Ow!

I hate how it's been about THREE months since my accident, and the entire left side of my head is still tender and my hip/pelvic region is still super painful because of my fracture there. Argh.

That being said, I am super super thankful that I am healthy enough to complain about the pain on my blog. Hooray for life and having first world problems! :-)

And when there's nothing else, there's always Beaker...

I watched Sesame Street (or Sessy Street as I said as a baby) religiously as a child. I still have a soft spot for the Muppets--I find Beaker to be adorable! Here is his version of Ode to Joy:

Meep!

Coming out of the closet

Okay, no...Not the sexual closet. But the political closet.

Hi, my name is Nishi and I am a Democrat. And I FULLY support our President, Barack Hussein Obama.

If Democrats are hoping to re-elect Barack Obama in 2012 we need to support our candidate. Is he perfect? No. But has he done a damn good job everything considering? YES. All of us individuals left of center, and to the general left of the political spectrum need to actually support our candidate instead of subjecting him to intense scrutiny. The degree to which we dissect our candidates is unnecessary and detracts from the issue we should be focused on: Who will be our next Commander in Chief? Public discourse is both necessary and vital to the growth of our political system, but when it comes down to who we support with our ballots, practical consideration must be given.  Sure, the Independent or Green Party candidate may represent your ideals a bit more, but if we don't want another Republican to take office, who would likely grossly misrepresent our ideals, we must give consideration to where our vote will actually have an impact.

It's time to be rational, folks. Because of the lack of a solid Republican frontrunner, there are talks of Jeb Bush (former President George W. Bush's younger brother) entering the race. Do we really want another four years of a Bush leading our great nation? I sure as heck do not.

This illustration pretty much sums up how I feel. It also doesn't hurt that George Clooney is a stone cold fox. mmm.

Osho is crazy yet genius

This quote more or less describes my views on possession within relationships. It may seem a bit weird on first glance, but give it some time to marinate, and I think it makes a lot of sense.

"Only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core into the other person... without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without creating "the other," reducing the other into a thing, and without becoming addicted with the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because their sole happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other."
- Osho

The Illicit Activities of Snowmen :-)

For the love of God, wash your hands!

I love this picture for the following reasons:
1. The man in picture is wearing a Boston Red Sox hat, and I <3 the Boston Red Sox.  If you don't, it's because you haven't been to Fenway yet and felt the magic.

2.  My Clinical Pharmacology professor once told the class that some horrifyingly high percentage of people (70-80%) don't wash their hands at all after using the restroom. If this statistic is indeed correct, I must say that this is so incredibly disturbing to me. Seriously people, wash your hands! A little soap and water goes a long way in disease prevention. I'd like to think this photograph is accurate in its portrayal that us science folk are more likely to wash our hands after (and before).

Related side note: I once dated a boy who didn't wash his hands after using the restroom. Needless to say, I broke up with him shortly thereafter.

Picture stolen from: http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson1247.html

(Yes, I am posting an awful lot lately...but there's nothing like finals and writing an orphan drug application to get you to procrastinate!)

Where the hell have you been? And why haven't I talked to you in six months?

Most of you probably haven't had a real conversation with me in six months, and for that I am very very sorry! Among the other things that I have mentioned on this blog, one thing that takes up all of my time these days is school. Many of you know, I only really started my education in the sciences a bit over a year ago, so running experiments that cost thousands of dollars each run causes me to be in a state of constant terror.

The pictures above are of my team's latest experiment involving a line of Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells that my lab has never used before and one of the bioreactors that was used.