do you know any jokes about sodium hypobromite?

Today was my very first day of grad school classes. I say classes, but I actually only had one today: organometallics (carbon bonding with metals). It wasn't too bad yet...but...we got a homework assignment. And I cannot do a single problem without pulling out my sophomore o chem textbook. BAh. Oh, and we have to memorize the periodic table. No big. There are only 118 elements. (Although there is a separate class dealing with the f-block metals, and no one really does anything with elements 109-118, so that gives us 81.)

It's cool though because I AM A GRAD STUDENT AND I CAN TOTALLY HANDLE THIS.

famous last words.

But let's end on a happy note. How excited are you for this movie?!

raised eyebrow

For some reason this is my post with the most views. More than twice the amount of page views as the next highest.

I am confused.

Who are you who loves this post so much?

we we we so excited. we so excited.

The Last Airbender: The Legend of Korra trailer!!!

Nerd!

Excited!

Still no release date.

But excited!

this was typed with a lot of restraint

People who question why people would "want to ingest all those chemicals in coke" make me want to inform them that actually, everything you ingest is made of chemicals.

I would also like to inform those who justify drinking raw milk by saying people have been doing it for 1,000s of years that before pasteurization the average life expectancy was somewhere around 40 years.

Vaccines do not cause autism.

Genetically modified food will not kill you.

The end.

pretty philly

When Becky was visiting, we hit up a lot of historical sites. One of the more random was Elfreth's Alley. It's the oldest continuously inhabited street in the US or something like that. Basically, it's just a really cute pedestrian street (where people still live).

A lot of Old City looks like this. It's really quite beautiful to walk around. When you visit, you shall see. :)

(thank you for the picnik suggestion! doesn't the spacing look so much better on this collage?)

far far

We survived Irene, and our power never even went out. This experience taught me how difficult it is to purchase matches and flashlights, and also how scary the dollar store is near ShopRite (never again, never again).

Orientation started today for us incoming grad students. It made me want to just jump right in already. Enough talking about, wondering about, waiting about becoming a grad student. Let's just do this thing! All of the current students we talked to this afternoon told us that the first year is the hardest, because you're taking difficult classes, you're TAing classes, and you're trying to figure out which research group to join. Personally, I am tired of spending all my time baking and pinterest-ing. I could use a little organometallics to kick my butt (which it will).

Also, I got nominated for a blog award by the lovely Jackie from Sweet and Wild! She has a beautiful blog, and she even spent her summer in France (!!!!! so I am epically jealous, of course. check out her blog and show her some love, mmk?). The award is the Liebster Award, and it's meant to highlight blogs with up to 200 followers.

The rules:
Link back to the blogger who gave you the award to keep the chain going
Choose your top five and leave them a comment to let them know

Without further ado, here are five blogs that I think you all ought to check out because they are awesome:

start something new...
[a liberation broadcast]
welcome to my blog.
Crumbs From My Table
Redhead Cuisine

Happy reading!

sometimes i ruin a great shakespeare quote by throwing a crazy youtube video in at the end.

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.


-Shakespeare
(found in the book Genome by Matt Ridley)

A good thought after coming home from a fairly intimidating fellowship workshop. That Shakespeare, he was pretty good, huh?

As good as Dr. Seuss though?!

Go do something fun for your weekend.
Me and Aaron, we will read about science or something. And hunker down for HURRICANE IRENE! First an earthquake, now this?! Natural disasters abound! Welcome to Philadelphia!

a dilemma

Also, turtlenecks:

am I the only one who still likes them? I almost bought a black long sleeved one at H&M, but then I thought to myself, "do people even wear turtlenecks anymore?"

So, I ask you, reader, do people even wear turtlenecks anymore?

Cause I have a $5 off coupon, and I need to use it on something.