Why Girls Are Better Than Guys

Let's just say that hair can be scary. Especially when there is enough on an arm that it itches. Obviously I don't spend much, if any, time touching male body parts. It's probably a good thing. I just don't remember my brother having itchy, hairy arms. And definitely not any females that I know of. Wait, this one girl who was in band with me had really long and dark hairs on her arms... She doesn't count. Ana Ivanovic, after all, is perfect. And Maria Kirilenko is a favorite hottie of the males on the tennis tour. And I think I had a crush on my ballet teacher from winter semester, because she reminded me of Yu-na Kim.

Ahem, anyway I should update you on all things sports! I've had the joy of watching volleyball on TV now, thanks to the addition of ESPNU and CSTV. Randomly I started receiving ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNNews on the previously blank channels 47-49. It makes life better for sure. Women's World Cup soccer was sucky today, with deflected goals, Hope not starting, Natasha not playing (why the fuck not I don't know), and of course, diving and terrible refereeing. Terrible refereeing caused the increase in diving, though, and I'm pissed about Boxx's second yellow. And today I'm watching MLS for the first time in like a month. Too bad I missed both superclasicos...but Chivas USA is doing really well! And watching soccer from England and Spain is nice...yay Cesc! And tennis is in a little lull right now, though Tim Henman did go out with a win (poor Marin...but at least he won his 2nd match) and Serbia got into the Davis Cup World Group. Vania keeps losing early in singles, but she just won a doubles title so at least she's doing well somewhere... Joachim, to my surprise, played in the Sweden tie against the U.S. Great to see him back! Also, I want Richard to keep winning so he can qualify for the Masters' Cup. I wouldn't be the only one happy about that either!

Come on Eddie Johnson, I know you can score! Please no own goals in this game too...

Lindsay is amazing!

Lindsay just beat Elena Dementieva 7-6, 6-1 in the China Open and is marching on to another title! By winning Bali she rose like 80 places in the rankings, and soon she'll be back in the seeding range. I'm excited of course. She's probably going to be seeded for the Australian Open! I'll get to watch her on my new TV that doesn't cut out randomly (though that problem seemed to have randomly fixed itself...weird). Amelie is also playing at China...come on Amelie!

Davis Cup stuff starts today too. Go Serbia! I can't wait to see you in the World Group! Meanwhile the Serbian ladies had a tough draw with Slovakia to get into World Group II, so they are still in the Zonals... But best of luck next year. Ooh and there is Croatia vs. Great Britain... Tim Henman's last event. Best of luck to all in that one.

I have this great desire to play tennis like right now. I think I'm going to bug my sister about playing tennis or something. Should be good weather tomorrow afternoon, at least.

¡Vámonos!

Ya estamos a 19 de septiembre. El tiempo pasa tan rápida...no parará para nadie. Casi voy a asistir a MECC (29 septiembre) y presentar a mis investigaciónes.

Voy a vivir y disfrutar la vida y no pensar demasiado en nada. Voy a ver muchos partidos del fútbol y ver Atlético Madrid que ganará sus partidos de la Copa UEFA. ¡Vámonos!

Don't Set Shit On Fire

The fire alarm went off at the Chem. Building today while I was in lab. I think we were outside for like an hour. All that time that I could have used to run that column and finish that experiment... I think one girl stayed to finish it but I wouldn't submit that horrendousness to the GSI. I still stayed until about 5:15 since I had only 30 minutes to do any real work since I also had NMR machine training... I am behind and I also have that conference to go to...oh well. But more importantly, do not set any shit on fire in the Chem building especially. It might make one spectacular explosion, with all those gases and flammable liquids, but we could all die as well. I did not do all of this work just to get killed, after all.

Looking up grad schools is still a pain, and I think I eliminate more places then I accept. Apps. need to be in by early December...damnit!

Not Again (Thankfully)

I woke up at 5 AM today in order to watch the match between the U.S. and Sweden. It was a good match, but it was sort of worth it. I was basically screwed for the rest of the day. I was dying throughout inorganic chemistry lecture, and took a short nap and the research lab (while a solution was thawing). Somehow that worked. I was alright during biophys lecture (I was brave enough to try and answer a question on the board, granted with my eyes scanning my notebook frantically for all the equations) and I didn't break anything in my synthesis lab today! I spilled a little bit of solution, maybe 2-3 mL, which compared to the 60 mL I have, isn't much. In fact, I don't have to redo the purification/isolation of my stuff since none of it had eluted on Monday. The unfortunate parts are that I still have shit on that column (my second compound) and that there is overlap between my first and second compound. Hopefully I can get some pure second compound and then work on speccing them. Woot.

Volleyball game tonight with my sister. I like volleyball, so shoot me. Hopefully a great game (and that we kick ass, so only 3 sets please). If it's fun, I might go there again. Yeah. Sometime I need to go to a soccer game too. Now those are free! Yes, I should definitely go.

I have homework...that shit sucks. I guess in conclusion I am a spoiled brat.

Marin!

Marin just won against Nikolay Davydenko 6-3, 6-4! First Top 10 win, yeah! Now hurry up and climb in the rankings so I might see you on TV eventually...

Lindsay is also winning at the moment, and Gael has been doing well so far in Romania, so things are good. And both Spain and Croatia won in their qualifiers for EURO 2008. It was so nice to see a real men's soccer match on TV.

Ah, damn I have to wake up at 5 AM tomorrow in order to see USA vs. Sweden in the WWC. The reshowing that I can see (aka on ESPN) is at 3AM Saturday morning. But at 8 there is Brazil vs. China, which I don't want to miss, so that would be pretty rough. Basically I'll have to sleep or nap during the day. Or not sleep. Hmm...

Life keeps rolling

Why do I always have to break stuff? Now everyone can know how incompetent I am... And I think I eluted the two things together so I'll have to redo anyway...piece of shit.

The U.S. Open is over, but tennis keeps rolling. A bunch of my players are playing this week, who basically didn't play the U.S. Open. Marin and Jo-Wilfried are off in China and are both still playing there (Marin lost in qualies for the U.S. Open). Gael just beat Filippo Volandri in Bucharest after qualifying for the tourney! And most importantly, Lindsay is BACK! She beat Eleni Danilidou in Bali and is teaming up with Daniela Hantuchova for doubles. Maybe she'll direct qualify into AO 2008 with good results or even get up to seeding! She's at 234 right now...I just checked.

Women's World Cup started yesterday, and I'm going to watch North Korea vs. USA tonight, so I only know that Germany whipped Argentina 11-0 yesterday. Wow. But of course Argentina has two more matches to show everyone what it got. But with England in the group, it's not going to be easy.

I guess I really did get skinny, because my dress shirts are too big now. Senior portraits today, off to "research", dinner and soccer and then some biophys I think... I need to start looking at grad schools again like NOW. DAMNIT.

U.S. Open Conclusion

Wow, it's over. The U.S. Open has basically been my life this past 2 weeks and I'm really going to miss having tennis to watch tomorrow. Results, in the end, were mixed for me. Novak and Sveta both made it to the final and they both lost. Ana and Jelena exited a bit early, Vania is just having a horrible year, and the trio of injury/illness that hurt Richard, Mario, and Gael didn't help either. Especially how last minute they were (I was prepared for Amelie since she announced ahead of time). Coolly enough Dinara Safina and Natalie Dechy won the women's doubles title. Pretty cool for Dinara (think it is her first slam title).

I was strangely more sad about Svetlana losing than Novak, probably because Svetlana's came first. Both matches were frustrating since they both had chances to break (and in Novak's case, win sets), but both were straight set losses. It's nice to see Svetlana in a final again (better than her performance at Australia, yay!). Actually a lot of things were better than Australia, but I've been blessed with a nice French Open and Wimbledon that I forgot about that. They just keep raising my expectations, that's all.

Ah, but the stress of watching Novak made me get my period. Or something did. Because I thought I had skipped it, since it didn't come at the end of August, and it started yesterday. But there is like nothing on my pad...I wore the same one like the whole day and it wasn't even half-full. But no stains on my underpants, which is the most important part. Well, hopefully it goes away.

There is the Women's World Cup starting tomorrow, but I don't have ESPN2 since my TV sucks and I will miss the first match. Well, I guess I'll just be watching 1 match broadcast on the round robin days (unless I can get myself to wake up at 5 AM...depending on the match I might just do that). Hmm should I miss Inorg lecture or not? Nah, not tomorrow but maybe Wednesday...hmm...

Tennis and Gymnastics, because they are totally related

So I was looking at the start list for the U.S. men at Worlds for gymnastics and Sasha Artemev is slated for 4 out of 6 of the events! More than any of the others...piece of shit, why wasn't he doing all 6 for the qualifiers? They are depending on him to be the best and carry most of the point-scoring load, and they don't even get him a chance to show off! Those bums...

Jelena lost heartbreakingly to Venus yesterday. I just felt this sadness kind of creep into me...nothing like crying or anything but I just didn't feel like talking or laughing for a bit. It shook off kind of quickly, especially with other people in my room being more jovial (but not insane, since that was cause me to start a fit). I actually almost watched all of Andy Roddick vs. Federer...went to sleep when the third set was 5-2...oh well. Djokovic is playing Moya tonight, so I will try my best to be there for all of it. Well if I can make it back for dinner...

Anyway, stupid TV that can't show ESPN2! Too bad I'll be missing the U.S. men vs. Brazil friendly on Sunday because that's when the men's final is on. And then the women's world cup starts, but I'll just watch a few matches in the morning before class since I can't sleep in AT ALL.

Gymnastics!

Very happy that the boys (U.S. men's team) qualified for the Olympics! Yay! Especially since Sasha and Jon were part of the team again, and no Hamms. We have depth and talent, thank you very much. I'm debating whether or not I should sign up to get free, live webcasts of worlds but I don't think I could see very much of it. Why does it have to happen this week? NOOOOOO... Best of luck to them though, on Friday (I think).

Nadal lost.

Now I'm not sad that Nadal lost, but I'm pretty sure a ton of other people are. I was sort of looking forward to another Nadal v. Djokovic semifinal with the hopes that Novak could win this time. I just thought Nadal would pull it out somehow, since he was up a set by the time I really fell asleep. But now there is tons of pressure on Djokovic, and if he does make it to the final, Djokovic is going to be so damn tired.

Justine won pretty handily in the 2nd set after a really close 1st set. Serena became really frustrated, but I like that Justine won and never let up really. And today Svetlana should be on TV again so I'll definitely be catching that. And Venus vs. Jelena tonight should hopefully be a good one...maybe even better than Serena vs. Justine. Hopefully labwork cooperates today! (It will also help if Svetlana absolutely creams her opponent.)

Today must be a bad day...

...to be in lab. Ugh. My shit is not sonicating at all for some reason and I'm so fucking pissed. I will probably abandon ship and screw up this protein anyway and the 12L I grew up won't be worth anything at the end. All this waiting for nothing. So fucking pissed.

And a labmate broke a mercury thermometer, and I forgot my granola bar, and my discussion was "canceled" but not canceled officially. I keep wasting time and I won't get to scout Ernest Gulbis or maybe even see Novak play at the rate the matches are going. And I woke up at 7:30, damnit! At least class was alright.

Ana lost.

I was hoping for a better result, but it really sucks because of a matchup issue. I only got to watch 3 games of that match too because of my stupid hall meeting...and the RA didn't even do any kind of attendance taking. I didn't have to be there at all, which pisses me off. At least I caught the very end. But Ana was clearly upset. I'm sad also because I don't know when I'll get to see her play next. Yes, I'm selfish.

At least Jelena and Novak won, and Novak quite easily. And getting a few presents also cheered me up. And Svetlana should be on TV today, so I'm excited for that. That's a good thing about Maria Sharapova being out. Then I'm going to head over to lab because I'm SICK of Roddick and Blake.

Night feature matches start with Anna Chakvetadze vs. Tamira Paszek. I haven't seen Tamira, but supposedly she's up and coming and really good, so I'm excited for that as well. But I'm not excited for school, for sure.

Upsets Galore

Agnieska Radwanska has caused an amazing upset of Maria Sharapova today! Also Agnes Szavay beat Nadia Petrova (7th seed) and Julia Vakulenko continues her run by beating Maria Kirilenko, who is no means a lightweight, after her 1st round victory over Daniela Hantuchova. Lleyton Hewitt lost yesterday too. But not Novak, because HE IS AMAZING. I didn't watch much of him because I was moving yesterday (except I didn't move until 7:30 PM). I think I would have cried if I had. But amazing last point! Also, Booty and Stretch lost yesterday...it really might mean the end of a partnership...I'm so sad...

So all this means Svetlana should win the title! Actually, I think someone from the top half will win but I have hope! Actually hope for Ana! And Novak! I want new Slam champions!

Monthly Outlook: September 2007

Recap: Finally went on vacation after a long summer of lab work that I forced upon myself. I've been frustrated and stressing needlessly and I hate the fact that I have to redo a bunch of data points as well as grow and purify the enzyme so I can redo those points! I finally started Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria and I really enjoy it, though the U.S. Open has put playing that game sort of on hiatus. Soccer in Europe has started up again so I'm excited to see how Arsenal and Atletico Madrid do!

Outlook: This should be an interesting month, with my final year in college as an undergraduate beginning. I hope to balance studies with labwork and college applications, as well as have time to relax by watching TV and/or playing videogames. I think I will be busy and stressed and worrying about things I shouldn't worry about...the typical.

Events/Activities: U.S. Open, U-17 World Cup, Women's World Cup, volleyball match 9/14 or 9/15, soccer match?, Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference

Goals: to solicit 3 recommendation letters, to keep up with my studies, to read some of my Spanish novel Rayuela, to learn more Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS)

The Beginning

This is my new blog. Welcome.