This calls for extremely drastic and thoroughly ludicrous measurements. I will spare no expense in beefing up my immune system. The current plan:

*Haul ass to Jamba juice. Get an echinacea-filled thingy of goodness. Suck, change position, tongue, lather rinse repeat.

*While finishing smoothie, haul ass to Wh*le Foods and get Echinacea, Mint Leaves, Green Tea, Three pints of imported British ale, and an anti-histamine.

*Sit in a warm place and do readings or the first stats homework, preferably where there is drink to be had. This is the usual, and is good.

* * *

But first, a synopsis of the day so far...

I woke up at 6am. Granted, I needed to wake up at 7:20am so that I could watch the brain-imaging work that Sara does, but I still woke up at 6. I tried sleeping until 7:20, but my body felt perky for some bizarre reason. I told it to fuck off, but it wouldn't listen. And so drowsy off of 5 hours or so of sleep, I did the usual hygiene thing, went out, went to Starschmucks, got a vertically-challenged caramel skip whip skim machismo latte and a scone. I was particularly impressed with the way I pronounced scone. Apparently I draw out the 'o' and sound Vaguely Not American. This Vaguely Not American thing has been creeping up on me in recent years. Don't get me started on 'about'.

And so walking as fast as I could, coffee occasionally almost spilling on my hand, me sucking the bastard off until it behaved (heh), and contemplating the scone lightly nestled in my front coat pocket, I rushed to the lab.

Got there with 5 minutes to spare. We were ten minutes late, though, so I got to nibble on the sconeage.

{Warning: you know the usual about animal research, uncomfortableness, yadda yadda. If not: Yadda yadda, look at my gallery instead}

The scenario was simple: a juvenile monkey had been anesthetized and was out cold. They look cute when they're asleep/in a coma. I guess most primates do. Deb put him into a transport unit and loaded him into the van while I carried the tub o' equipment. Sara rode with the monkey and equipment in back while I took shotgun and Deb drove. And during our outing to the medical center, I basically got the "show me what you've got there" question. This is a common question and more or less always sounds like this:

"So what are you doing your research on?"

I have to keep myself from rolling my eyes or sighing. Seriously, it's a 15 minute explanation at bare minimum with someone who knows what you're talking about. So I rattled off the specifics, I got the usual "that sounds really interesting", and we merrily stopped in front of the imaging center.

Moments later, I meet the bald pony-tailed MRI tech. whacking away at the keyboard, as well as an undergrad assistant that Sara is cultivating. At this point I was still basically out of it. Couldn't think straight for the life of me.

The actual scanning process wasn't thrilling. They cleaned off a restraint apparatus, put the monkey in the apparatus (which is eerily similar to the one I used on rats during surgeries back in the day), then loaded the monkey into the MRI scanned. If you've ever seen an MRI machine, you might understand why this kinda amused me.

And sure enough, when the monkey was loaded, we all sat down and the scanning commenced. A horrible air horn noise started sounding, which I later learned was just the machine sending out pulses of current. Apparently, according to the MRI tech, the machine makes different noises for different operations. There'd been a competition recently where an MRI lab had won by programming their machine to play Cat Scratch Fever. Really, what are you going to do day after day?

Sara and the MRI tech talked shop about imaging and T1 versus T2 scans and blah blah blah. I tried following but my brain was like, "fuck you, I'm saving my juice for stats. You sit there and look dormant." And O My Brothers (and Sisters), indeed I did.

45 minutes later, the scanning was done. All I kept thinking was: "Thank God I never have to wake up like this again." I was interested in the procedure, Dr C. wanted me to take a look to keep my options open, and I scratched that itch/checked that unofficial training check-box.

Yay.

Stats. was much more palatable than I thought it was gonna be. Oh sure there were still a few WTF moments, but it went by pretty good. Found out that the book really should be used for a reference rather than regular reading. Truth be told it helps me understand the lectures, but there's supplemental shit out to here--and I mean grade A Bamboozle Your Ass supplemental shit.

I'll still do the readings for now, though. Along with me not being held accountable for doing the Brain Damage readings either, I could theoretically have nothing to do but stats homework...and that deeply disturbs me on an amusing and semi-serious level.

The primate class was, of course, extremely fun and entertaining. We learned about New World monkeys today, like the organ grinder monkey (capuchin), the owl monkey, and other assorted tail-having folk.

After having only had that scoooooooone and the coffee early way back when, I decided to have late lunch at the afghani restaurant. The duck struddel was magnificent as always, with it's velvety baklava crust and that cranberry wine sauce that is sumptuously sticky.

{Note to Casey: that'll be one of the places I take you and your friend to for the "See the wonders of Insanity, Wisconsin...no, really, there are a few" university introduction tour. You've been warned. Muha, ha, ha.}

Ok, time to beat the crap out of some micron-thick bug bastards who've decided I'm the next Club Med.

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