What would be your last meal?

That's what N.A. asked me on a recent car ride.

For once, I was speechless.

I couldn't come up with a favorite entree. For a starter, I like a garden salad with thicky, chunky blue cheese dressing or perhaps a good caesar salad. Dessert is going to be either some marble chocolate cake or cannolis. Are there cake-cannolo combos? 'Cause that would be my pick.

When it comes to main dishes, however, I remain stumped. I have foods that I like, but I couldn't come up with anything that I would consider worthy of a final meal.

Have I lost my zest for life? Has my unrefined palate finally caught up to me? Are my senses dulled by too many "dinners" of chocolate and crackers?

My new crack

I can't stop eating them.

To be honest, I don't really WANT to stop eating them. If you can get past the annoying/disturbing commercials, you will see that they will likely become your new crack, too.

Happy housewife?

This post over at it's probably me got me thinking about cleaning.

I am pretty much the worst faux housewife ever. (faux because 1. I am not yet married and 2. I don't yet live in a house)

Don't believe me? Consider the following:

1. If left to my own devices (i.e., living alone), I typically ignore the dishes as long as possible. I rinse them off, of course, because although I might be a bad faux housewife, I am not disgusting.

2. I never vacuum. I am really, really allergic/sensitive to dust, so vacuuming, even with our "awesome for allergy sufferers, promise!" vacuum is borderline torture, post-sucking. And yeah, the "never" is a bit of an exaggeration. I typically use the dustbuster every few days under our kitchen table, since it is on carpet, the horror. I also actually vacuum about every two weeks. (So yes, for those of you keeping track at home, I am not only a bad faux housewife, but I am also a liar.)

3. I never dust. See above. Okay, so I dust when people are coming over, but otherwise, let the dust bunnies/tumbleweeds/monsters take over!!

4. I don't cook. I will leave the title of Delicious Dessert Diva to Julie.

And just to prove I am, like, the suckiest faux housewife ever: I can't even think of any more of my terrible housewife traits! I guess I should get back to doing what I do best: reading the Internets while eating bon-bons, while I let the dust monsters accumulate and the dishes stack up.

I've arrived?

Well, after driving through many, many states and a time zone or two, I've finally arrived in my new (permanent?) state. I've started my new (permanent?) faculty position at my new (permanent?) university. And now I will now forever jinx my two-body solution and call this new place PermaU.

With the switch to PermaU comes an even bigger change in my life: N.A. and I are officially living together. One lease, one place.

We've both had to abandon our bachelor lifestyles. For me, this means no more meals of snickers and crackers. N.A. has started accepting that boxes are not furniture. N.A. has had to adjust to a morning carpool schedule, while I have to stop going to bed at 2 am.

Laundry is done every few days (as opposed to a five load marathon every three weeks). I can't let dishes pile up until I run out of spoons. (I mean....um...yeah, I never did that.) Toilet seats are put down. Closets are shared.


Hmmm....what other lifestyle adjustments will we have to make?

Scary TV

I've been on my couch, eating bon-bons, and watching TV for the last four hours. I know-- rough life.

I've been watching some episodes of Flip Your House. That is some scary shit. Watching the short cuts that these lowlives take is more frightening than most of the other reality offerings (even worse than Birth Control Central).

Oops, Survivor* finale is on, gotta run.






*Yes, I watch reality TV. I *DARE* you to tell me why I shouldn't.

School's out for summer!

Grades are in. Many a celebratory beer has been consumed. Students are gone. Sure, some will be back in a few weeks for summer research, but for now things are quiet.

I've started packing up my office in anticipation of the move. Okay, so I'm not so much packing up yet as sorting through the embarrassingly high mounds of random papers. But still. The countdown to the relocation (and moving in with N.A.!) has begun. In less than a month, I'll be settling in to my new job.

PhDLadyBug over at Non tenured Assistant Professor has posed an interesting question about summer productivity. "What is your best advice to make the best out of the summer months?" She writes. By all means click on over and give your two cents; goodness knows that many of us will need more than just the luck of the chemistry gods to have a productive summer after THIS crazy semester.


Anyone else beyond burned out? I know that I'm going to need a LOT more chocolate cake (and beer) before I'll be feeling like getting some actual class prep or research accomplished.

pass the endorphins, please

N.A. and I haven't seen one another since New Years (more on THAT later). I think it's pretty obvious that I'm at an all time endorphin low.

Sure, I have chocolate. (Oh, sweet chemistry gods do I have chocolate.)

Yes, I could exercise. Currently, my exercise regime (haha..like I can really call it that) consists of my morning walk to work, excessive hopping and pacing during lecture, and afternoon post-coffee and liter of water sprints to the bathroom.

I haven't been to the gym since I defended my thesis.


I could blame the fact that I'm at work 12 hours a day and then come home for several more hours of grading.

But really, there is only one reason I haven't been skipping out for a noon workout: the showers are communal.

I'm not talking about little cubicles that require flip-flops.

I'm talking about one big room, 12 shower heads, and lots o' naked people.

Call me a prude, but I do NOT need to shower amongst my students. They do not need to see the state of my cellulite, lack of attention to my um...lady garden... or my tattoo.

(And don't even try to tell me that they won't notice or care. Because although I know they won't whip out their cell phones, I know I'll never hear the end of my Tinkerbell tat*)


So should I chalk this up to the ole UR list of neuroses, or would you balk at having to shower amongst the younguns?


*come on, do you REALLY think I'd have a Tinkerbell tattoo?

How chocolate mocked me

Today my dove chocolate wrapper told me to "treat every day like a Sunday."

I won't go into details about how a Sunday goes for a (visiting) assistant professor. I don't want to deter any of you from this career.

(I'm semi-joking. It's not that bad. Just a lot of prep, a lot of grading, and very, very little sleep. Oh, and N.A. many, many miles away.)


But still. The dove chocolate mocked me. Chocolate mocked me.



Has your chocolate mocked you lately?

What I learned this week

No matter how many times you tell your students, your coworkers, and yourself "it's just allergies," a cold is still a cold.

(Or maybe it's a touch of the flu.)

Even though I can make a dinner out of some mini-snickers and saltine crackers, I can't turn a nasty cold into seasonal allergies. What I *can* do is get through a week of lectures and quizzes by the always-entertaining (for my students) continuous ingestion of dayquil (i.e., CRACK) during waking hours followed by a nyquil nightcap.


Am I just lucky, or is anyone else suffering because their students brought back MORE germs after spring break?

grading timeout

I have dragged my pile of grading and prep work into my cave. I have a stockpile of chocolate (dark, milk, and white) and enough coffee to power a small village (if you gave it to hamsters that ran on wheels that generated electricity for the village).

I will return soon.


Hopefully to announce that my grading is done, and not just to beg for donations of truffles or brownies.