The first week is over, but the semester has just begun! I know it's a bit premature, but: I'm still VERY EXCITED for school! However, so far, nothing too exciting to report. This weekend: do assigned reading and maybe get ahead, request an official transcript from SJSU to transfer graduate credits to my current program, and finally send e-mails to prospective thesis advisors about the possibility of starting next semester.

Plan for next semester: take only one or two courses (since I'll be done with more than half of my graduation requirements), teach a class, and get started on research. I guess that's when grad school will REALLY get started!!!

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Some stupid bitch in an SUV nearly ran me over while I was crossing the street on the way home.

Public service announcement: If you're trying to make a legal right turn at a red light, remember that you are required to make a full and complete stop before doing so.

Also: If you're going to be that stupid, tie your fucking tubes. There's no reason why humanity should further suffer anyone who swims in the shallow end of the gene pool.

Thank you.

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The thing about not living in a single family home that has been driving me up the wall is the fact that we're given mailboxes. Okay, not such a big deal, right? Well, not if you're expecting a package! You have to actually physically be in your apartment to receive a package, otherwise you may have to pick it up from the post-office! I miss having a front porch to leave large packages on. These are the small things that you end up missing (along with, say, having a backyard to do gardening in) and that you don't quite fully appreciate until you've gone away.

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GENUINELY EXCITED AND GEEKED THE FUCK OUT FOR TODAY!!!

Yay, molecular biology! Update regarding first impressions of the two classes I have today forthcoming in [EDIT] form.

EDIT #1: I got home about an hour ago from my first class, which was Advanced Biochemistry, Cell, and Molecular Biology (abbreviated BCMB III, since is technically the third class in a series). Seems like it's going to okay. There are a few topics in there that I already covered in my Cell Biology class at Pomona (probably in much greater detail as well), and I'm a little shocked at the state of undergraduate education because this class is classified as an advanced upper div/graduate course and the professor said: "We're going to do something in this class that may be completely new to a lot of you. We're going to start to read the primary literature..." Start? Really? Oh, man. Now I know I got my money's worth at Pomona, because we started doing that super early. I always kinda thought most university's departments were run the same way. I guess that means I have a distinct advantage in the class, so that's always a good sign. Plus, we're only reading one paper a week. In the Cell Biology course at Pomona, we read probably anywhere from 3-5 papers a week, if not more sometimes. I don't want to say it's going to be a cake-walk (because experience has taught me never to assume anything), but at least this gives me a little bit of an indication that things should be manageable for this class.

EDIT #2: Not related to any of my classes at all so far, but I think the weatherman is lying. There is no way in hell it is only 76 degrees because I was sweating like no one's business from the transit center to the classroom and back again. Embarrassing and gross.

Anyway. The other class for today: Physiology in Human Systems. I'm more worried about this class than the other one because of my limited knowledge of the human body. My practical physiology experience is as follows: grew up with access to physiology books because my mother is a nurse, a brief physiology module in honors biology in high school, and some physiology in my introductory cell and molecular biology course at Pomona which, by the way, I totally slept through or ditched most of the time. So, my knowledge on the subject is basically pieced together from what I remember from those medical books, the stuff I remember from nearly a decade ago, and whatever I actually sat through at the Pomona course half a decade ago. So far, SO not good. That having been said, I think the challenge will be learning each of the systems and how they interact with each other. The actual biochemical mechanisms by which they interact should be easy because I've got what I feel is a decent grasp on the actual molecular-level science.

An aside: Course crashers should NOT have the opportunity to sit down in a chair before all the registered students arrive. I got there maybe a minute or two early and ALL THE CHAIRS WERE FULL because of the insane number of crashers. If I were running the class, I'd make all of the crashers stand up until all the on-time registered students find seats and then--and only then--allow them to take any empty ones. It was ridiculous that I had to sit on the floor when I was on the official class roster.

Ugh, I need a fucking shower.

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It lived up to its name for a while: I vacuumed the floors, dusted the shelves and tables, ran the dishwasher, did the laundry, went grocery shopping, and cleaned the bathroom (by far the WORST chore EVER). It's time to take a break and enjoy the ST:TNG marathon on SciFi (nerd alert!).

I think tonight I'm going to experiment with making lomo saltado. I'm in the mood for something different, and I'm tired of cooking European-inspired or Filipino food, so Peruvian cuisine seems like a good place to start. I bought everything I need (except maybe cumin--damn that spice for slipping my mind!) so it should be fun trying to make something new. To be fair, lomo saltado is Chinese-inspired, so maybe it's not such a big departure from what I cook normally, but it is my first real foray into South American food so it will still be fun.

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I will admit it: sometimes, I am ashamed of, and angry about, being Filipino. There's something about this culture of familial one-up-manship that makes parents super-inclined to lie about embellish stories about their children. It's so fucking stupid, and it means that I am placed in an awkward position where I have to keep up the charade for them. Godfuckingdammit. As if being the first person in my family EVER to go to graduate school isn't good enough for them, or difficult enough for me... FUCK.

And I can't even have a conversation with my mom about it because she just changes the topic when I get upset that she's making everything so much more difficult than it has to be. Like I fucking NEED to embellish my achievements to my family that in comparison has done FUCKALL (which, in all honesty, may not be their own faults, but STILL).

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So I'm spread out on the living room floor, watching 80 hours of 80's music videos on VH1 Classic, when I hear some thumping. I enter my bedroom and it sounds like it's coming from the unit directly above me. Bass? No, it was too irregular for that. I could only think of one thing.

So I stood there, trying to confirm it--maybe some other noises would travel through the ceiling? Well, not more than a minute later, everything stopped.

Oops. Guess someone got a little carried away there.

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I am an ardent fan of the scent of rain. As unromantic as it is to acknowledge that the smell before rain is actually the release of bacterial spores upon contact with long-awaited water, there is something mystical about that smell that relaxes me to no end. It's the sort of comfort akin to post-orgasmic bliss: the post-coital remnants of the water intermingling with the earth.

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