Ready, Set...

Yeah, baby, the Minnesota State Fair is just around the corner! This year, I'm making every attempt to drag Mom along too. (Which makes it us and the entire rest of the state's population converging on the fairgrounds & creates traffic insanity.) Oh, and if you thought I was kidding last year about the food, Fairborne's Fabulous Fair Food Finder lists all the food that will be available at this year's Fair.

Begin the Beguine

And so it goes...I await my September return to my One True Love, aka Mol Bio, with both exhilaration and trepidation. The program director informed me this afternoon that "[t]he usual first year of curriculum includes Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology in the first semester, and then Genetics and Developmental Biology in the second semester." (In response to my query of what out of my old materials I should be reviewing starting next week.) No escape from Biochem, it would appear. Essentially, this will be like Junior year, except more intense: in addition to the core courses, the fall semester also includes a literature analysis course, a student research seminar (which I'm guessing involves presenting what you're doing in lab), a lab rotation, and a Joint Degree Proseminar; the spring includes another lab rotation and research seminar.

But, there will be pretty pictures in my textbooks and all kinds of Really Cool Stuff...!

The Impossible Dream?

Double entendre for this post I suppose: not only have I fallen far short in my exercise and weight loss quest, but now this article yesterday on MSN doubts whether I (and "my kind" as some people call us--you know who you are if you ever read this, my dear) can have real success in our quest for an integrated future that would not try to force us to choose between Career and Family (or at least ease the burdens).

First things first, though. I confess I promptly forgot that I was, in fact, supposed to be keeping an exercise log. This mental slippage was aided and abetted in part by an injury incurred during my brief trip back to Princeton: apparently walking along a curb with construction on one side and traffic on the other while carrying one's suitcase is actually a recipe for losing one's balance, tripping, and falling into the rubble. True brilliance, no? However, vast experience being the Paragon of grace and beauty inures one to such occurrences and provides one with the composure to take such things in stride, albeit a mildly interrupted stride. Incidentally, kindly passersby will offer napkins and bandaids to a young lady walking down Nassau St. with blood running down her leg. I suppose the bloody leg is a bit of an unusual contrast to the professional dress. (Favorite black work skirt is 2-0 for the summer in escaping near-certain disaster brought on by the ever-graceful wearer.) But I digress. The resulting scraped knee was very minor once cleaned up except for one small but fairly deep gash which I was pretty sure would not close unless more or less immobilized for the weekend. So, no gym :( But it was vastly improved by Monday and I have dutifully exercised since...with the highlight being scraping a full 20 seconds off my 1500m rowing time! Also now posting regular readings of spm's (I assume this is one's stroke rating?) of high 30s up to 40. Minimum goal for this evening is to keep those 20 seconds off...wish me luck.

Commentary about the women & work article coming later...I have work to do and a lunch appointment. Recess is beautiful...