After long day #1000 in the lab, I go to the bus stop at 10:26pm. No bus came until 11:09pm. Needless to say, I was really pissed off by that point, and I wanted to say something mean to the bus driver when the bus came, but I refrained. But really, *three* buses went in the other direction during this wait! Shortly after 11pm, a bus in our direction *was* seen, but it prematurely made a turn and never made it to our stop for a mysterious reason. Oh well.

My wrist is in terrible pain today - it actually started before the mad pipetting began, and it hasn't gone away yet :(

I'm gonna call up the salon and tell them my perm is almost gone already, again -- today is day #8 after the re-perm. But I am afraid my hair might fall out if I perm *three* times in a month, and I will probably piss off the stylist at this salon. But... I paid my money and the service was ineffective! Of course, it's not the stylist's fault per se (though ideally, they should know enough about the different kinds of hair out there  and how to work with them) - my hair is just that resistant to perming reagents, I guess - but that doesn't make it any more satisfying from my end.

Tomorrow is probably gonna be a no-work-gets-done day... a seminar hosted by our lab in the morning; OO club noon-ish; structure club mid-afternoon; happy hour early-evening.

My entries are so sparse now! There hasn't been too much to update, really. My MCAT score came out yesterday, and (thankfully?) it's not horrendously low to the point where I cross med schools off of my list ;) But I *freaked out* for a few hours surrounding the score release. And apparently, some people responded accordingly:

Rolando: hey lauren

Rolando: are you alright?

Rolando: listen, if you are really upset about this all we can consider giving it away to adoption ... or even abortion

Well, in any case. It's decided - I'm gonna go buy the 15" Macbook Pro this Saturday, with the glossy screen that it comes with, with iLife, and without Applecare.

Apparently, there's a Brookline Symphony Orchestra that's making a comeback after a 10-year hiatus. The obvious advantage to this - it's in Brookline, so I won't have to travel all the way to Newton, Cambridge, Longwood, or whatever the alternatives are. It looks like they have some Wagner, a Mozart Symphony, and Beethoven #7 (!!) on the first program, and they plan on having just 3 concerts in the upcoming season. I'm debating whether to audition or not (audition date? it's really soon, May 9 or so). My poor violin hasn't been touched in... 2 months.

My yield at this point in the purification is unbelievably high. I remember this batch of cells grew really fast also (by more than 33%). I wonder why they are so happy, if that's what this even is!

Good lord. Why can I not decide for the life of me?

For instance, after much debate, I've decided to buy a MacBook Pro (other options were: just wait it out and keep surviving with my current PowerBook, get a small netbook to carry to lab, get a cheap PC and expect to just last until Fall 2011, get a new Mac, get a desktop, etc). Then there was the hard decision of a 13" vs a 15" Mac. Now that I've finally settled on a 15" Macbook Pro, NOW I am debating:

• whether to pay the extra $150 for a matte screen (the glossy screen looks like a mirror because it's so reflective, but the general consensus is that it's not so bad once you take it out of the insane spotlight at the Apple store and use it indoors only)
• whether to cough up extra $250 for Apple Care (everyone recommends it for the extra 2 years of warranty, but... I don't even plan on carrying this new MBP anywhere and it'll only be used for general browsing/MS-office/movie-watching/etc)
• pay $45 for iLife? or get a UVA friend to get me MS Office for $10? iLife seems really neat.

This is tough :P But I've also never spent $2000+ for anything before, so I might as well research everything before I splurge...

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I am learning Faure's Elegy on the cello now :) Apparently, this piece was premiered at Saint-Saens' personal home -- how cool is that! I love reading program notes, and here's a paragraph from one of them:

The simple grandeur of its ABA layout, in which Fauré allows the most telling melody to sing without complication, no doubt accounts for the Élégie's phenomenal appeal. Over steady, dirge-like chords, the cello dramatically embarks upon an expansive lament that quietens as it unfolds in tones of somber oration. Then, accompanied by the cello, the piano essays an effusive song – as of joy recalled in grief – taken up by the cello to culminate in a sudden vehement (and rather unconvincing) cadenza before the funereal opening returns, shadowed by the central section's plaint, to sing itself into nothingness.

While it's just a 7 minute piece, and by no means a timeless "masterpiece" (at least I don't think so), there's such incredible intensity and climactic moments fitted between moments of bittersweet lyricism and somewhat of a contained grief -- it's really beautifully composed :)

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To put me in a really tragic mood, my beginning on this Elegy happened simultaneously with my start on Bach Cello Suite No. 2. I think the Second Suite is the most depressing and introverted of the 6 suites. I think Yo-Yo Ma played the somber Sarabande at his father's funeral. That's how sad these are!

One can imagine [the Second Cello Suite] to express a person's self-examination of life from the view of opportunities lost, close relationships abandoned or not made, and longings not fulfilled. This isn't cheerful stuff to reflect on, and any great performance has to dig down into the depths of the soul and bring up those hard to face emotions; I also think that the listener has to do so also in order to get the full impact of the music.

 A review on Maisky's recording of the 2nd suite Prelude:

Mischa Maisky - "Mournful and sad" well describes Maisky's performance; in fact, if a listener tends to shed a few tears hearing this prelude, Maisky's version should have the person crying buckets. And his conclusion is power-packed.

Hahaha, I don't know about "crying buckets" but I do think his interpretation is power-packed. I'm growing really fond of Mischa Maisky! Haha, some say he has a Jesus-look, probably because of his hair. He is a godly player though, and he comes second only to Jacqueline du Pre (you knew that was coming).

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Funny (or sad; depending on how you look at it) research to conclude this post:

According to our data, the average American experiences a 0.8-second window of happiness upon awakening, before remembering that they're conscious beings in a relentlessly bleak and numbing world," said Dr. Derek Moore, lead author of the paper. "Other periods of happiness include 1.9 seconds after a good meal; 0.6 seconds upon receiving a paycheck; 1.1 seconds following competition of a scientific study; and the 2.5 seconds approaching orgasm, just before the guilt sets in.

Yoko defended her thesis yesterday, after Tom's hilarious introduction with funny pictures of Yoko (and her desk). It was sweet :) Then around 11:30am, we started the celebration. This commenced with Yoko wearing her hat (the one that Robin decorated with ER network), Tom's reading of a really funny poem (2 pages long!! and he even made the whole thing rhyme. it was hilarious) that he wrote for Yoko, and a round of congratulatory champagne. Then mid-afternoon, Tom announced that he got his HHMI funding renewed for the next SEVEN years (he just heard. big day!). So he's all set. I don't think any of us was surprised, but it's good to know for sure.
Today's lesson will be the third (THIRD!) cello lesson for which I've done less than 50% of the practicing I've wanted to do. It's partly because I came home way too late during the week, and it was in the 30's outside without heat in my apt (i.e. my fingers were freeeeeezing and I didn't want to get out of my bed), but also I've been less excited to practice. Remember back in October when I was screeching on the cello for 2-5 hours a day, every day of the week! Well, now I've hit that point in cello playing where I'm not super excited about how cool octave double stops look :P It's misery to play. Thumb positions aren't as exciting as I once thought either -- the thumb is so incompetent for getting a sense of where the notes are on the fingerboard, compared to the other 4 fingers. I've also hit a plateau with Kol Nidrei -- I can hit all the notes, but it's hard to make it sound the way I want (story of all musicians' life). But after weeks, Kol Nidrei is also beginning to feel like un-seasoned pasta. It's kind of a bland piece. Needless to say, I was so excited about the cello to begin with, that I still have a lot of motivation. And if nothing else, perseverance/patience is a key trait of any musician, right? :) [and scientist. bleh]

Wee, surprise surprise, TB test negative :) I guess now I just have to wait and take another one in late May.

I hate when people cash their checks a few weeks after I give it to them (i.e. I've forgotten about them), and they all happen to cash it within a one day period... so overnight, I go from having lots of money, to a dangerously low level of money.