Where did the 12 days go?

Holy crap has it been a long time since I’ve posted anything!

To make a long 12 days very short, the following have happened:

  1. Anna’s wedding shower (on April 27th, but I still haven’t posted about it)
  2. My PhD defense (on May 3rd, but I also still haven’t posted about this!)
  3. Ian’s and Samia’s defenses (May 13th and 15th — which I largely blame for my absence)
  4. Finishing and officially submitting the final draft of my thesis : Gene expression control and antimicrobial peptide production by haute couture bacteria.
  5. Drinking heavily 11/16 days/evenings since my defense

In addition, the following items have most certainly NOT happened:

  1. Regular work outs
  2. Healthy eating
  3. Enough sleep
  4. Proper preparations for moving half way across the country

No guarantees of course, but over the next few days I’ll try to catch all 4 of you up on what has been going on in more detail. :-)

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Running club trot!

Today was a much different run than yesterday. I had friends to hang with and a bit more rational frame of mind. (Never mind the quads and hammies made entirely of rubber bands or the back muscles that have nearly halved in length over night.) We went out for a comfy chatty shake out (that was still probably more work than it should have been, but again, nevermind).

5/07/13 work out

3.76 miles

40.5 min

75 F, still sunny, still

Threads:   Champion tank, Nike running skirt and bright green Pro Compression marathon socks (naked again :-)

Treads: Mizuno Wave Creation 11

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Commencement!

There is about to be a recurring theme with the way I begin my posts…

HOLY SHIT HAS IT BEEN BUSY!! 

Thus, I have a lot to write about and you, consequently will have a lot to bore yourself to sleep read about! Shall we start from the top? I think so.

So two weekends ago was crazy freaking busy. First, I had my commencement on Friday afternoon and then my sisters bridal shower on the following Saturday.

Commencement day began with an overly indulgent (but sufficiently justified of course) breakfast at the Wild Roast Cafe in the St. Anthony Main neighborhood. I ordered the veggie strata

Veggie Strata

2nd place Veggie Strata

which sadly came in a distant second to my partner in crime’s Classic Benedict with crab cake.

1st place Classic Benedict

1st place Classic Benedict

This was not easy for me to take as I am usually the queen of ordering awesome food.

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Taken while still blissfully ignorant about the deliciousness of my VS.

Thankfully though, the more I consumed of my very gracious friend’s food the better I felt about the situation.

Taken while still blissfully ignorant about the amount of his brunch I was about to consume.

Taken while still blissfully ignorant about the amount of his brunch I was about to consume.

Next it was on to commencement with some awesome friends and HOT, complicated robes and hoods. Even in MN we were roasting alive! (Not that you can gather that from the washed out picture or anything…)

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Dr. T, Dr. MA

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Dr. SI, Dr. T

The ceremony was only 3.5 hrs long and about half way through we got to

hooding 1

get hooded…

hooding 2

…successfully…

hand shake

…shake hands with our mouths hanging open…

pose 2

…and take awkwardly posed pictures (yet still ensuring that our teal nail polish is visible…WINNING!!)

Our adviser Dr. YK hooded both Dr. K and I so we had to take more pictures with him together after the ceremony was finished.

Dr.K, Dr.T, Dr.YK

Dr.K, Dr.T, Dr.YK

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Dr. T, Dr. YK

And then we went back to our department and wrangled up people for a few more photo ops in front of our building.

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Dr. MM, Dr. MA, Dr. T

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Dr. J, Maria, Dr. T, Dr. K, Katie, Brittany

Finally we wound down the evening with some awesome eats at the Birdhouse  in Minneapolis.

Over all it was a SUPER fun day and a perfect way to close things up with friends and classmates as we all finish up and head off on our next adventures. However, I would not recommend back-to-backing commencement activities with sister’s bridal shower activities. Sister Anna’s bridal shower was scheduled to begin t-minus 12 hours after returning home from commencement celebrations. This is a very short amount of time to recover from said previous festivities and prepare for upcoming events. However, it is also a very long time to have to deal with perpetual shit-on-fan-contact. Stay tuned! :-)

What was your commencement ceremony like? How did you celebrate? Was it in the midst of a busy time of year?

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Trying to get back on the wagon trot

After not being out in almost a month (shameful look) and it hitting 70F today (FINALLY) I had to get out for a run.

Long story sort, I started out way too fast (think 7:30 miles for Dr. Out of Shape), blew out my lungs, tired out my legs and over heated by mile 3. Oh well, at least I was running!

The only part of this that is of actual concern is the lungs. Now of course my fat ass shouldn’t have been going that fast and my lungs are always the first to go, but this felt like the lingerings of my lung issues acquired at the lovely Mt. Kilimanjaro activity that I recently participated in. After a few runs last month I was feeling much better. Especially after another month I was expecting to be a-okay. I obviously still need to ease back into things rather than diving head first with wreck-less abandon. Who would have thought!! :-/ Hopefully that (apparently) rational approach will solve the problem over the next few days/weeks.

5/06/13 work out

5.19 miles

55 min

70 F, sunny, still

Threads:   Champion tank, Nike running skirt and bright green Pro Compression marathon socks (i.e. I was practically naked!!)

Treads: Mizuno Wave Creation 11

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What a week!

Holy god it has been a busy week! I guess commencement + bridal shower + thesis defense will do that to a person. Good thing I have two helpers around to make sure everything gets done properly.

The first very important order of business was to get my nails did (for all of the aforementioned activities…a very responsible way to prepare) and then test them out with a round of patty-cake with Penny. All 10 fingers passed.

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P.S. KCN nails in Minneapolis is awesome. Its owned and operated by 3 little Asian ladies (duh), in a part of town that’s just the right amount of hood, and for $13 bucks these babies will be able to play more patty-cake than I even want to think about.

Next we went shopping at Costco for food for Anna’s bridal shower on Saturday.

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Upon returning home there was a full inspection of course.

SAMSUNGSomeone is bound and determined to chew her way through 4 pineapple tops in 2.5 days. That’s 1.6 pineapple tops a day Penny nameless individual! Correcting for our (slight) differences in weight, that’d be like me eating 16 pineapple tops a day! Why am I still talking about this?

Next we did some dishes:

Now this is a crappy picture, but the water is ON and she is right in the stream. What can I say? I teach my dishwashers to be hearty!

Now this is a crappy picture, but the water is ON and she is right in the stream. What can I say? I teach my dishwashers to be hearty!

And rested:

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(Let the record reflect on who is slaving way in the sink and who is snoozing on the ottoman.) Just sayin’. (This be how yo learn a talk when yo get’n yo nails did).

Finally, we pulled ourselves together this morning. When we realized that it was above 30F for the morning commute we dusted and de-furred Senor Bianchi, bundled up and took the first ride of the summer in to work. :-)

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The fact that the glasses (allegedly) make me look like a Jedi pilot is not my fault. They are stolen, and the individual that I acquired them from has yet to realize that they have gone missing. Yes, this makes the Jedi factor totally not my fault.

Even though it’s only 4 miles to work I totally have to wear biking clothes for the ride and change once I get there, regardless of the weather. A) I sweat a lot (attractive, I know…I try) and B) my pants are too tight to bike in and I refuse to skip dessert.

Today’s ensemble (32F on the way in and 50F on the way back, sunny and calm for both): fleece lined compression tights from Target last year, Chicago marathon tshirt, Mountain Hardwear super power hoody, shorty socks, Pearl Izumi select MTBs from a million years ago Pearl Izumi Gel FF gloves (also from a million years ago) and stolen sunglasses.

The morning was chilly and the afternoon was warm but good god I’ll take it! :-)

Unfortunately, the next few days are going to be too busy to get back out again for a while. :-(  Fortunately, I will be busy doing some pretty fun shit…

  1. Commencement is tomorrow. Cross your fingers that I don’t fall on my face when I walk across the stage (I don’t want any injuries that will hamper pineapple cutting)! 
  2. Anna’s bridal shower is on Saturday. Thank god it’s supposed to be 70F on Saturday! Now my fingers and toes are all still crossed of course (hence the aforementioned concern about falling on my face) but I’m a shit load less worried than I was a week ago!
  3. My thesis defense (baring a catastrophe) is on Friday, May 3rd!!!

I will return to do justice to each of these three items as they happen/I freak out about them happening.

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Weekend fun

You will all be relieved to know that with some advise from my fearless leader (and a witty yet relatively sober idea from my mama the night before) I was indeed able to resolve my thesis title dilemma on Friday. The damned things documents were all bound and delivered by early afternoon, in plenty of time to go make a series of bad decisions at Round Table (I.e. happy hour…and bad decisions = bottles of wine :-)

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Step 1/2 to finally blow outa this joint is now complete! Now I am (quite obviously) thrilled to be finishing up and moving on to new things, but it is also kind of hard to believe that the days are really numbered now. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ll eat a basket of Sally’s cheese curds for dinner. Well, maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself just yet…

Drinks at the department happy hour, then more drinks at Sally’s and the off to a party with the Greeks (my friends from the fiscally irresponsible Mediterranean country, not frat boys) rounded out the evening and into wee hours of Saturday morning (and the resulting hangover into the latter part of Saturday afternoon….but never mind). I call bull shit on the growing wiser with age business.

Anyway, 3 delicious meals out with friends, a trip to Party City, a 2 hour nap and the Bourn series (thank you Matt Damon ) has rounded out a lovely post-thesis submission celebratory/lazy weekend. Hopefully I can pull myself together for a productive week before the big 2 for 1 weekend in 5 days – commencement + sister Anna’s bridal shower.

In the mean time, check this out…

…a sweet music video from a local Minneapolis group…

Can you tell who I’m related to?

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Friday

Good morning Friday, April 19th.

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This week has been crazy.

First, there was Monday. Boston. That really needs no further explanation.

Next, I am in the final stretch of preparing my thesis and have essentially had my ass continuously glued to my desk chair for the last three days. (Do yourself a favor and don’t start thinking of the logistics of that.) I had hoped a submit my draft to my committee last Friday, but that has long since come and gone. Then, the goal was Monday. Same sad story. Then it was “mid-week.” Now it is Friday. The good news is that it is finally written and printed and ready to go for binding and then to committee members by the end of the morning. The bad news is that with all that being said, I have no idea what the title should be! I was was assuming that things would all just come together (which for the most part they have) and a logical title would present itself at some point in the process. It has not. The mission for last night was to dream up something clever and witty that is also still relevant to 1) the design, construction and characterization of synthetic transcription regulators for E. coli and 2) engineering Lactic Acid Bacteria to inducibly express antimicrobial peptides with activity against Gram-negative bacteria, such that they my be an alternative to the current antibiotic administration in agriculture.

Any great ideas?

I do have a number half assed (and even a few 3/4 assed) ideas. I suppose now it’s time to resort to asking my adviser for advise (imagine that) and just get this stack off tree product off of my desk.

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