WIP Wednesday: Epic Fail

This weekend, I decided to finally finish my Fly South quilt that has been waiting to be quilted for months. So, Sunday morning I sat down and made some squiggly lines for about 2 hours.

I was quite pleased with how it was going. (ignore that chopped off point, we're talking about quilting here!)

Then I looked at the back.

T_T x 10000000000000000.2

For the first time in a long time (possibly ever) I managed to quilt in a whole slew of wrinkles and folds. I spent the entire afternoon un-quilting. Then I folded this sucker up and stuck it in the closet where I intend to leave for another few months. I think this might fall into the 'better luck next year' category...

And now, since there are only 44.5 days until my qual (eep!), I'm afraid I may have to stop all things quilty until 45.5 days from now. Possibly that whole "No Science on Saturdays" nonsense as well...

Islets of Langerhans

I am supposed to be writing a grant proposal right now. My advisors want a draft tomorrow.

However, if I read one more word about islet encapsulation my eyeballs will melt and my brain will implode and leak out of my recently vacated eye sockets. I'm not kidding. It will be a very slow sort of oozing too since the holes (superior and inferior orbital fissures and optic canal, bam! anatomy'd) connecting the brain to the eye socket are pretty small.

Sorry for the very graphic imagery, be grateful that I can't draw or there would have been a very graphic... graphic instead. (I'm envisioning something like Happy Tree Friends. warning: if you don't know what that is DO NOT Google it if you have recently eaten or plan to eat in the next few days, seriously)

I'll go write my proposal now, maybe.

Cat Tornado (Canado?)

Over the last two days I have been on campus/at work for 30 hours. While this schedule has been great for my research and has inched me closer to being able to ask my advisor for vacation time, my animals have not been appreciative. Last night (a.k.a. early this morning), my dog could not even be bothered to lift her head up out of her kennel to greet me. How bad is life when even your dog snubs you? I'm used to that from Admiral, but he's a cat. Speaking of cats, my other cat, cute little Loki, took a somewhat opposite approach to let me know how unhappy he is with my absence: he went through my room like a cat tornado. He pulled every toy out of the dog's toy box and then proceeded to shred some of them while spreading others around.  There are bits of fluff everywhere.

The start of the trail of destruction.

The most probable fluff source.

Some may wonder how I can possibly know that it was Loki who did all this when I have two other pets, not to mention my landlady's dog. It's actually pretty simple.

1. Pi, the dog, never removes her toys from the toy bucket. If she is feeling destructive she either rips up paper (but only if it's left on the floor) or pulls strings out of the rug.
2. Admiral only destroys food. If I don't let him outside often enough or if he gets hungry he will find either his bag of treats or an unopened bag of food and rip it open.
3. Snoopy, my landlady's dog, would never walk up the stairs. In fact, you have to carry her up them in order to give her a bath. I'm not sure she has ever voluntarily been upstairs.
4. Loki loves plastic Easter eggs.
5. His name is Loki. I mean, come on.

Easter egg bits ended up in the bathroom too.

Easter egg in the water bowl.

Ever since my friend accidentally stole his collar, Loki has been enjoying his stealth mode. Perhaps a little too much.

Innocent? I think not.

Kindle

My wonderful Aniki got me a Kindle for Christmas. I love it. And I hate it. But mostly, I don't have the self-control for it.

Last week, I spent my Thursday through Saturday reading 'A Game of Thrones' the first of the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. It's absorbing. If it weren't for my class/lab/work/volunteering obligations I probably wouldn't have slept, ate, or left my room until the book was done.

To some extent that's just how I am with novels which is why I watch a lot of TV. I can turn a show off and come back to it a few days later, no problem. But with novels I end up in a "keep reading until the words blur on the page" sort of situation. This habit is fine with 200-300 page Discworld novels (which are very light reading), but becomes quite problematic with 700 page complex monstrosities of political intrigue like the Song of Ice and Fire series. (Also series are bad because I hate cliffhangers. I must know what happens. Now. D'you hear me? NOW!)

And this is where the horrors of the Kindle come back in. For some unknown reason my eyes don't get tired reading it. Maybe it's because it's so light that I don't get tired physically holding the book open/up. Or maybe it's because of how I size the pages. Or maybe it's some evil Amazon magic. I don't know. But what I do know is that I can read for like 10 hours straight with no problem. And by straight I mean no food, no water, no peeing, and very little moving. Other than clicking to the next page every minute or so and occasionally rolling over I might as well be a statue.

I wish I could read textbooks with this kind of fervor.

Anyway, the lack of sleep and complete disregard for hygiene that I experience when reading is not even the worst part. What's bad is that I have to continue my hermit-y ways for a few days after I'm done reading in order to make up for all the work I didn't do. I think I spend 2 days doing homework for every day I spend reading. *sigh*

I should name my Kindle so that I can curse it more effectively...