the news a lot here."
J: "YES! I'm going to marry him! Do you approve?"
G: "But he didn't approve of you yet.."
J: "That's okay, small details don't matter"
G: "Go study and get into medical school you useless grandchild!"

G: "I'm planning on giving you my house!"
J: "What?! What about my aunt (that lives in Taiwan)?"
G: "Well she's single..."
J: "Whoohoo!"
G: "Only if you get into medical school"

Do you see where my life is heading? Sigh. SIGH. -__- Oh, that was my grandma if you haven't figured it out yet.

Beans

Dear Starbucks workers,

Your coffee is pretty decent (when it's not burnt). However, yesterday I received a very unpleasant surprise. I almost choked and died on the remnants of your very large beans. In the future, please learn how to properly grind your beans. Either that or only serve the coffee on the top. Thanks.

From an improperly ground bean hater.

Odwalla

I shouldn't be online shopping, but sometimes it's kind of difficult to control my wandering eyes. I guess I would consider this online window shopping. Anyway, I hate it when websites mislabel things or mislead you into thinking something is for sale when it's actually not. A while ago I was looking at this really cute shirt and I wanted to get it. When I clicked add to bag it was actually the ugly shorts that were on sale and not the top at all. Way to deceive me. Then I went on a rampage to search for the top within the store and it wasn't even there. Just saying...

Does anyone still keep in touch with teachers? Is it weird to do so? I only ask this because recently a few of my high school teachers have added me as friends on Facebook. Should I accept? I like them, but it's kind of weird if they can look at my profile pictures. As most of you know, I don't add people because of that chola incident where some crazy person who I thought was my Elementary school friend turned out to be some random girl that got mad at me. Besides, I think it's common knowledge that all profiles pictures are ubiquitously ambiguous. In fact, some people look so dang sexy on Facebook, but when you see them in real life the accurate response is... "...Oh..." 

M: "I haven't shaved my legs in a long time..."

J: "Meh. It's Winter... me too." raises pant leg

M: "That's you not shaving?!! That's what my legs look like when I shave!!!"

J: "Ha. Natural Asian hairless-ness I guess" :)

I may be related to the naked mole rat. 

INF-γ

What the freak. I'm getting allergic reactions to tap water. That's how crappy the water here is. I'm not even drinking it, I'm only showering--and for 8 minutes at that. Sigh. I'm probably now considered either diseased or immunocompromised. I haven't gotten sick in four years... something big is bound to happen soon.

I need to give you guys a mini music update.

Rap: Tyga - Rack City (I find it funny for some odd reason--fast forward)
Alternative: Eric Hutchinson - OK, it's alright with me
Pop: 林依晨 - Come To Me

Rock, paper

When I was young I was always told not to run around with dangerous objects in my hands (i.e. fork, knife, scissors). Nowadays that's not even possible because the only place I ever "run" to is my car if I'm running late and even then it can be more adequately defined as a fast wobble. Anyway, I bring this up because I always hold my chopsticks in my mouth and bring my coffee into my room and I'm really afraid that one day I'm going to trip on something, fall, and then the chopsticks will go through my throat and out the back of my neck. Grotesque I know, but given my constant state of delirium, this is a highly feasible scenario.

I don't think anyone ever understands the significance of my titles. I usually take a lot of time to make sure that there is a deeper meaning behind them. I'm so misunderstood. :( For example, yesterday I talked about Westerns. West correlates with the East which means orient in latin. In the old Eastern world they used to position their maps in such a fashion that East would be pointing upwards (though now we do this with North pointing upwards) to "orient" them the right way, which is also why some ancient temples were built with entrances that would face the East. Now you know.

Interview today! Wish me luck! I'm super excited.

Orient

Ohh yeah. Is this not the most beautiful Western you've ever seen in your life? 15 wells of amazing-ness. Perfectly balanced.

Man, we ran four gels yesterday. Phew. They're super tedious, but kind of fun at the same time. I don't know, I'm probably just a lab dweeb. You would assume that because I have an iPhone I play games on it all the time... Wrong. I just have a bunch of lab protocols saved on there. Hey, you never know when you're going to need to use enhanced chemiluminescence in real life.

我發現現在有男女朋友的人以後夢想大概不會得逞。其實他們有可能祖先就沒有夢想。。。我會有這樣的想法是因為我所看到在談戀愛的人不但成績差，生命也沒道路。是什麼引起的呢？或許是他們本身不‘ 隽’，更何況所有時間浪費在愛情關係上。我覺得其他事比較要緊。凡有智能的人大概會同樣吧。反正我們以後在找伴～ eHarmony ftw! lol. 哦，我不是說在交往的人都不及格...但卻是一大部份。But feel free to prove me wrong. :)

Yee

I GOT AN INTERVIEW. I'm so excited. I only started applying last week and I already got an interview. Wow wow wow. I thought that they wouldn't contact me until March or April since it's for summer, but wow. I'm so happy. The problem is... there's only one open position... SO. Wish me luck. Though at the same time... I haven't heard back from other people, so I don't really want to accept anything at the moment, but it never hurts to interview. Is it weird that I actually like interviews? They're kind of fun. Anyway, I've been applying to a myriad of biochemical companies, so that I can get some legit workforce/industry experience "under my belt" (I hate that saying) and from the looks of it I will be developing drugs this summer. That and researching of course.

Something to think about... What is success? Would you consider yourself successful if you are earning a lot of money and you have a stable job, but you hate it and you're unhappy all the time? What if you're really happy, but you're so poor that you have to mooch off of your parents at the age of 53? I don't know... it's kind of hard to define. Of course ideally everyone would be happy and they would have stable income, but I find that more often than not that's not the case.

If I was earning a lot of money I would buy things to force myself to be happy. How about that? Hah.

True

J: "I hate winter I feel like I'm getting fatter and fatter... I think my boobs are growing..."
H: "No..."
J: "No what?"
H: "No to the second part"
J: -___-

Whatever yo. I don't like boobs anyway.

More please

It bothers me when people are rude to the people that work in food service. Sure, they're there to earn money and thus, they need to serve you, but that doesn't mean that you have to treat them like slaves. I suppose it would be understandable if they themselves were rude grumpy people, but you don't encounter that often (though I'll admit sometimes I want to yell out... DON'T BE SO STINGY WITH THE  GUACAMOLE... I try my best to maintain composure). I think out of all the servers my favorite people are the baristas at Starbucks. Even at 5:00am they're energetic and pleasant. I went to Starbucks yesterday and the lady looked at me and said...

Barista: "Wow is it that cold out there?"
Me: "Umm.. I am very cold haha."
- I then waited for my order -
x: "Jackie, who is this for?"
Barista: "It's for that lady over there dressed like an eskimo"

LOL. Funny funny.

Also, look at this segment of an email my TA sent out. I don't know why I find this so funny. For some reason the prolonged "Noooo" makes me laugh. Probably because I can imagine her saying this in real life. I love my TA.

I was in my microbiology lab yesterday and pipetting like a mad-woman (i.e. at rapid speeds) and this girl commented on it. I explained that I pretty much live in labs, so I spend on average 8 hours a day with a pipette. If I was having an affair, it would probably be with a pipette. She then said something that made me think ahh... "I can't believe you're doing so much, but you're still a happy person." That was really nice. I'm glad that people see me as a happy person. That's probably the best compliment that I've ever received.

Come to think of it, I am really happy. I'm really grateful that my life is full of such funny people because it makes mundane tasks like work and class seem less like a chore. But the way I see it is, there's really no point in doing anything unless you're willing to do it/it makes you happy right? Right.

That was a long post. Hope you're not all bored to death.

Forever alone

How true is this?! SO TRUE. SO VERY TRUE. Okay that's enough. But geez.

Ah choices

My pass time is soon, so I've been trying to figure out how to fit everything in and realized that I can't. It's just not possible. But like I said, if I quit one of my labs it shouldn't be a problem. Anyway, I always look up all of the professors for my classes on ratemyprofessors and some people give the funniest reviews...

"Given the economic climate, I think the university would be better off carving out a piece of cardboard and drawing an angry face on it, and possibly have a TA to insult the students and maybe change the powerpoint slides once in a while." 

LOL. So funny. People are really bitter. The only people that write reviews are the ones that either really liked the professor or really hated the professor, so I'm not too sure how accurate these things are. I've actually had that professor before, but for a different class. She's not that bad... or maybe it's just because I'm blinded by my love for Biochemistry. It's always fun to read though. 

Life is full of decisions. It's so difficult to know whether you're making the right one. Then after you make a decision you wonder what would have happened if you picked the alternative, but there's no turning back.

Oh my gosh... Jeremy Lin. Taiwan pride. :)

BEeautiful

This is what happens when you have class at 8:00pm. So sleepy. Can anyone read this? The only thing I got out of that was antibody. What was kind of embarrassing was the fact that I was recording the lecture (because I was about to fall asleep) and I happened to be sitting in the first row, but I must have dozed off and my recorder fell onto the ground with a 'thunk'. I didn't want to get up to pick it up because 1. I didn't want to disrupt the class and 2. I was so freaking lazy (what else is new). Well, the professor pretty much stopped in the middle of the lecture, walked up to me, picked up my recorder and handed it to me. Super embarrassing, but that was really sweet. He's one of those rare professors that actually cares about students. Exhibit A: he knows my name! Gasp!

So blah

I hope I will be forgiven for once again neglecting my blog (and also for not responding to messages... sorry). For one, I have been a bee lately and secondly, nothing interesting has gone on in my life. As a matter of fact, the most exciting thing that has happened to me is... I bought keyboard stickers recently. That's about it.

I think I need to recharge.

One of the girls in my final project group got drunk and couldn't meet up with us this weekend. Hooray, this crap is worth 25% of my grade. This is precisely why you can never count on other people to get work done with the precision and quality that it would encompass if you were to have done it yourself. Thank goodness my lab partner dropped Microbiology. I do double the work, have no stress, and still manage to get out early. Win.

I feel so defeated. But, I'm glad I could talk things through with you because I think I know what I need to do now. BLAH I'M SO GLAD. The world needs more people like 김한솔<3

やはり無理です。全然わからない。寂しいかっただから。私わかわいそだね？変じゃない -_-

Hire me

My housemate was studying for genetics the other day and since I hated that class I thought I would have some fun.

J: "So if my Grandma has Cystic Fibrosis and my mom also has CF then..."

M: "Then you're going to need to calculate your probabilities by yourself because I can't do this anymore"

LOL. Did I ever mention that I have the best housemate ever? We compliment each other well. She is a crazy trash lady and vacuum person while I'm an OCD toilet cleaner and hard surface wiper.

After much debate I have finally decided to quit one of my labs. Not because I can't handle it, but because I have spent 8 months and countless hours in that lab only to find out that it is useless, we are getting nowhere, I am learning nothing, and I don't even get paid. That being said, timing is key. I don't know when I should quit and in the meantime I would like to try and find myself another lab... preferably a large one that gets published all the time -_-, but the problem with that is I don't think I would be able to start there unless I quit first because 4 labs is a bit much. I'm a masochist, but I'm not suicidal. Well... haha. Anyway, this is a chicken and the egg problem for sure.

Today is... x_x we'll see how today goes. Good luck to all the midterm takers out there~

I know right?

Guys can be so -_-.

V: "It must be easy being a girl."

J: "...What makes you say that?"

V: "Because if you're hot, guys will just hire you."

J: "What?! That's not true! What about ugly girls then?"

V: "They can bring other hot girl friends"

J: "It's not like they can bring them to the interview..."

V: "Anyway... you were hired here..."

J: "BECAUSE I HAVE A BRAIN"

V: "Okay, okay!"

Geez. I don't even know if I should be flattered or angry. How frustrating. 

I got a package from my lover! Of course I'm never home, so I'm going to have to pick it up at the post office today. Hopefully I can get out of lab earlier, but to tell you the truth I don't really mind lab because my partner dropped the class and so I get to do everything by myself. It's kind of nice not having to collaborate with people as you usually have to do in research because you can't physically be there all the time. Idiots tend to mess everything up and you have to retest again and again--like yesterday when my Western failed = 4 days wasted = depression. But, on the plus side, I parked in a two hour parking spot for four hours and didn't get a ticket. Hooray!

It's only during midterms and finals that I wonder why I do this to myself. Sleeping at 1 and waking up at 2 so that I can study for four hours is making me want to die. Also, I don't think spontaneously breaking out in a rash for an hour is normal. 

Waiting

It took me an hour to get to school today. By an hour I mean I had to drive around the parking lot and stalk people for an hour in order to get a spot... Which happened after my first class ended. Fml. I almost gave up and went to Sacramento, but just as I was about to rip my clothes in half someone came out.

People are so mean... I got parking spots stolen from me twice -_- maybe I need to be more aggressive.