King of the Lab

Still recovering from a post-Thanksgiving break low. I was staring stubbornly at Nervous System lecture notes yesterday thinking, "You want me to do WHAT? No way, Jose." Instead, I read downloaded Christian rap music and read fanfiction for two hours. That's how we do. Tucked in bed and passed out by 10:30 PM. Then I had a really strange dream about Five Families (game on Chrome) and then another about buying a baseball bat. I woke up in the middle of a really passionate debate with my Dream Mother about the advantages of a wooden bat over a metal bat when it comes to assaulting people ("It's all about the reverberation. When you whack someone on the head, you want a nice 'THWAACK', not a 'PINGONGONGONGONG!'" ). With awesome dreams like that, today has got to be a good day.

Opened the fridge to grab a slice of leftover pumpkin cheesecake for breakfast. It suddenly occurred to me that I had eggs and potatoes, the perfect ingredients for a delicious breakfast scramble. Eyes shift casually to the left to locate said eggs. NO EGGS TO BE FOUND. I would usually already be pretty irate about this, but considering just two days ago, half a bag of shredded cheese also went missing in this very same refrigerator, I am about puce with rage. PUCE. When I find you, Fridge Thief, I will rend you limb from limb and STORE you in that refrigerator. Actually, that would be pretty gross. And traumatic, considering I'd probably forget and get the scare of my life when I venture into the fridge for my next snack. But still. Consider yourself punished.

My lab manager isn't in today. I think she took a long weekend for Thanksgiving. Good idea. Wish I had that option. So I get in this morning, aware that my first subject is coming in in less than five minutes. I then proceed to have a small panic attack when I can't find the "ON" button of the iMac. I blindly ran my hands around its entire perimeter. Nothing. I then have to turn on the other computer (a PC, thank God) and google search "How to turn on a Mac". Not surprisingly, several queries popped up, including a very helpful diagram that helped me to quickly locate the elusive button. At this point, the subject had come in, so I set her up with the right paperwork and hurried into the eyetracker room. If my life was perfect, everything would be set up and ready to go. Instead, I have the second panic attack of the day when I discover that I have not been given the Username, let alone the password, to the eyetracker computer. This prompts a rather panicked text to my lab manager, followed quickly by a missed call. The subject is done with her paperwork and sitting complacently at the table. Apologizing for the wait, I run around the corner to find Brian, the grad student who's experiment I was trying to run. After he logs me in, I get a lengthy lecture on how to use the eyetracker. (Sigh) Imagine my horror when after the second trial, the calibration runs stop working and I have to run and get him for the second time in half an hour. As it turns out, it wasn't my fault. Homegirl just had strangely shaped eyes and a jiggly chin.

It's hard to be King of the Lab. Except after that first rush, apparently I have enough time to write a lengthy blog post bitching about missing groceries and lamenting my apparent incompetency. hehe. I already started playing Swapples.




Anyways, now attempting to finish my outline of Lecture 19. You know how hard it is to use a Mac? (This is a question directed at PC users, obviously.) I spent five minutes trying to figure out how to resize my windows so that I could split the screen in half. You'd think the button that says "split" would do so, but NOOO. It split one window into TWO windows. What the hell! No simple dragging to the side of the screen for Mac users, nope. Instead, I was informed by a VERY condescending friend, that all I had to do was drag the lower right hand corner to resize. What, Mac, the other three corners, not to mention four perfectly functional edges, aren't good enough for you? Curse you and your numerous future generations. I will admit, however, the clackity-clack of this keyboard is very soothing and the rapid clicking of my own typing is making me feel very productive indeed.

Ok. NO more procrastinating!

Wait! Just discovered that Mac mouses can scroll SIDEWAYS. OMG.