still a school night

[jinian]

Tomorrow morning: talks on our current/thesis research, so we all know what everyone is doing. The nice part will be having the day off after around 11:15; the 8:30am part is not so nice, though cinnamon rolls are promised at breakfast. [For the afternoon: farmer's market, maybe sculpture park, probably missing Labs lunch, oh well.)

Dinner today was pizza, and I was all set to have PB&J as none of the pizzas available was tomato-free. The PB&J was not set out. A bunch of Caesar salad, cottage cheese, and a boiled egg made a decent meal, but I've felt cold all day and that didn't help a bit. The cafeteria folk expressed distress at my not eating the entree, so I put myself forward dreadfully by adding my food problem to their very short list.

I think people are adjusting to my Relentless Uncoolness. I'm social at meals once in a while, and perfectly friendly in class, so the fact that I am usually buried in a book or trying to hide from humans for a while doesn't seem to be worrying people any more. Although:

. One of the instructors tried to say reassuringly yesterday that it's okay I'm quiet. Yes, I know it is. I think my puzzled look was adequate.

. "That must be a good book! You've been reading it all day." Yes, it's pretty good so far (Miss Pym Disposes, now finished; downbeat and not a surprise to my suspicious mind but excellent), but if it weren't... I'd be reading a different book. And for heaven's sake, the "all day" I'd been reading it was while ten people tried to do DNA extractions with two centrifuges, taking twenty times as long. What else was there to do? Silly person. (Also it was the second book today, which I pointed out, ha ha.)

Possibly I am a little bit on the goofy side due to tiredness. Having fun, though. Fed dissected bivalves to our prawn friends, and learned about the creepy-awesome pedicellariae on the backs of starfish and sea urchins. And saw them! And goaded them to bite the poking instrument!

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I do think twice about badgering quieter people b/c of you, you know. It kind of doesn't make sense, b/c if you were more extraverted, you'd be DOING the badgering, so I don't know where we get our nutty ideas.

I saw my former coworker Laura for coffee today, and she asked I thought you'd be willing to talk to her in person about bio [maybe even plant/agro?] grad school. I said you were away for the same month she is but that she could certainly ask, that as far as I knew you still liked school and still wanted to encourage 'non-traditional-age' women in the sciences :)

[hattifattener]

Gaaah! Creepy-awesome!! what do they do?

[jinian.livejournal.com]

BITE STUFF. Usually they're just on the non-mouth side, like the top of a starfish, to keep parasite larvae and such from settling on and digging in. In some starfish, though, the star hangs out on the sea bottom waiting for little fish to rest on it, and then the pedicellariae, which are grouped on a PLATFORM around each spine, pop up and bite into them! Then the fish get to the mouth in some way not explained by the book I was reading.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Balletic biting bucket brigade?

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Your link made me make a loud noise!

WTFFF with the pestering you? Aren't these people scientists? Don't people like that *read*?

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Pedicellariae==awesome.

Most people don't read to the exclusion of talking to other people, I find, though the percentage among scientists is certainly different tham among, say, salespeople. These guys are not so bad, they just seem to think I want to be drawn out or something. Nope, doin' fine in my burrow!

[swanjun.livejournal.com]

That instructor's comment probably would've pissed me off. I am normally mild-mannered, but I get touchy when people imply that I somehow require their affirmation.

And what you described—mildly social at times but enjoying reading the rest of the time—sounds like me exactly. It's funny how people think it's perfectly okay to interrupt you, and you must really want to talk to them if you happen to be reading in a large room. I want to say, "I'm not lonely over here, dude."