Welcome to America

today in the lab, I was asked to a Superbowl party. one Chinese member of the lab asked about whether or not I usually watch the Superbowl. "All Americans watch the Superbowl," I said, grinning. "The commercials are also important."

The Housemate just told me that at one point today, while I was not in the main lab area, the host of the upcoming party was telling other members of the lab about the Superbowl and inviting people to the party. Questions that she overheard:

"Who's playing this year?"
"What's the name of the Seattle team?" (His answer: I'm...not actually sure...)
"Do people usually do this [have a party around the game]?"

The Housemate noted that this party will probably be more about hanging out than about actually following the game. She followed this up by saying, "I guess that happens other times, though."

We also learned that in China, football is called "Oliveball." The things I never knew...

an early birthday present

a day in the lab

The Housemate: IT WORKED!
Me: You're getting pretty jazzy about that PCR product. [claps somewhat sarcastically]
The Housemate: It deserves claps.
Me: ...I can't believe I said that about a PCR product.
The Housemate: What, getting jazzy?
Me: Yeah!
The Housemate: Well, I'm excited.


Me: Yeah, UV radiation can cause eye cancer. Probably we're increasing our probability.
The Housemate: You increase your chance for all kinds of things every day. Like, we increase our risk of car wrecks every time we travel. ...We increase our risk of bus wrecks-
Me: [interrupting] -because we ride the bus?
The Housemate: Yeah.
Me: Well, we'd probably be safer in a bus wreck (than a car wreck) anyway.
The Housemate: Yeah, that's true.


Me: [pacing]
The Housemate: Haven't you ever heard the phrase, "A watched pot never boils?"
Me: Yeah, and I've also heard the phrase "A watched plasmid never melts."

let's talk about dating

I've been on this organization kick recently; take my bookmarks folders as an example of the extremes my focus can take me to. 

In the throes of this organizational passion, I was clicking through my facebook profile, preparing to edit any and all old information that should be discarded, when -

I found this little category under my name that said "Interested in."

Huh, I thought, I don't remember that. And I got all excited, thinking about what I could list:

Interested in good books. In good music; Jars of Clay, Anais Mitchell, Eddie Vedder. Light, and how even concrete grain elevators look beautiful in late afternoon. Cacti, owls, coffee in the morning. Writing. Words. Science! Reading about particle physics, although I'd rather not do the math. Women's rights. History. The Appalachian Trail. Mennonites. Poetry. Prayer. The way poetry can be prayer.  

Interested in all the things I don't know. All the things I want to learn. Python. How Coffee cup stirling engines work. The 76 Best Board Games of all time. Fingerpicking. How to be a better listener. Calligraphy. Trees - I mean their names; douglas fir, pin oak, trifoliate orange. Literary Theory. The Illiterate, well enough to say by memory. How to make crème brûlée. 

Interested in the world. 

I clicked on the little box and it opened a tiny window.

I looked at the little box and was filled with an aching sense of disappointment.

--

I'm going to turn 23 in 40 days and I've never dated anyone. My culture expects me to be ashamed of that. My culture expects me to be waiting, to be whiling my time away.

Guess what? That's not happening. I have too much to do.

Tomorrow I'm taking the metro into D.C., all on my own. I'm going back to the Hirshhorn, and the Postal Museum, and I'm going to find a cafe to sit and write in. 

I am a lot more than a click of the little men-box, and I refuse to be reduced to that. The world is too big and interesting and fragile to wait around.

A New Year

“Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life.” 

― Brian Andreas

Here's to a year of being just a little uncomfortable and a lot awake.

(New Year's Day in Bethesda)

Christmas: loving God, loving the world, and the endgame is redemption

If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can. And there is nothing more to it than that.
-Brian Andreas 

I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.
-Wendell Berry

How strange it is to imagine that three years ago I was just about ready to step into a journey through the Middle East. That I did actually live for a month in Syria, that I walked in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Such heartbreak in this world. 

How grateful I am to think that God came to us as one of us. That God knows what it is like.

It is not a terrible thing to love the world, knowing that the world is always passing and irrecoverable, to be known only in loss. 

To love anything good, at any cost, is a bargain.
-Wendell Berry

a christmas adventure

i'm making good progress on my list of things-to-do. by which i mean, i am getting so good at dc public transit!

the dwight d. eisenhower executive office building. quite impressive.

the national christmas treeeeee!

and some random model trains.