suddenly we love korean pop!

Aaron and I are currently obsessed with this song:

When this song came on at the wedding last night, we booked it to the dance floor. I have never seen Aaron more enthusiastic about dancing before. He hates dancing, as in, it took serious persuasion to get him to stay on the floor for more than just our first dance at our wedding reception. But, it took zero convincing to get him to dance to this.
That's how magical this song is.

Have you seen it? (I think we're kind of late to this party.)

everything's not lost

I realized the other day when I was lost in blog stalking land that when I discover the blog of someone I used to know, I like it when I can quickly ascertain what they're up to these days.

So, here you go, stalkers. This is what I'm up to these days:

Aaron's back in school, I am back in TAing (no more classes forever!). I'm the head TA for the gen chem lab this semester, and I sort of like it a lot. Today Aaron took his first test of the semester: cardiology. It's his hobby (or at least that's what he said on a get-to-know-you sheet in organic chemistry class several years ago), and he's Aaron, so he probably rocked it. We met up for lunch and got macarons at my beloved Sugar Philly dessert truck. I'm doing some pretty fun things in lab trying to get my protein crosslinked intramolecularly, and it's making lots of lovely colors. The lovely colors are probably a bad sign, but I'm enjoying it, and that's [not actually] what counts [in grad school]! This weekend we're going to a church party and my labmate/mentor's wedding. My last post aside, I really love parties, especially ones where you get to dance (wedding!!!).

Also, I really like the Coldplay song that is the title of this post.
And...that's all I have to say tonight.

the night's watch

via

I went to a party at a chemistry friend's house last night, and I couldn't find a single person who had read Game of Thrones, which was all I really wanted out of that evening. Instead, everyone talked about alcohol, and I watched some people play Duck Hunt on an original Nintendo. Kind of a bummer. I think I was better at BYU parties.

aaron made ricotta against my wishes

Last week I came home to Aaron standing over the stove. I thought he was making something delicious for dinner until I noticed the paper towel-lined strainer next to him.

Ricotta!

I don't know why homemade dairy products gross me out so much, but they do. Homemade yogurt-ick. Homemade mozarella-also ick. Homemade ice cream-exception. The idea of heating up milk and cream and then curdling it and collecting the curdled milk/cream is pretty disgusting. I should probably mention that I don't drink milk because I also find it disgusting, so you know, this opinion might be a little tainted by that small fact. Anyway, when Aaron had told me he wanted to make homemade ricotta a few days prior, I said no way. But once Aaron has an idea fixed in his head it's pretty hard to dissuade him, so there he was in the kitchen, bringing milk and cream to a rolling boil three days later.

It took a substantial amount of persuading to get me to eat said curdled milk masquerading in the form of ricotta cheese, but it was actually delicious. And way cheaper than what we paid for ricotta at the grocery store, never mind what we paid for it at DiBruno Bros. For all that, I'm still grossed out by the process, so I shall leave all future ricotta making to Aaron.
We're even though, because I make all the chocolate chip cookies.

delicious food pictures

I present proof of our newfound hobby.

Clockwise from top left: lemon ricotta ravioli (pre-boiling), lemon ricotta ravioli with prosciutto and a sage browned butter sauce, peach pie, chicken tikka masala.

But we had pastaroni for lunch today, so...we're still working on it.

my reluctance to make hair appointments

I have been putting off getting my hair cut for about a year now (it's that bad) for three reasons:

1. Salons in Philly are expensive

2. I love how long my hair currently is

3. I hate talking to the stylist.

It's just, I have this weird thing where I always feel like the stylist is judging me for my lack of caring about my hair. I also hate the fake and forced conversation that inevitably accompanies my haircut. I once had a stylist complain to me about one of her clients bringing her textbook and just reading it the whole time she was getting her hair done. It was the week of finals...so YEAH I THINK SHE HAD MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO THAN CARRY ON A MEANINGLESS CONVERSATION WITH YOU. I'm paying you to cut my hair, not to be my bff. 

This could all stem from my dislike of talking to strangers. Maybe.

this is a post about posts

I wrote a list of things I want to write about, but haven't gotten around to yet:

Mom sticking it to the MAN (also known as the school district),

delicious food pictures,

my conflicted feelings on Trader Joe's and the Rittenhouse Square Saturday farmers market,

the 6 inches of split ends I have currently and my reluctance to make a hair appointment (Philly people- salon recommendations?),

Aaron making homemade ricotta cheese against my wishes,

my lack of friends who've read Game of Thrones (which I can't in good conscience actually recommend to anyone, but I need to talk to someone about these stupid books that I CANNOT STOP READING),

listening to people in lab bash on Republicans for half an hour ("I f'ing hate them") and now I want to hang up a Romney poster above my desk just to be spiteful,

flirting with switching over to Wordpress. Oops, I sort of already did: fromthemindofkatie.wordpress.com

I better start writing.

ahhh science

This week I have to give a presentation to my lab group about all the research I've been doing this summer. Apparently I'm a little more anxious about it than I was consciously aware because last night I had a horrible nightmare where it was right before I was supposed to present, and I was flipping through my powerpoint and all of my slides were messed up with the wrong text or in the wrong order and all of my Raman spectra had been replaced with roadmaps. When I woke up I had to check my presentation to make sure everything was okay. It was, except for the fact that I still don't actually have anything to say about my data. Maybe I'll go with a modern art feel and just throw it up on the projector and say, "Interpret it however you want!" and then run out of the room. 

I bet that will impress my professor. 

as a follow up to my previous post

Hello my pretties.

Too bad it is still in the upper 80's/lower 90's and humid as heck. Maybe in November I will get to wear you.

(Also, that is a screenshot of the Instagram picture I emailed myself...this could probably be answered by a 20 second google search, but does anyone know how I can email myself an actual image file from Instagram?)

fringe? booties? nearly knee-high?

I'm trying to decide what boots I want to buy on Zappos, and this is basically how it's going:

via

I got a Zappos giftcard last Christmas from my mother-in-law, and I bought a pair of boots with it (after a month of deliberation), but they were the wrong size and I sent them back, and Zappos lost them in their warehouse, and it wasn't until August that I finally contacted them about getting my money back, and they gave me my money back and then upgraded me to free two day shipping. (Zappos and Amazon have the best customer service in the world.) But, now I'm back to square one on boots:

???

I just need them to be cute, waterproof, snowproof, and able to withstand me walking 3 miles a day several times a week in them. It's really not that much to ask. 

(I kind of love those ridiculous yellow Big Bird fringe boots.)