Anyway, I've been extremely busy this week trying to cover everything in the lab that Dr. Zivago wants done, since Grettle spends most of her day up in the tool shop cutting scrap metal. So far since thursday I've:

*Finished two proposals for long-term projects and revised them per bureaucratic suggestions. They've swallowed up most of my time.

*Started our rat breeding colony, 5 females with 10 males.

*Worked on the introduction for that 1987 series of experiments. That's coming about as well as male impotence. Dr. Zivago wants more done; I'm trying.

*Kept undergrads motivated. Moral is about moderate to high, which is good considering they haven't done jack for 3 weeks except run around the bio-medical library and fetch articles for me.

Curious thing about working at Mt. University is that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing at least half the time. Dr. Ziv will ask me to do something (e.g. proposals), or get something and a blip of panic smacks upside my head.

But enough of that. I haven't written much for the last two days except a 2 paper summary paper for the graduate class I'm auditing (which is taught by Dr. Zivago). It's an informative class overall and the material is moderately challenging. Besides L (his grad student) and I, though, there's only one other guy.

The material he offers in class is great, but there's a devilish learning curve to these articles he gives us. Now we all know how well most scientists can write and express themselves. For some reason, these things are a cut below. At first I damn the authors, the incompetence of the editors and anyone who made these papers see the light of day. Then, eventually, slowly, I figure out how to cut 95% off the bones and compact the fat into a digestible cube of spam. After that I feel mighty; I am empowered science geek that has conquered Mt. Article!

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Sad to say, but I haven't had a chance to read about my new camera and figure out how the thing works. Besides revising a few short stories, continuing a few, etc. I'm hoping to at least get the basics of focal length, aperture and exposure down for tonight. I can't stop thinking about how incredible it'd be to photograph the pier at Redondo Beach.

Oh, and Mom and I broke with tradition yesterday and went to a restaurant other than El Torito. It was a small 13-17 USD entree Italian eatery. She had crookneck squash ravioli and I had the first plate of fetuccini alfredo (with chicken) since I left college; I liked the interplay of the light cream and grilled chicken, but it was too bland to grab hold of my tongue and screw it but proper. The tiramisu at the end was magical, though; truly above average with blue berries and a geometric sprittering of chocolate caramel.

Mom and I tend to be creatures of habit when it comes to food. With three exceptions, for instance, I've had the same thing--the exact same thing--for lunch at Mt. University since March. Every time she or I go out for food, we just want mexican at the same place. She's more liberal and sometimes orders different things, but not me. If something is consistently good, I stick with it; I don't get sick of having the same thing. I think it's nice, actually, to have some part of your life that's usually constant, predictable, that you can rely on to be good and fulfilling; security isn't easy to come by, after all, and every human needs a little predictability.

So I choose food. More specifically, I choose the same bits of food. Control is good.

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