Sunday, April 19, 2009

Finals

Finals suck, they don't just take front burner, they take all the gas out of the stove making it impossible to light any other burner! Whoa, metaphor!

This week had potential to be so fun: Christy's engagement celebrations, new apartment move-in, sunny days! But noooooooo I'm inside writing about how to identify heterodimers by immunoprecipitation and programming Rock Band on Labview. Haha yea, this is legit, stay tuned for a video if/when it works.

Anyway, I wanted to post a song, for no other reason than to listen to it myself, cause I know nobody cares or listens to my playlists :-(
Ra Ra Riot - Can You Tell

Monday, April 13, 2009

Dear, dear friend

No time to post today, plus nothing too interesting is happening in my life lately...

Oh, except I got a $125,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

Oh and my dear, dear friend Christy got engaged!

YAY!

I really just posted so I could add a good song to the list - check it out: Regina Spektor - Hotel Song

Thursday, April 9, 2009

En-white-enment

It's been a while since I have posted, I realize this, and apologize. As far as updates go, April finds me well showered and in a crunch to finish the semester off right. Lots to do and not all together too much time to do it in. I enjoy the busy-ness though and feel satisfied in my directions.

Ok, boring shit aside. I decided to introduce a new segment into my blog entitled, "En-white-enment". For those of you who don't know, I am a "big sister" for Big Brother Big Sisters of Western Pennsylvania. My little sister, Nikki, is awesome and we hang out about twice a month. Our meetings basically consist of me picking her up, buying her some god awful food (McD's, Wendy's, Pizza Hut) and doing some activity. In the driving to-and-fro interim she has a habit of ripping me a new one about how white people just don't get it. Sometimes its heated, sometimes its funny, but its ALWAYS educational. Oh, and of course she doesn't offend me, because as she says, I'm a "white black girl"... clearly.

Lesson #1. Your birth name sucks... fix it up
Nikki was born as a Lauren. But hell if she was "keeping that white girl name." So her, self-claimed ghetto name became, "Nikki" (that's Nicky spelled the ghetto way). So I asked her what my ghetto name would be and she said since I've had my name so long I couldn't change it, but I could make it ghetto by spelling it Jaymi. Haha, YES! New license plate?? I think yes!

Lesson #2. Black fashion >> white fashion
Who here knows what a "swagger rag" is? Anyone? Anyone? Yea, didn't think so, that's because not only is this wayyyy too cool for whiteys, but its also wayyyy too cool for "punk blacks". Basically, only Homewood pips rock the swagger rag. So I'm like, what the hell, Nikki? What's a swagger rag? Where can I get one? And she says basically you have to be given one and they have all sorts of diamonds and stuff on it. I was like, "is it a necklace?" and she's like, "no" so I say, "is it a scarf" and she's like, "no". ???!!? I'll let you know if/when I ever get my eyes/hands on a swagger rag. Also, I promise not to use so many forward slashes in subsequent sentences.

Lesson #3. The four most famous black people
This lesson is my favorite. The day before the presidential election, me and Nik were hanging out and I was like, who do you want to win? And she's like, "duh, Obama". So we get to talking about it and she's like, "when Obama wins, I'm going to wear my shirt that shows the 4 most famous black people in history." "Cool", I retort, "who's all on it?" And here they are, in no particular order:

1. Martin Luther King, Jr.
2. Rosa Parks
3. Barack Obama
4. The lady who invented hair gel

I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING YOU. These are the people on Nikki's shirt. I have no comment, just consider me educated.

Ahhh, I love it. I really really do. Her life is awesome, she's constantly surrounded by family and friends and they are all so enthusiastic about everything. I don't compete at all, haha, but for whatever reason, she loves this little, white, black girl. Probably cause I buy her bacon double cheeseburgers.

Check out today's song (notice... April means new playlist!) it's from Okkervil River, just bought the CD after hearing many accolades.

Toodles.

My YouTube Playlist of the Minute