D-O-N-E!

Today was our URP symposium, which means that the summer of research is officially over! Oh yeah!

In the past week, I've finally gotten some fluorescence experiments to work. Its actually not a bad technique when it works properly. Quite easy, actually.

I even got to talk about it to a few people. Granted, 99% of the people that stopped to ask questions or have it explained were from my lab (They all work on a different project so it's actually all new to them.), but a few other people stopped and seemed fairly intrigued. The guy whose poster was across from me wasn't too interested, though. He's a straight chem major and, to quote him, "DNA, RNA--yeah, don't really know much about all that stuff..." So I used my fingers to illustrate my RNA reaction, precisely how I explain it to non-science people, and he seemed to get it. Everything is better with a little finger play illustration!

Afterwards, most of our lab went to Breugers downtown for a snack and some drinks. That's always a fun time. I gotta say, I think I'm quite lucky to have joined the lab I did. I don't know if any of the others go out together or not. And here's a picture of me, Jasmine and Julie on the way back. Jasmine was only here for the summer (She goes to George Mason), so we're all going to miss her.

Colleges Against Cancer

Lately I've been toying with the idea of starting a Colleges Against Cancer at Duq. It's the American Cancer Society's college affiliate club. It focuses mainly on awareness and advocacy and so far as I can tell, there aren't any required ACS-specific projects that you need to do. So I took the plunge and emailed the people to ask about how to start a chapter here.

Well, don't ya know that in the past few months, two other girls have done the same thing. I think I sorta know them actually. Also bio majors. Anyways, we're going to set up a conference call with the local ACS lady sometime next week and get things started. I'm so happy that other people are interested and I won't have to guilt Jamie, Nicole and Becky into helping me out.

I already have like a million ideas for projects too. These other girls are going to kill me. Toy and postage drive for Jennifer, Alex's Lemonade Stand, blood and marrow donor drive, Cure Search walk, just to name a few.

Yay! Let the planning begin!!

I feel so grown up.

In only 283 days, Duane and I will be leaving for our cruise. I just finished booking the hotel and plane tickets. I feel so grown up.

I got ma'am-ed and everything on the phone. Although from the sound of her voice, the girl booking me was probably like 15. She was surprisingly unconfused by my request for the special cruise package (Stay one night with transporation to/from both the airport and cruise terminal.), so I appreciated that.

Now it just needs to be May.

The End is Nigh.

Well, I've officially given up on society. We're doomed. The world will be overrun in the population crisis created by all the little middle school whores punching out babies like they're rabbits.

How have I reached this conclusion? I just saw a commercial for the upcoming move: Bratz! The Movie. Oh yeah, that's what we need. Real life 12 year old whores for girls to idolize. -sigh-

This movie pretty much caps off my whoring of America theory. Bratz dolls and the Limited Too are to blame. Look at this lovely doll here. Little skank! Sure, Barbie gives you poor self-esteem, makes you want a boob job and throw up your dinner to be skinny, but hey, she had a job! Lots of them, in fact. Bratz just look pretty and shake their little plastic booties.

And then we have Limited, Too. I once loved that store. Actually, I kind of still enjoy that I can purchase some things there. However, saving money buying the kid size over the adult size since I'm a midget only goes so far. Sure, all little girls want to dress like the "big girls," but now that includes big girl undies... aka thongs. I couldn't find any on the website though, so I think the outrage over that a few months ago might have prevailed. Thats alright, I'm sure Abercrombie Kids sells them. They do still sell plenty of clothes that probably aren't for your average 8 year old. Super skinny low rise jeans! They show off that thong, ya know.

PS: In an effort to keep up with the times, Barbie is now all hip and urban too. At camp, we discovered the new "Urban Barbie" comes complete with tattoo... on her hip bone. Tramp!

The USA, the CQ Way!

I'm home! I can't decide if I'm happy about that or not. I could definitely do another week of camp, but I think I'd need some (read: a freaking huge amount) of sleep and plenty of boyfriend time in between.

Here's a rundown of our week:

Sunday: It took almost 2 or 3 whole hours before Ty requested a trip to crafts to make something. I think that's a record for any day at camp. He usually wakes up like "I want to make something!" Our cabin seemed pretty awesome, too, (no old lady this time, woo!) and all the little guys were sooooo adorable... Ty still wins, of course! There were so many of them though! Instead of one cabin, half little girls and half little boys, we had a whole cabin of the under 8 boys and a whole cabin of the under 8 (and a few developmentally delayed) girls. All these little ones resulted in an expanded play area. Our sandbox is huge now (Thanks Carpenter Lou!) and we had painting, play-doh and slime making, and a variety of small toys out all the time. I was a little sad though; it is very obvious that Ty isn't feeling quite up to par and has slowed down a lot since last year. He wasn't running around with the other kids and wanted to hold my hand to walk anywhere because he's afraid of falling. Poor kid.

Monday: The day started out good. I hammered about 50 things in the wood shop and Ty painted them (read: Painted them a little and himself and me a lot.). It was really hot though, which definitely caught up with us. Our evening activity was a trip to an Akron Aeros baseball game. They loaded us all onto some busses and off we went, all wearing matching shirts. It started out pretty cool. They announced us and we got to parade around the field, a couple campers got to throw out the first pitches and a few more got to announce the batters each inning. But, as I said, it was hot--REALLY HOT-- and 5 year olds aren't so thrilled with baseball. The result: major breakdown. Ty started freaking out that he needed to go home. So we ended up going back to camp in one of the program director's car with another little girl that got zapped by the heat, but the meltdown didn't really subside for quite a while. Luckily, after talking to mom and spending some much needed time in the air conditioning, he had calmed down enough to fall asleep and have a good night. I was worried though--I could tell he wasn't feeling well and wasn't sure if he'd make it all week.

Tuesday: Another toasty day, ugh! But Ty seemed to be alright... until after horizontal time. He had another freakout, but this time, I got him calmed down a lot faster and got some pretty good help with getting him in a better camping mood. It was pretty obvious that he just didn't have it in him to walk everywhere and still have energy to play, so we got our own golf cart. Talk about a turn around! He was like a new kid!!! First we decorated the golft cart--it was pretty awesome looking--and then we spent a lot of time just driving around to look for stuff to do. It made a huge difference. He actually helped me hammer some nails and completely painted his crafts. He had been painting a little and going "I don't wanna anymore, you finish," and just sitting there, looking completely miserable. The highlight of the day, however, was the inflatables. Ty said he didn't want to do them, just watch (a sure sign he wasn't feeling well), but by the time they were there, he was feeling better and did a few of them: the obstacle course once, the big slide a few times and he LOVED the slide/bouncy house combo that he and Ashley (a little girl who also has a brain tumor and is pretty fragile too) got some special time in. He even ran! I was so happy to see him run!!! Priceless.

Wednesday: Hump day and the definitive turning point in our week. Even though he had fun Tuesday, Ty still said he wanted to go home. This day changed all of that. It rained all morning, which really helped it cool down, so we had a very relaxing morning watching Power Rangers in the "quiet cabin." And then it was prom time. The boys were sooooo NOT excited about that, but it ended up being really good for Ty. The boys were all playing in the lobby during the dance and another little guy, Will, had a Transformer and asked Ty to play with him. They played for a while and when we left, Ty looks at me and says: "Kailey, me and Will are going to be best friends now! I want him to play with me all of tomorrow." You have no idea how happy I was--there are not words. Just what Ty needed! Also, haha, Brandon, Jen's little guy, devoured--absolutely tore through!-- five chicken legs. It was hilarious.

Thursday: Ty only said he wanted to go home once in the morning, but then we hung out with Will and never looked back! Ty had been playing third wheel..and a flat tire at that.. to Nate and Travon all week. He was mad they didn't want to play calm things with him and they were mad that he couldn't keep up, but Ty just wouldn't separate from them. Will had also been playing third wheel to a couple of slightly older boys, so both of them really needed to find a buddy. Things couldn't have worked out better. We did pretty much everything together all day (minus a boat ride with Nate and Travon in the afternoon), and here we are with Will and his companion, Brittany, at the film festival. Some of the kids made movies (a real Hollywood director comes to help them), so we watched them on a big screen in the field. Ty had so much fun, he didn't even mention wanting to talk to Mom or going home again!

Friday: Excellent day yet again. We spent the entire day with Will and Brittany, which was so fun. The boys played together so well. We went on a boat ride and fed the ducks. We fished a little with Ashley and then spit at fish off the docks a little later. Fish do really like spit, lol. The best part, however, was that not only was Ty running, albeit slowly, around the playground, he actually hung on the jungle gym, climbed a tire, and swung on the swingset... with Will pushing him. Too cute! Our cabin also got pranked by the little girls. There was TP everywhere. So we spent the night planning our revenge. It was hilarious and actually got filmed for the news.

Saturday: Boo, going home. Ty and Will were very sad to leave each other and talked non-stop about playing at each other's houses. Ty lives near Cleveland. Will lives in Indiana. Eek! But they did at least exchange phone numbers and might get to see each other at the camp parties throughout the year. I was sad to leave, just like last year, especially since not only do I miss the kids but all of the companions in our cabin got along very well and I'd like to hang out with those girls more... in a non-childcare setting, of course, lol. Only about 360 days until camp next year!

Random happenings: On Sunday, we saw some turtles, uh, hugging/piggy back riding. The kids had no idea, ha! Ty told me-- in a very excited but secretive voice--that his "bubble" (pocket of fluid that collects under his scalp) was gone one morning. Kinda sad that he has to worry about that, but also very touching that he feels close enough with me to run and tell me. (He wouldn't tell anyone else when they overheard and asked what his bubble was.) We had "The Great Poop Watch of 2007" with Brandon. Poor Jennifer. He wasn't potty trained (He's 6 but has Down's.) so she was quite aware of the lack of poop. That and the kid was starting to look pregnant by mid-week, so the nurses whipped him up some magic poop-making juice and we waited. It arrived in grand fashion.. and massive amounts. Aren't kids fun?

I have a thousand more fun stories to tell, of course, but you should just ask me about them instead!

I'm there... and off!

Good morning! Its finally the Best Weekend Ever... and sorta mostly over, but eh, whatever.

Friday night with Duane was excellent, of course. We saw Evan Almighty, which was decent, and ate at the southern place at the Waterfront. Shrimp!

Yesterday's baseball game was, um, an adventure. Stevie is officially an annoying preteen with the "I'm too cool for this" pissy little attitude. It wasn't so bad until we were walking to PNC Park and ended up walking way out of our way because my mom's directions of "just around the corner from home plate to the left" should have been "down the street TO THE RIGHT of the home plate entrance." It was really hot, you see, and I have a speed walking problem while Stevie informed me that he "can't walk cool going that fast." -thwack- I wanted to kill him before we eventually found the tailgate place. Undo's cheesy bread fixed it all though. Unfortunately, the Pirates couldn't really be counted upon to make it an exciting game. I don't even remember if they scored any runs...

And now for today. I'm leaving for camp in about 10 minutes and getting in my last bit of computer time. Yay Camp Quality!!! I'm so excited to see my little buddy and have some fun. See everyone in a week... with about 500 pictures, I'm sure.

I'm so close..

I'm so excited for the weekend. In fact, it needs to get here RIGHT NOW, or I might go insane.

But before I get ahead of myself, I should probably say that today was an interesting day. I got to lab at like 7:15 because Suma had me make some changes to the fluorescence and it was going to take me like 8 or 9 hours to do it. I'm not entirely sure she realized that though. Argh. And miracle of miracles, it started working on the first try, but then she got there and decided we needed to change it some more, so I should stop and restart. Yeah, too bad it started screwing up again after that and I had to restart 400 more times. By that point, however, my rage at both the fluorescence and Suma's hovering/belittling treatment (I know she means well but it was really getting to me) boiled over.

So to make a very long story short, we stopped the experiment and decided to just wait until I get back from camp in a week to continue. That definitely saved me a broken fist and either Suma a broken face or the lab a broken fluorescence machine because I rather wanted to hit something. And then we went to Mad Mex for Julie's birthday and had an ice/squirt bottle water fight when we got back to the lab.

But now for the important part: this weekend. I'm sooo excited. Tomorrow being Friday, that, of course, means staying with Duane, which I always look forward to; and on Saturday, I'm watching Stevie and going to the Pirate game. And then, hurrah hurrah, Sunday is Camp Quality. I'm really super excited not only because Ty is feeling good and able to go (big sigh of relief there) but also because I'll get a nice, relaxing week-long break from the grind here. Good stuff... even if I do really miss Duane every night when I'm bored -blushy- and will be saying "I have to go potty" instead of "I have to go to the bathroom, restroom, pee, etc" for the next week and may spontaneously slip back into the "little kid voice."

Eww!

Happy Independece Day everyone! Guess what I've done so far...

No, I didn't go to a cookout or parade or any other festivities. I woke up at an hour before noon to go pour a large gel in my lab. Now doesn't that sound fun? No, I didn't think so.

The best part about that, though, is that I'm now covered in said gel. I wore shorts--knee length, so they pass safety regulations!--which, of course, meant that I had to spill just about everything that could possibly have been spilled... all over myself. So now I'm on the lookout for loss of neurological function, oh yeah! The chemical that makes up the gel-making solution--yeah, its a neurotoxin.

But pft! No more lab for me today. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my day "off" and wait for Duane to get here to watch the fireworks... and keep looking for those neurotoxin effects.