Real Life

Not really real, though, cuz I still cohabitate with my momz. I've been thinking about posting on here for weeks but just haven't gotten around to it. That stops now! This blog is coming back with a (mild) vengeance!!

So before I headed towards New York (and the lovely rooftop moment we shared) I was occupying my time at LSU, extracting snail RNA and sneaking into classes. When I got home from Chicago, I had a job interview with a chemical company called Albemarle in Baton Rouge. I got the job, and as of yesterday, finished my 3 weeks of required training. Most of what I do is general and organic chemistry lab stuff (titrations, NMR, GC, etc.), but there are some other equally uninteresting and much more dangerous things I dabble in. Basically, we get samples from all over the plant/R&D, and we test them for purities, water, or metallic content. Things like that. At first I thought it was pretty cool because the instruments are all huge and industrial and state-of-the-art, but the novelty has since worn off and the job, like most others, has devolved into the realm of the mundane.

The shitty(iest) part of it is that it's shift work. I work 12-hours, either 6 am to 6 pm or vice versa, for a few days, then switch. I also have a shift partner named Jill, who happens to be a rather brusque lesbian type character. She's alright, but I'm a little nervous for my first official shift Monday night. During the last week of training, I got some caustic on my wrist while doing a titration and had to be shipped off the medical in a golf cart. I would post a picture of the bilster, but it's just too graphic in nature.

This is a lie. I'm not posting a picture because you can't see anything, because it was one drop of 20% NaOH, and it was completely pointless for me to 1) be rushed to the nurse on a golf cart, and 2) come in early the next day for an INCIDENT INVESTIGATION. Whatever.

Other than that, I'm sending pathetic emails out to labs and working on the all mighty Statement of Purpose for my apps. I've gotten a few postive responses from USC, UColorado Boulder, Tulane, and some lukewarm ones from Connecticut and NYU so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Funding seems to be a little harder to come by at schools these days. I'm also taking the Bio GRE on Nov 13, so I'm really nervous for that, because I don't know SHIT about biology.

I'll post some sneaky cell phone shots of my lab a little later.

I can't believe you're a Korean bartender now. I'm so jealous. Tell me everything and more.


P.S.
How hilarious is the whole Erik and Lou thing? Now things are awkward, and it's all for no reason! So good.