the grand finale to my halloween

kind of like this...

happy halloween!

Love, us + pumpkin Jack Skellington

(no pictures from our party because I still can't find my camera charger and I didn't want to whip out the photobooth. It's okay though, because my costume was lame (Bones from "Bones"). But, Aaron's was good (3 hole punch Jim from "The Office."))

it's party time.

Things are getting spooky at our home...

Bat idea from here.

Don't mind the crappy spider webbing. Did you know how hard it is to use that stuff?

the more i write, the more i think the whole premise of my proposal is flawed

You know what's a bad idea? Telling a professor that you're interested in a career in science writing when you're going to have to turn in a nice little 5 page paper of science writing and you know you're going to end up still writing it at midnight the night before.

Not my best science writing tonight, guys. Oh well, oh well! My concern for this is decreasing exponentially with time.

How's your school life been lately?

spooky

Aaron and I are throwing a Halloween party this weekend. And it has been a long time since I've thrown an awesome theme party, so I need some help here! Any great Halloween party ideas? Treats, activities, etc.? (I don't even really know what people do at parties these days...?)

Also, costumes. Not being near my family I am sadly separated from some really great dress ups. What are you being for Halloween? (what costume idea can I steal from you?) 

Any thoughts would be much appreciated! :)

(oh, and update on my last post. James Franco tickets are all sold out. So no James Franco for me. :( Boo.)

reason 1203493 why i love penn

Oh, hello James Franco.

Did you want to come speak at my school on November 6th?

Okay, great.

(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

i need a photobooth intervention

This is kind of how I feel today. Whaddaya mean I have to walk to class in the rain and TA lab? I just want to sit at home and pretend this is a fashion blog:

My posing skills are unparalleled.

too much hulu

The guy in "Terra Nova" reminds me a lot of Will Schuster from "Glee". This makes me think they're going to burst into song right after they figure out the structure of a natural product and then synthesize a kilogram batch of it in two hours to draw away the evil reptile/bird/dinosaurs.
Sometimes, I think I'm obnoxious to watch shows with.

yesterday i listened to a glee coldplay cover 4 times. too much!

Lately, Aaron has been staying on campus fairly late, but I'm done with class around noon, so I've been coming home. With no human contact for a few hours, I usually end up listening to this week's Glee songs or Dr. Horrible on youtube and singing along really loudly.

I bet my neighbors think a singing crazy lives in our house. I haven't figured out yet how well you can hear through walls in this place, but I do know we can hear our neighbors perfectly in our bedroom when they're having outside patio parties at 1:00 AM (doesn't happen that often, so we're not too annoyed). But, we never hear our neighbors when they're inside (thank goodness/much less awkward than our Provo apartment?). Maybe they're really quiet when they're indoors and sober? I dunno.

This is to say, does anyone have any music recommendations? I have a $100 iTunes gift card from buying my laptop and nothing I want to spend it on. Suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

(Oh, and random aside, I just noticed that I'm wearing the same striped t-shirt in four of my facebook profile pictures from the last year. I didn't realize I wear it that often/my wearing always coincides with picture-worthy events? I bet everyone thinks I can't afford to buy clothing! This is only mostly true.) 

I sense a theme here...

i did it. i forked over $7.50 for a dang pumpkin.

Behold. The spirit of Halloween lives in our house.

I got this pumpkin last weekend somewhere in Manyunk (maybe? or a town that started with an R) on my way home from an outreach activity with PAGES (Philadelphia Area Girls Enjoying Science). A bunch of female grad students put together some demos and hands-on experiments for 60 6th grade girls to do, and it was a blast. Those girls had so much enthusiasm! I have hope for the future now. And another sentence to add about broader impacts in my NSF essay.

Getting out of deep Philly was kind of nice, too. (Not that I don't love the city, I really do.) I saw lawns and garages and beautiful trees and hills. It's too bad the leaves haven't really turned color yet or it would have been perfect. We've had a spurt of great weather lately (mid 70's), and it's been awesome.

Aaron has tests this week, but when he finishes on Friday, we are carving that pumpkin and roasting its seeds. After that, all it'll take for me to recreate an Andrus Halloween is a hideous plastic pumpkin centerpiece with fall leaves growing out the top of it. Scary!

Edit: This is the crazy centerpiece. Posted by my mom on Facebook this morning.

Does anyone have any great sugar cookie recipes? My chemistry friends and I are baking 118 sugar cookies to make the periodic table this weekend, and we want it to be a delicious experience.

Happy Monday!

the view from the quiet zone of the chemistry library

On your left we have the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), the med school's translational research building in the middle, Penn tower (hotel for patients' families) on the right, and dome building on the far right is part of the anthropologie museum. Since this was taken using photobooth, everything is reversed in real life. Hope that doesn't confuse you when you come to visit us.

I am determined to get some falafel this week. I am also determined to carve pumpkins because it is October! ($6 for one pumpkin be darned!) I am also determined to make candy corn-themed dessert, carmel popcorn, and apple cider! It is fall! And it finally feels like it, too. No more 90% humidity and 75 degrees outside. Today was a beautiful, crisp 55. In a couple more days conference talks will be online, which is great because I am never able to catch everything I want to the first time around. (but you can already re-watch here. and I highly recommend you do if you need a pick me up.)And by tomorrow, my first grad school [take home] test will be out of my hands, and there will be nothing else I can do with it. Hooorah!

So, the first time I published this post, I had [/randomness] only with little arrow brackets like this: <   >, like html code, except blogger took it as something real, and it didn't show up. Funny. The end.


/random