orange to blue

Ketchup and French Fries

I know! I’ve been meaning to write. I miss you and getting to tell you random things, like how things went with spud. I keep thinking it is like a virus and every time I build up an immunity.  but then again, he is also the person I fall back to, i try not to, but there is just not too many other people that are single and have the random hours and of whom I have so much history with that would not require significant catch up. Know what I mean?

Well, I should start at more of a beginning. Yes, I’ve been meaning to write on this, it’s good to log my thoughts, but I’m eternally logged into an alternative “academic” account to work on my writing skills that I was just too lazy to log out and log back in as an alternative avatar. sometimes, it doesn’t take a very high activation energy to get me to not do something. thus also why I have so many job apps and yet not very many done. *actually I should be working on one now. sigh, but a quick post is needed now that I have discovered incognito.

I know I have written this before, but I seem to meet boys when I am in a new place. Which makes sense, maybe I am much more social when I am on a trip, but then these “flings” don’t go anywhere. I go home. flirt a bit virtually. but then I think to myself, ok? what does that mean? I try to cut it off, but then he’ll just come right back to talking to me. Part of me thinks that this is ok because there is a significant amount of uncertainty in my near future and so why get myself into a mess of a relationship.

On the other hand I am getting OLDER!

I am about to finish with a degree I have no idea if it will be useful, but  at the same time in my head: I have to have it.  I have learned a lot, but at the same time I feel I have not learned enough. I have discovered how much more I do not know. which drives me a bit crazy.

So I agree with the job market thing. I miss dearly the rain. I think I miss that coast in general.

oh! a bit off topic. and so when I do not feel like talking to my virtual far away person. I end up talking to spud. when I know better not to. I fear that I am leading him on, but then again, he should know that it is just cuz we have so much history. I try to make that clear. but then sometimes the conversation goes to if things were different and I don’t know what to say or how to return the convo to be: “well, things are not different”.  And in a way, I am glad that things are the way they are. But also going back to the I’M GETTING OLDER issue.

maybe I’d be more settled. Less worried about what am I going to do? when I go do that thing, will there be someone willing to deal with my crazy? i mean, i did just spend 5 yrs of my life stressed and huffing cancer? but I make excellent chocolate cupcakes. i’ll put that out there.

alright, post getting a bit long. but just a spew of thoughts. not quite a catch up. thus just ketchup and some fried potatoes.

Here we come to…

… the sun. I have seriously been really addicted to this album since it came out. not sure if it is because it reminds me that I truly should be a PNW hippie or what, but i love it. and specially this album. spud introduced me to these guys, but i never really got into them.

I really really really hate myself when someone makes me seem like a complete idiot. i know, everyone feels this way. but really, i just try to be nice and i know that i am sometimes annoying (yes, i know we’ve talked about this and you say that perhaps it is all in my head, but thanks to bad tomato 2, it is perhaps not).

setup: so you know about the background of DC2 and since DC3 at the moment is very busy and idk i really like him and i have tried to make connection already and thought that maybe i’d lay off. so it doesn’t hurt to contact DC2 because i’m not interested in the least bit and eh, i need friends. and guess what?! he started dating someone a few weeks ago. ok ok ok me in my head “how do you think that is suppose to make me feel?! 1,) you didn’t tell me when i was texting you and was like hey, lets hang out 2.) you say ridiculous things basically like ‘you are not cool enough for me to have priority to hang out with you’.”

i am trying really really hard to not have this get to me. but, it was his ridiculous email that set me off with a tone that seemed to indicate that i was a crazy clingy person. (eyeroll)

sigh these last few posts is really make it seem like i’m feeling very sappy lately. probably because i’m missing friends. and don’t have anything stable in my life that all of this emotion is bubbling over.

well, i’ll be back to the grad school world soon enough…

i might have found my niche

DC’s perfect save for 1 thing. the single straight men here suck.
I have been interested in 3 guys in the last months and everyone has materialized to them ignoring me within a week. ok, the middle one was probably no good for me anyways, but nonetheless i think that i should get to make that decision. or at least be warned first. in all of these, zero warning. just dropped contact. I would reference a certain very important satellite that missed orbit in which the implications are reference to my new field of study that I’d like to establish right here so that incase someone steals it, i had it writing and in fruition right here first.

now as a scientist i firmly believe that the data should do the talking. that all one needs is very good data and it should be enough. but i am beginning to learn. no! no! no! no! that is DEFINITELY not the case. i mean even very backed up data cannot make people listen because they have no idea how it is backed up. (this also goes with my rant that everyone should have basic science education, but that is for a different blog post).

so here is my solution as a scientist screaming at politicians and the general public that listens to any who ha that has a microphone. we, the scientist, then need to learn how to explain ourselves to you. and how do we do that? we need to study the history of our rhetoric because obviously something is not working. (but again, public should pull their weight and take a science class)

an thus, this thought was born:
Science of science rhetoric? specifically the rhetoric of science policy and its implications?

There was a brief study recently about how small words can have an effect on people’s perceptions of a politician although the politician generally said the same exactly thing. but one way gave a negative connotation, while the other reveled that the mistake in questions was not so bad. and from what i remember, it was merely a simple word change. crazy! see! scientists need to learn this too! our work depends on it!

actually, here is what it boils down to, honestly, I think that our climate depends on it.

climate science is losing a very important battle because apparently data cannot talk as well as we might have hoped. and i don’t think enough scientists are realizing this.

sidenote: this might be the same for my dating life. i feel that maybe my silence (taciturn-ness) thinking that my intellect will do the woo-ing is probably not working.

it doesn’t matter. people will formulate perceptions either way. and if actions or data is not as strong as i would like them to be, then i’ll have to go with the words. I was criticized (not terribly) about my distress over politicians not understanding the value of science and how everyone (who has had a past life as a scientist) says the same thing, and have the same reaction) but now is what you do with it that will differentiate you. well, here is what i am going to do: i want to learn more about what people’s perceptions, what exactly is being said that is a turn off? what are the statistics? what is the background? how do we make it better? how can i talk to people so that they can tell when oil and coal companies are looking out for their own interests and not the environment or their health?! what will get these messages across?

how do you say: hey, i think that i like you, but i’m kind of new at this, and not very self-confident, i don’t need you to be annoying, but a simple action and acknowledgement will make my day. I just ask for a small bit of initiative, that you decide on dinner/plan for us to hang out.

see, that wasn’t so bad, right?

Like those congressmen, title to be inserted later…

…only to never be inserted.

alright, well, with new characters and a new chapter/drastic change in scenery warrants a post for records sake. these gov folks have gotten to me so soon! It might be important one day to have a log as to why it is i have decided to leave my phd program for a little while and always looming is the possibility of never returning…

why did i just drop everything and take this chance to come to our nation’s capital? i didn’t want to tell very many people before, but now that i am actually here and actually working, i am ok with it: it was to see if a me and a him had a chance to be an us. However, i just saw said person for the first time since arriving 3 weeks ago and no sparks or tension. and i am ok with that. really, i am. I have met lots of new people and I love this town and I was and am able to hold my own.

And there was also the fact that i was not as happy that i would have hoped i would be by this point in my life. i have no idea how we get such strange expectations but i thought that i’d be over shooting it by wanting to be successful at 26. i mean in hs people were talking about doing so at 23!? but as johan lehrer said, these days people do not become accomplished until well into their 40′s! no, i think that what i really wanted was to have figured out my life. to have decided on a career, to perhaps have been seriously dating someone. maybe settled on a locale. or if not any of these things at least could foresee all of it happening in the next 4 yrs. and there in lies the problem. i don’t.

But randomly as fate would have it, I was given this amazing opportunity and there really was no way i could turn it down! but each day i think: what do i want out of this? I like it now, but i also liked lab research when I was a summer research assistant. what is different about my thinking now than how i thought then? I had no idea then the culture of academia. am i also not seeing the true culture of government?

I want to do a good job, and i know that it all depends on who you know. it is a little bit superficial. i just had a conversation today with a girl that repeated the same shallow point 50 million times and yet the other person just kept drawing it all in. I do admit, she was very well spoken, but she really lacked depth other than the one topic she consistently honed in on. Her contribution to the conversation was pretty limited. But here is what makes me sad, because she is so well spoken, she will get the opportunities that I cannot smooch my way into. example: she worked for Whitesides. I know Blue, you don’t know who he is…he is a very famous, top-notch, well-known chemist. Serious name dropping doors open type thing. crazy. but what can you do about that?

so why am i so ambitious? this is a topic we might have thought about before on the blog. but it comes back recently because of a new character. ah! we need a nickname for the new victim. The only philosopher i remember is Hume. but i don’t think i particularly agreed with him. idk, what philosophers do you remember? Basically he has questioned the reason for science. WHAT?! i give my reasons that i have been developing since the age of 5 when i learned the word science. and he just kept asking why? how do i get characters like this? Spud would do that same thing to me. not about science but the consistent philosophical questioning.  i can’t get the new guy out of my head. not only because he has made me question philosophically why i do science, but also we’ve had conversations about communicating, how i perhaps don’t do such a good job of that, and how he got things out of me i wouldn’t have shared. of which i am annoyed because clearly he also does not communicate his feelings. because i’m confused. and stubborn. I will not call.

sigh, i might tomorrow. i stand by wanting to be stubborn, but also i think: that is not how i want it to work in the future. if we were to perhaps have a future, i don’t want to have fights or scenarios where we’re both so prideful (for lack of a better word) in which we don’t communicate. i go back and forth. i know the importance of communicating (relationships are hard enough as it is) but then again i also want to be the one that is independent enough and stronger (its the feminist in me).

ok, well, if i write anymore i’m going to start to be even more incoherent than i am currently. which seems difficult to do, but trust me, it’s possible. hopefully this is enough of a description to glean thought processes in the future.

for the record

sigh, this always happens.

everytime i fall hard for someone…it happens like this:

- they catch me off guard and do some major flirting

- i finally get it through me that they might be into me, i think to myself, oh wow, i’m really into them

- time goes by and the whole time i’m still into them

- meet up again, and nothing reciprocated

- yet, i am still in deep crush…

happens. every. time.

- then i do stupid stuff then spend time alone kicking myself for falling for it.

also note, this happens with musicians. sigh, they are just sooo dreamy! i can’t help myself…

i know, seem somewhat juvenile to still be writing about this…but i feel that something has to be wrong with me? am i doing something wrong when i finally notice their flirting? maybe i should keep the aloofness.