I'll be back...

Well, it's been almost 2 weeks since the start of my blog-writing fast... I feel like I'm on a writer's strike. Although I'm still working on my thesis, uh, for the last few days anyways. So instead of writing about annoying people or poop stories, I've been writing about sugar and fat consumption and the subsequent stimulation/inhibition of the genes involved making fat in the liver... and other fun stuff!

Truthfully I'm feeling a bit backed up. A creative constipation of sorts. I have no outlet for my weirdness and it builds and builds and one of these days I'm going to BLOW! My friends and family have been very understanding when the crazy does leak out, but I can only use their generosity for so long. Yep, I'm afraid I may have to start up the blogging again. It may be more sporatic than in the past, but I need to PURGE!

That's it. That's what I wanted to say. For now, it's back to fat synthesis and storage... Hmmm, writing about what's physiologically occuring in my body at this very moment. Ironic.

What!!! The thesis won't write itself?!?

Once again research elucidates something we didn't already know:

Study Finds Working At Work Improves Productivity

WASHINGTON, DC—The groundbreaking research found that by simply sitting down and doing work, employees can dramatically increase their output of goods and services.

It's a good thing I read this article. Now I realize that sitting down and writing my thesis is 100% more productive than various different subsets of not writing my thesis. If I actually write my thesis, then it's 100% more likely to get written than if I was constantly mauling my cats or moshing to the Offspring in the kitchen, 100% more likely to get written than playing online Scrabble with various cheaters, 100% more likely to get written than making YouTube videos of stuff that's 100% more exciting than thesis writing, 100% more likely to get written than meandering around the apartment searching for a reason to live (or my keys), 100% more likely to get written than checking Facebook to see how my friends are also spending their days not working, 100% more likely to get written than staying up all night (not writing) then sleeping all day, 100% more likely to get written than writing stupid blog posts on why it's not getting written, and 98.2 percent more likely to get written than if I just quit and went to work as a sandwich artist.

There you have it. It's official. Now I know. And when ya know better, ya do better. Right?

I'd better go and write something else now. Bye.

Almost-PhD Forever

click images to enlarge

I was taking Procrastin-X (and high doses of ice cream, caffeine and alcohol) to deal with my Post-Bachelor Disorder... Little did I know they were contraindicated. Now I'll never graduate.


I'll forever be just an old, hyper, hungover almost-PhD fatty.


*Tick* *Shudder* *Twitch* *Moan*


The PBD is worse than ever. It says there's a cure but doesn't say what it is!!! I'd do ANYTHING to get rid of my raging PBD!!!


Uh, except work on my thesis. Yeah. Huge oversight there. Woops.

The plan

I recently gave feedback on a grant proposal. The Professor who had asked me for input works at another University in another town. The response?

"You are a gifted writer! Excellent sugggestions for change... You have a very bright future ahead of you in academics."

I've been thinking about doing a post doc in their lab. At least, that's the plan.

When do I tell everyone my real plan? That is-- moving to the caribean, sitting in front of my laptop on the beach, sipping my coffee (or mojitos after 4pm) and writing drivel all day? (In between swims in the ocean and naps in the hammock.) Ahhhhhhhhh yes. It even felt good to write that.

Nutritionism?

A lot of media-written articles about nutrition are booooring. A lot of people don't give a shit anyways. They'd rather NOT know what they're putting in their bodies. I even have friends who are graduate students of nutrition and they will go get a slurpee or diet coke, sometimes regularly! Sorry folks, that stuff is what I call ANTI-nutrition. I've always said that it almost cannot even be considered food! It's not just non-food, it's negative food. Food should always be beneficial to the body, if not then I'm not sure it's "food". Blah blah blah.

I don't eat perfect, haha, but here is an article that sums up much of my personal theory about nutrition.

How to Eat in Seven Words

If you give a shit. Perhaps you'd have a easier time giving a shit if you ate more fibre, oops, I mean whole plant foods ;)

I need a narcoleptic antidote

Lately my data is boring me so thoroughly that it's been painful for me to be conscious. [Insert Deneen's smartass retort here: It's also painful for the rest of us when you're conscious... hehehe heh heh heeeh, ahem] I think in order to finish up this tedious shit, I'm going to need to cook up some sort of an espresso/ritalin cocktail that can be continously pumped into my stomach during most of my waking hours.

I'm normally an energetic person, so this has been rather disconcerting. In Whistler I was crazy hyper. Today, I look at my spreadsheet and the ol' noggin does a smackdown on the desk. UGH.

Goodnight all, I'm forcing myself to bed before the sun goes down. I am. You just watch. Or don't. Whateva.

Whistler: The extremely abridged version with no pictures

So I guess my one cat poops on my bedroom floor when she's upset that I've been away awhile. That was lovely. Poo is a gross thing to behold, in your hand, even separated from your skin by a plastic bag... But CAT poo is a whole other level of gross. Yeesh.

Whistler was great, except for the weather. Cold. Rainy. Yet we still ventured out.

Our flight out of Edmonton was delayed by almost 2 hours on Saturday am, which wasn't so special since we'd all gotten up that morning at 4. Missing 2 hours of sleep AND 2 hours of vacation in one fell swoop sucks just a wee bit. And all Air Canada did was apologize. No free trips to Mexico or upgrades to first class for us. Nope. Not even extra snacks in an attempt to appease our tired attempt at bitterness.

I have no idea why I take on the role of the entertainer at some of these functions. Why do I have to let people into my weird little world so quickly? I did a good chunk of my repetoire of sound effects/impressions for about 10 people, some of whom barely know me. There was my Chubby Checker, Kermit, Axl Rose, the technologist in our lab, a bird, a coyote and a rooster. Luckily the rooster had to be done by everyone when we were playing a drinking game and I got the "rule card". Each person had to crow before they took a card, every time. Hehehe. Seeing our supervisor crow like a rooster was classic.

And boy did we ever pig out on yummy food. Mmm.

Good times.

Unfortunately my camera's memory card has something wrong with it. I took a shitload of videos and photos over the first half of the weekend and have nothing to show for it. Alas, there's nuthin to see here folks... :(

And now it's back to work. Ugh.

I ain't no Einstein...

I was looking through scientific journal articles today and noticed an author's name: Einstein.

I'd think that having the name Einstein would give you an unfair advantage in research. People would be handing you scholarships and grants and publishing your studies because they'd just assume that you're freakishly smart. Kind of like how when you see someone that looks like Bill Gates, intelligence is probably your first perception.

When people look at me I don't think 'smart' is the first thing that comes to mind. And then I open my mouth or do something ridiculous and remove any doubt that they probably weren't even having in the first place. From then on in it's an uphill battle to prove I have at least a smidgeon of a brain and know how to use it.

I wonder what my supervisor was thinking on that fateful day when he encouraged me to do graduate studies. Mind you, most of his first impression of me was most likely based on reading my lab notes and research papers. Now, I ain't no Einstein but I sure gots me some mad writin' skillz... Um, I think?

Belligerent but brief blabby blurb

Why do people talk to themselves? Can't they hear what's in their own head? That would be like yelling at the person next to you for no good reason.

And while I'm pondering the non-sensical... Why are soft drinks called SOFT drinks? Those bubbles aren't soft, they're actually kind of ouchy on the tongue! Hmm.

And why can't we fully delineate the pathogenesis of the metabolic syndrome and the dietary and genetic factors that clearly interact in its development and progression?

Ah, if I knew the answer to that question then I'd have an easier time presenting this article at journal club tomorrow.

I just wanna go to bed already! Instead, I'm trying to say "belligerent but brief blabby blurb" out loud... In a sense, I'm talking to myself.

One question down, two more to go. I'll get to bed yet dammit!

Working at home

Yesterday I was working at home. This may seem like an ideal situation, but it's wrought with challenges for my weakling little self. Some of these are as follows:

- Sedentation. Lack of movement causes stiffness and soreness and I didn't even DO anything! What the? This one isn't so good for an expanding butt either.

- Boredom. Usually when I'm bored of working on spreadsheets at home, there's the fridge. But I'm trying real hard not to snack lately. At one point the banana on the counter by my desk and I had a pretty good stare-down. It's amazing how good that banana looks when you can't have it.

- Random thoughts. Working at home makes you vulnerable to a wandering mind. Thinking about how badly I wanted that banana made me ponder the phenomenon I call unrequited proximity infatuation. That is... Someone is around a lot. You can't have them. Suddenly they become the most delectable thing on the planet. Ugh. Damn you banana! Tease.

- Spontaneous ADD. Anything, and I mean anything can be distracting when trying to work at home. I mentioned the fridge. Phone calls to catch up on. There's laundry to do. (Especially washing things that haven't been washed in 15 years. Hey, Garfield had fun!) ... I finally cut my toenails (I'm sure you really wanted to know that). Emailed some people several times. I read blogs and commented on blogs (and proceeded to make typos which made the comment mean the opposite of what I'd meant to write!!! Sheesh!) Incidentally, this blog post --Spotting Trends-- totally cracked me up... Then there was my cat giving me her irresistable you know you wanna come over here and give me hugs and kisses look. Oh, and I took photos of snowflakes. What??? C'mon, they were HUGE!



Now before you call me a total slacker, you should know that I did get some work done! Ah whatever, you're going to call me names anyways. Sticks and stones... You're rubber I'm glue... No, YOU'RE weak!

Lunch break is officially OVER. Bye.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

I watched Van Wilder again the other night. Haha. "Don't be a fool, stay in school." He was in school for 7 years. He came to the realization, thanks to meeting the blonde hottie who would change his life, that he'd been putting off growing up. He buckled down after that and finally graduated!!! Hmm. I think I may have just discovered the real reason I'm still in school. I haven't met my blonde hottie yet!!!

It seemed like a good idea at the time... That's the chorus of an OK Go song, and it could be the motto of my life. I seriously think through all of my decisions, very thoroughly, and there's always a fairly rational reason for why I do what I do. Err, at the time it seemed that way, but looking back... Woops.

Oh man, I just noticed that I'm not the first one to get the idea of imitating that backyard dancing routine (for reference, see the end of the Dance Classes! post). Check these out: Ok Go Dance Contest. I guess it wouldn't be the first time I had an original idea that someone else thought of first.

Uh yeah, I'm working on spreadsheets right now by the way... NOT watching videos! Ok so I got a bit sidetracked there. All I can say is if it wasn't for listening to music while I work on this nightmare heap of data, I would've gone off the deep end LONG ago (rather than treading water in the shallow end, as I am right now, barely... tiring out a bit now, gurgle choke cough).

Have an awesome weekend! Yay, the Ozzy Ozmunds are ripping out some tunes at Urban Lounge! I think it's high time to exercise some stress management techniques, complete with a little help from our friend, El Mojito. It seems like a really good idea right now, doesn't it?

Tis the season to eat, drink... and eat and drink some more!

I just got back from my boss's Christmas party. Tell me how it's a good thing to have a lunch for a Christmas party, and order two bottles of wine? I'm all FOR the wine drinking, don't get me wrong. However, I'm not sure how productive the writing will be for the rest of the afternoon.

I'm just pouring myself a nice cup of coffee right now, extra strength, extra tall. It must jolt me back into consciousness. Or maybe I should have a quick nap and then get at it? Wine plus TONNES of food isn't the best combo for concentration.

Ah, I don' t need to be dead sober to write a thesis. In fact, if I'm a little tipsy over the next couple of months, it may open the waterfalls of creativity. I'll be so much more relaxed... and well, the computer can take care of any typos, right? After all, it knows how to spell peroxisome and triacylglycerol. Yeah.

My body is officially primed for the season of indulgence. I'd better bring my fat jeans along for the New Year's party. Good Lord. That doctor on Oprah said most people only gain a pound at Christmas. What the? I'm wondering what population was sampled for that study? To gain ONLY a pound? Not possible.

Woops, I just spilled coffee grounds all over the kitchen floor. Yep, this is going to be a stellar afternoon folks. Stellar.

Communication is key to harmonious relationships

My supervisor is like the boss in this Dilbert comic. Not that he knows us all that well, but he does close his eyes during my presentations. The first time it happened, he said he had a migraine and couldn't look at my slides for more than a few seconds at a time. Pffft! Riiight!!! Ok, I might believe that since I put a bright yellow background on the slides. Oops. Ah, the things you don't realize when you start out...

I recently gave a presentation about my research in a class that my boss teaches every year, and I give this same presentation every year. Normally, he's in the back of the class snoozing. This time he was away, so I was a bit relieved that I wouldn't see him catnap while trying to talk about my research to the class. It can be really disheartening.

That's why I was extremely taken aback when I noticed one of the TAs in the back of the class with her eyes closed!!! I couldn't believe it. To add insult to injury, she offered no apology or even any excuses for her behaviour afterwards. Nuthin.

So now every time I see her, I give her the finger. I don't think she's made the connection.

It was suggested that I could come to her presentation in that class next week and sleep loudly through it. However, I think the finger thing is workin' for me as she says hi to me EVEN LESS than she did before (she's a serial non-hi-sayer in the first place). So I figure she's pickin' up what I'm throwin' down here. She must be feeling the Mich-wrath.

But maybe the sleeping during her presentation idea has some merit after all. If I brought a pillow to class next week, it will come full circle on her. She'll have an 'ah ha' moment in front of the whole class when she looks up and sees my little head atop my pillow; happily napping away.

Then when she mentions it after class, I'll lose it on her. That will open the door to reparations. Then we could have a real sit-down chat about it. Because after all, I believe in being honest and straightforward about these things. It saves a lot of anxiety between people.

Ramblings on Research: Human Experimentation.

I don’t do animals... Human studies are (quite frankly) a pain in the arse... err, I mean long and complicated, but that’s what I enlisted for.

People ask me what it involved for my human guinea pigs... After my rambling explanation, their reaction is always: "How did you get people to sign up for THAT?" As if I was torturing them or something… Ok, it probably was somewhat torturous. Yep, I torture people for a living. But at least it's torture with informed consent... (Uh yeah, that sounded weird.)

When I'm asked what I do, I like to phrase it: "Human experimentation."

So back to how I get people to sign up for torture... I have no flippin' idea!!! But thank God they did because I wasn’t ethically allowed to pay them! That left me with little bribing power on my side.

Quite a few dropped out. It was bad news for me when that happened, especially if they quit after going through part of the study already. I wanted scream through the phone at a lady who, when she was apologizing for pulling a no-show twice already, told me that the fact she'd missed two appointments must mean it was "a sign" that she shouldn't be in the study. Everyone near me at that moment must have heard a THUD (my jaw hitting the floor). Seriously, how do you counter that one?

You’ve NEVER seen me be so sickeningly nice to people as I was to those who volunteered for my study. Sure, of course I was beyond appreciative of their time and effort, but I also REALLY needed them to tolerate the torture until the bitter end! I would've done cartwheels, backflips and even taken a pie in the face (or several, if that’s what it took... just let it cool a little first) in order to keep my participants participating! Hell, I would have stripped naked and streaked across QUAD in trade for their cooperation. Maybe not. I would’ve done a lot of things, but streaking...? Well ok, I'd do it, but only as a last resort. And only if I could wear body hose so it looked like I was naked, but with maximal minimization of the jiggle-age (kind of like Kirstie Alley in a bikini on Oprah the other day. Shit, I’d even go on Oprah in a bikini if I was allowed wear boob to toe blubber-taming hose… Um, but I'll need a few months notice too. Ha... ha... ha ha ha. Ahem).

Funny thing though, when we said good-bye after completing the last day of the study, they thanked me.

Wait. What the? Let me get this straight-- I just made you write down every single thing you ate for 2 weeks, eat my food for 6 days, hooked an I.V. to your arm and took blood every 2 hours for 6 hours while missing out on what you could've been doing instead on a Saturday…

... and YOU are thanking ME?

Oh no no NO people. THANK YOU.

Now if I could only just turn all that effort into three little letters... PhD. Lord this is taking a long time.

Ramblings on Research: Coping with data and spreadsheets

I have posted about statistics before (see Statistics Course from Hell). So I won't ramble on too much about that. However, I've just spent most of the day today on spreadsheets of data AGAIN. This time I was calculating AUC (area under the curve). This is about as spellbinding as it gets around here folks!!! My ass is as about as numb as my brain is getting here... Luckily I've got a new CD and the fridge to keep me from dying of boredom. Yeah ok, my ass isn't doing well in this situation at all...

So you take a person, you take their blood every two hours for 8 hours and then plot some of their clinical data results over time (i.e. cholesterol levels). From this you can calculate AUC, then I take that AUC and plug it into our stats program and voila! You can see if the computer validates your whole existence over the past few years or not.

Honk shew.

Then you can go out and get trashed on vino and dance to hip hop all night!!!! Yay! Some call it "stress management." (Yeah, I know you're probably thinking that I've developed quite the set of stellar coping skills...)

Ahem... Then the next day you meet with your supervisor and hope he doesn't detect the tired eyes, alky breath and of course that ultimate hangover hallmark- the always lovely 50 point drop in I.Q. It usually goes something like this:

Supervisor: Why were we meeting today?
You: Uh...
Supervisor: What have you been up to lately?
You: Uh... things.
Supervisor: How does the program calculate AUC?
You: Uh... I dunno.

You: Can I go now?

Ramblings on Research: If I was a Lab Rat

At a recent conference I learned that “rats don’t like the drink.” The speaker said that if you want to get rats to drink ethanol-laced water, you need to “convince them to drink it” by sweetening it. What, do they throw in a little grenadine? Perhaps a splash of cran?

Lord, if I were a poor little lab rat, I’d definitely prefer to be used for alcohol research and therefore hopefully wasted all the time. Marijuana research would be even better (cage a la hot box...). Although it better be one of those studies where the rats get as much yummy fattening food as possible too, because rats don’t have a 7-11 across from their cage.

You see, life might be somewhat tolerable in a cage getting poked, prodded and experimented on if at least I was completely plowed or half-baked...

Then, as I lay there sobering up from the alcohol testing the night before, my head about to explode and wishing I would DIE, perhaps that’s the day I’d actually get what I wished for.

Research on Alcohol Consumption

Click on image to enlarge.

This just in... The video footage from this study will be used in a new realty series called Canadian UPI. Stayed to tuned to your local listings...

PhD Comics

Death threat to printer

I am this close --> <-- to KILLING the printer here. We are on our THIRD ONE, and the lovely new printer brings with it a whole new set of frustrations. I could almost say that printers are worse than men for making me bang my head against the wall!!! Ok, not quite;) Truthfully, the only time I swear more than this is at other drivers when the roads are shit (like the snowy conditions this past Sunday, sorry you had to hear all that Jen). I wanna take that thing and get it in a headlock and smash it's stupid little printer-face in, body slam it into the ground, jump up and down on it a few hundred times and then pitch that pisa shite out the fricken window!!!

Or this... this scene from Office Space would be sweet sweet justice. Ah, it makes me feel better just to watch that.

So I try to reload up the driver and do 'diagnostics'... and it sends info to the printer and then asks me to click on what response I got, so I pick "doesn't print or prints garbage" because it DIDN'T PRINT. Then it asks if I want to print the log file!!!

Aaack!

My Teaching Style

The worst thing about teaching would be to appear the idiot. Therefore, I've honed my teaching style to reduce this possibility at all costs. For instance, if you don’t know something or don’t know an answer to a student’s question… don’t fake it. Those little peons will see right through you. Instead, employ one of several strategies I’ve perfected that maintain my genius awe-inspiring status in the eyes of those young, impressionable minds...

1) Answer a question with a question if possible. You can turn their own question right back at them or if you really want to drop their jaws in wonder at your brilliance, ask a related but much more complicated question. If they cannot answer, tell them to look it up before the next class and report back on what they found.

2) Tell them the whole system or the historical basis of it is bullshit. If it’s a fairly formal type of class, use the phrases "unsubstantiated by solid data" or "no evidence to support".

3) Don’t ever show fear. Instead, show anger. You can go off about anything. Either rip on research itself, about how it's a bunch of bunk and you can prove anything with an experiment that’s designed in a certain way and with the right statistics or you can put down other experts in the field. Try not to get personal though, this is strictly on a professional basis.

4) All of the above in combination. Example: Question them on what they know about the research done in a particular area while raising your voice and flailing your arms. Do you know HOW lycopene works to reduce prostate cancer? Does anyone here know the mechanism? Class? Is there any solid proof whatsoever that it reduces prostate cancer in humans, has anyone read the papers supporting this hypothesis?!?!? No of course you haven’t, because it’s all BULLSHIT! Then tell them they have to write a short paper on it to be handed in next class.

Pretty soon they won’t be asking many questions and you look abso-effen-lutely brilliant (and passionate to boot)!

I’ve had students in past classes tell me how much they appreciated my insight and how much they learned from me. Little did they know, they were actually self-taught. And I get a paycheck just for showin’ up. Yeah, I like them apples.