So the way your microwave works is to speed around electrons in a magnetic field so that they give off photons (i.e. electromagnetic energy). The frequency at which the photons travel is in the microwave range, which is why it is called a microwave. They tune the frequency very carefully so that it matches a prominent energy absorption of the water molecule. So basically your microwave heats up all the water inside your food, but not actually the food itself. The hot water molecules do that. Instead of letting the heat slowly seep through your food from the outside in, all parts of the food get cooked at once! That's why adding some water to your rice or vegetables helps do the job.

Back in the 70s, during the last time that everyone was freaking out about energy issues, some people decided that it would be a great idea to heat peoples' houses using microwave technology. Think about how much energy we would save if instead of heating all the molecules in the entire house, we just heated the molecules inside the people in the house, who are ~70% water! Brilliant!

Well, it turns out that among other things, microwave radiation is very bad for your eyeballs, which are a huge percentage water and which don't have very good schemes for getting rid of excess heat. So microwave heating can unfortunately make you go blind. After all, cooking yourself from the inside isn't exactly what God had in mind when he retrofitted your body for warm-bloodedness.

My professor: "One time I was able to experience microwave heating myself-- they gave me a pair of protective eyewear and I stuck my arm in a microwave chamber..... that was back before microwaves were bad for you."

My professor: "I don't know if I have drawn the Earth's magnetic field lines in the right direction... well if not, we can just wait a few thousand years and the field will reverse and my diagram will be right."

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me: I think everything looks so much more official when you change it from a .doc to a .pdf
Ranor: Yeah, that's why I always do that.
me: it changes my work from speculation to fact
Ranor: It's alchemy.

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Some people you know make delightful friends, but you would never trust them to be responsible, or to take care of things that are important to you. Perhaps before you marry a guy, you should ask him to babysit your pet, or take your favorite poster on an airplane trip. At the end of the experiment your pet might be lost, or in ill repair, or perhaps even on the brink of death. Your poster might be folded, or bent and torn around all the edges. A laid-back guy who is slightly careless with his own things isn't such a terrible thing, but you'd like to believe that he was capable of taking care of things you think are valuable at the level he knows you would like them to be cared for.

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Today my advisor "lassoed" me with his scarf as a way of telling me that he was ready for our meeting.

Sometimes I wonder about that guy.


Advice: Lassoing your employees is never appropriate.

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Stolen from Got_Milk's

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Edward�s expression was tense, his skin taught against his features. We were all gathered in the cool warehouse that we called home, ever since the appearance of Scott and his team of vampire slayers several weeks before. Scott wasn�t the type of person you would imagine to be a vampire slayer; his large frame and stocky build would make him look more at home coaching football. I could imagine him with a whistle around his neck, yelling at players until his face turned red. The abilities of the vampire slayers had been growing in subtlety, and Scott�s recruitment effort had been fruitful. Normally we could be invisible to them on a whim, now they seemed to be conscious of our movements.

I became aware of the presence of my sister, jinyu. She was watching Ceiji, who was sleeping on a makeshift cot inside one of the many chainlink compartments that filled the center of the warehouse. Why was she here? She was still human, and it was very dangerous for her to be here, especially around violent and unpredictable Ceiji.

�I made him Japanese,� she said reaching down suddenly and hugging him. I flinched, but Ceiji did not stir, seeming to be oblivious of her presence. "I've always liked Japanese guys." She turned to me, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

�I also made him a heroin addict.� she added. As if on cue, Ceiji woke and dragged himself from the bed to a table which held the articles of his addiction. His eyes were bright and wild, and I knew heroin wasn�t his only addiction. I knew little about Ceiji, and Edward saw me eying him with interest.

�He�s a particularly dangerous type of vampire,� Edward whispered so that only I could hear. His addiction to heroin makes normal hunting difficult for him, so he developed another approach.� He moved closer to me and took my hand in his.

�There is a type of wasp,� he continued softly, �which subdues tarantulas and lays its eggs inside them. It doesn�t kill the spider, but paralyzes it so that it will be fresh when its young finally hatch and eat their way out of its body. Every year, Ceiji collects enough human victims to feed his thirst for an entire year. He paralyzes them, keeping them in a state of partial consciousness until he wants to feed. Before they die they return to full consciousness just long enough to realize what is to come.�

He gestured to the chain link compartments, which suddenly took on a much more sinister aspect in the dim warehouse light. My dim human memories recalled violently the time before I was a vampire, and the images of a hundred victims, each face unique, impassive but for their eyes which mirrored the horror of their realization. A cold shudder ran through me. I could have been one of them if Edward hadn�t saved me.

Ceiji looked up from his needle. �I always go hunting on Earth Day,� he said, �because there are so many people out in the woods.�

Earth Day. That was coming up soon- no wonder the compartments were empty. In a hazy way I remembered my old friends from the office, remembered that they were planning to pitch in and help clean up the old highway on Earth Day. No.

Edward and I left the warehouse at a run, but a short time later we were being followed by one of the vampire slayers, Nancy, who used to be my Christian fellowship leader in another life. Before I became a creature of the darkness. If only she knew that Edward and I were trying to save the humans, not destroy them! She was new to the trade, but she was a quick learner. Behind Scott, our group feared her most for her potential. I became invisible as I ran past her. She took a quick sniff of the air and seemed to catch my scent. As I ran past she put her hand out and it ran along my cold skin. She wasn�t supposed to be able to do that. She was learning too quickly.
The chase was on. I was running from her, no longer towards my friends but in any direction, feinting, charging, circling, anything to lose her. Edward and I had split up to confuse her; I had no idea where he had gone. I circled back towards him, wishing that he could read my mind but knowing it was impossible. I was getting tired�I wasn�t supposed to get tired. Raggedly I called up to the sky. �jinyu,� I said impatiently, �There is no way she would be able to run that fast. I should have outrun her a long time ago.� From the firmament I heard an uncertain sound.

I had realized that this was one of jinyu�s stories�jinyu had created Ceiji, jinyu had brought the vampire slayers down upon us� jinyu had made Ceiji a heroin addict, and the rest of Ceiji�s twisted attributes had fallen out in a natural progression a result of this flaw. She was The Author, and it was she who was making Nancy fast enough to stay with me now. All of my problems were the result of some outgrowth of my sister's twisted imagination. But I was not only a character, in my role as jinyu's sister I was also an Editor, which is why I had been able to see her in the warehouse but no one else had reacted to her presence. In my opinion as character and Editor, this drawn-out chase scene needed some trimming. As jinyu mulled over the logic of Nancy�s inhuman speed, I kept running. I had to, there was no respite. I entered an old barn to see a machine like a cross between a mini-cooper and a ski slope groomer. I ran out again; that thing looked too slow and there was a possibility that it wouldn�t start. I ran around a pond and up a hill, all the while feeling helplessly slow despite what should have been supernatural speed. I reached another building, and inside was the exact same vehicle as before.

�You want me to drive this, don�t you?� I asked the sky. �You�re basically DMing me into this, aren�t you?� My tone was accusing. In the manner of a Dungeon Master, she had planned something for this car, and if I didn�t choose to explore it the first time around, she would just move the event so that eventually I would get there. �Well,� she reasoned, �I worked really hard on this part. It would be a huge waste if you didn�t drive it.�

Only seconds ahead of my pursuer, I jumped into the vehicle and fired it up. As I suspected, the tank-like treads of the machine made it drive very slowly. I could run faster, I thought. Nancy had started up another of the same vehicle and was chasing me again.

�Too much chasing,� I said critically, �I should have definitely gotten away by now.� There was no answer from the sky, and I became suddenly terrified that the intent wasn�t for me to escape at all. Was jinyu forcing me into bad decisions so that I would fail? That can�t be fair�wouldn�t that be out of character for me? Or maybe it was in character for me to make bad decisions�.

I realized that jinyu had made me no guarantee that I would live through this story.




Then I woke up. Clearly I'm the one with the twisted imagination.

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My two compadres had to make sure to get back to the hotel early enough tonight so that they could skype their parents and their girlfriends and get a good night's sleep. Are you kidding me? We're in FRANCE! You're going to go on freaking SKYPE so you can Skype your freaking girlfriend, whom you are seriously going to see again in like 1.5 days???

Seriously, my boyfriend is mighty lucky he doesn't exist, because I would call that guy when I got freakin' BACK to Providence. Maybe if I was going to be gone longer than a week, I would send him an email. I guess I should be happy for them because they're all obsessed-with-each-other-in-love and all that. But seriously people, seriously. Don't they run out of things to talk about? There ain't NOBODY I call with such frequency. Is there something wrong with me for that?

Whatever. I hate talking on the phone.

I told them that I didn't think I could date a guy who had all my same interests because no matter how much I liked someone, if I spent all my time with one person I would go completely INSANE! They told me that that was probably a good thing, since there were likely very few guys who did fluid mechanics, geology, french and javanese gamelan.

Touch�.

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I squinted into the low light. The worse my vision got, the more frustrating it became to wait for someone. Anyone could be him. Why there he is, bending over just so, perhaps he dropped his scarf! Or there he could be, but who is the girl he is with? There he comes, with his brother, oh but too tall, that one. I worry faintly that I won�t recognize him when the moment comes, that too long an absence has changed him or dulled his image in my head.

And there he is. So familiar, he sticks out of the crowd like a beacon, looking so American with his broad grin and complexion ruddy with overflowing happiness. An American in Paris! I run to him and give him a large hug. But he isn�t American, not completely. He scolds me laughingly and says, �That�s the American way! We are in France so we must do it the French way!� Bisou, bisou, et comment �a va? A fine tradition of France. He tells me that his brother originally had plans for tonight, then cancelled them so he could come to see me, then fell ill and couldn�t do anything at all. I express my condolences. �I just laughed at him,� he says, in the manner of brothers.

We are eating overstuffed dinner cr�pe at a small cr�perie. He calls it the Qdoba of cr�peries. He says some people know him for five months before they become suspicious that he isn�t completely American. He says usually it is when he says the word �salmon�, because he can�t help pronouncing the �l�.

�I don�t know where that makes me from, but the word has an l and I�m going to pronounce it!�

He admits that some people catch him right away. �Out of 10,000 people, how are they the ones who notice? What is it that they notice?�

�With those people, I may talk about salmon too soon,� he muses.

We think about the last time we saw each other. It wasn�t so long ago, but it was still before he even met her, his other half. The last time we were together, he didn�t even know she existed. I wonder if I had told him under what circumstances we would next meet if he could ever had fathomed so much happening in slightly over two and a half years.

�What is that beautiful building?� I ask as we walk along the narrow Parisian street, warming our hands on our dessert cr�pes, mine Nutella and banana, his chocolate and banana. He thinks it is the Pantheon, and a nearby street sign proves him right. He tells me that Victor Hugo was buried there, the Curies might be buried there, and someone like Descartes was possibly buried there as well. He points out a nearby church. �She and I were walking here one night, and we came upon a great crowd with children playing music and everything� turned out the Pope was here!� I am impressed. �Do you see how I just name-dropped the Pope just there?� he adds, grinning. �I didn�t actually see the Pope. But he was there. �

The front of the Pantheon was even more gorgeous than the back. �Someday, I, too, will be buried here,� he concludes with a grandiose sweep of his arm. The front of the Pantheon was still adorned with the memory of Christmas, with a grove of trees and ornaments and baubles and velvet bows hanging from their branches. The street bowed around the entrance to the grand building, and as we approached its apex, the hill fell away towards Paris and the Eiffel tower came dramatically into view, lit up against the night and framed by the buildings.

�I didn�t know that would happen,� he says. �I promise I didn�t secretly take you on a romantic walk,� he assures me. He points out the great libraries of La Rue des Ecoles, this one of the Sorbonne, this one languages of the Arabic world. For my part, I took him to see Jussieu, where the lab I am visiting is located. It is a great monolith of concrete, metal and asbestos, surrounded by a moat built after student riots almost destroyed the university in the 1970s. Now large iron gates lock the students out after hours, and the only way in any other time is by spindly bridges that arch across the moat through spiked metal gates. There was a sculpture garden full of tired, filthy, pale blue, metal amoebas on sticks, crowded by geometric temporary classroom spaces decorated with primary colors.

�Someday,� I said, gesturing, �I will be buried here.�

He said someday he would come back with his new wife and see the things properly when the gate was open, and his only explanation for the more than forty-five minute trip would be that this girl he knows said they were awesome.

When we reached Le Metro, we laughed raucously with American abandon, made jokes about conquistadors, and generally talked much too loud, making a promise that we wouldn�t let this much time go by again, that we would take our long-planned vacation in Montreal, and other promises that neither of us had any idea if we could keep. We said goodbye in the American way.

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