I actually managed to survive the LA freeway experience. With my Dad in the car. I've not decided yet whether that helped or added to the challenge.

Christmas shopping happened yesterday after the dinner. I found something for everyone, inculding me...the Williams Sonoma "Harvest Market" plates I loved in the catalog were 1/2 price, putting them from extortionate to somewhat of a treat for myself. I don't intend to let them get banged up like my student days stuff though, I'd rather buy stuff I WANT to keep for years than whatever's cheapest.

Uh-oh, here comes the fog again, maybe I should head home before it's dark and foggy, rather than just foggy.

~R.

Random patches of fog on the way in to work today, sometimes the road was above the fogline, sometimes it was below it, as in, low enough for the fog to have blown over the top so dead ahead was clear, but above the light was hazy. Very unusual, but very San Diego too.

Yum yum yum yum yum. God help me, I'd forgotten just how good GOOD Italian food really is. Yay @ Dr Alberto Hayek for taking the lab out en masse for a sampler lunch.

Now I have to decide if it's really safe for me to go Christmas shopping on half a glass of wine and some delicious grub, I might be feeling just a little bit too good and end up buying the store! I'm still trying to figure out if it's appropriate for me to give gifts to some people, and if so, what the hell to get them.

*yaaaaaawn* nap time.

~Ash~

Just to clarify a bit, I wasn't having a bad day when I put up that last, just being struck by just how many of my friends have struggled with depression at one time or another in their (relatively) short lives. Of course, you could also say that since I suffer from bouts of anxiety disorder, I am more likely to feel some friendly bond with people who are prone to it too. Good point, but it's not just my friends I'm talking about, it's a documented trend.

K'wyn put it rather more sensibly than I tonight: for most of us the basic needs of food and shelter are pretty much taken care of, we don't have to hunt/gather food and keep off the sabre-toothed tigers, nor do we have to slave all day in the mines (at the risk of our own lives) to put food on the table. So we are caught up by more ephemeral essentials like "making something of yourself" and such like. I've read a similar analysis of why Freud came to belive that the whole world was sex-crazed. His patients were well-off Victorians, the only thing they were really deprived of was sexual freedom, so more often than not it became the seat of their neuroses.

OK, rant over. For now.

muah hah hah

They say that college, or the late teens/early 20s are the best time in your life. The times that you'll look back on from the lofty age of 40 and wish you were there again. I think "they" are talking complete bollocks.

Yet another fellow 20-something has revealed themselves to be recovering from a bout of depression that has lasted at least 3-4 years. That means that almost everyone I know of my own age has now had some form of depression or anxiety problem in the past 5 years. For some it's an ongoing struggle, and for others it's a "bad patch" that only lasts a few months in response to a specific incident in their lives. I've not quite figured out which I am.

Is it that we are a generation of weak willed whiners? Or is it that we are brought up expecting so much of life and of ourselves that the occasional dance with depression is utterly unavoidable? I find that my strongest fear is that of somehow messing up. "What have done now?" "I'm going to fuck this up" That kind of happy stuff. When I sit back and think about that it makes me wonder what image of life I'm trying to adhere to that I'm so afraid I'll get it "wrong". I'm not trying to be President, nothing of the kind; my honest goal is to be self sufficient and able to be useful to others more often than I am a burden to them.

Life is faster paced now; we have more knowledge stuffed into our heads by the age of 20 than our parents' generation did. Not just book learning, but seeing the reality of life in a way that was impossible 50 years ago because there was censorship on television programs. I'm not saying that our parents are uninformed mind you, but how many of them were shown images of people dying of AIDS in Africa to scare them off having sex at age 14?

In so many ways my generation has grown up in a war zone. Even those in peaceable nations. We are surrounded and bombarded with images of war. Children starving, political prisoners of conscience with terrible torture scars, terrorists blowing up a subway station or a shopping centre. An ordinary civilian can now see almost as much as the soldier on the front line. Of course it lacks the immediacy of direct experience, but it is harrowing nonetheless.

If you refer back to my response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th , I talked about how commonplace horror has become to us. However, a couple of hundred years ago, there would have been dead and dying homeless people lying out in plain view right outside my former university, and we would have walked right past. We put a higher value on the individual's life now, and the price we pay for that is to expect much from every individual. On the surface it seems as though we are destroying ourselves with technology and information, but if the internal struggles are a symptom of every single life being irreplaceable and important, making us feel pressure to excel in some unique way, I think it's not so bad after all. As long as we know that it's more unique and outstanding to be a peaceful, contented person and raise a happy family than it is to lead a country or invent a new weapon.

*drumroll*

I got me wheeeeeeeeeeells!

From the dealership on Encinitas Blvd, a 92 Ford Escort with really low mileage (55k). YAY not having to take the bus.

Hrmmm, first viewing of potential car yesterday. The guy seemed like a wheeler-dealer (no pun intended), the car had a NEW scratch on the driver's door, which I suspect HE caused, the tires were worn way down, and had never been rotated, the milage was twice what I'm looking for in a '95, the seatbelt warning beeper kept going off randomly while I was driving. But even with all that, the engine seemed to be in really good condiiton. Very strange mix of good/negligent care of the car. The real clincher (besides the electric problem and the driver's window being stuck 3/4 up) was the total and utter lack of service records. All he knew was that the previous owner had washed it in holy water regularly. I kid you not. Maybe that's another reason why it just didn't feel like a "me" car: overzealous christian engine-blessing in lieu of proper maintenance.

The search continues. Even though I know it would be a big risk to commit myself to buying a new car, it's starting to be more and more appealing, the whole not buying someone else's problems thing. Hey-ho, I'll keep looking. There isn't a new car out that I REALLY want and can afford anyway. Maybe when the Matrix has been out for a couple years I'll look into it.

Why autopilot doesn't seem to make the slightest bit of difference after all
1.DNA wasn't really needed asap anyway.
2. Three ml of 1M ammonium dind't make much difference in a litre of buffer solution, the western blot SEEMED to work ok.

Why Autopilot isn't a good thing when still settling into a job
1. Trying to extract DNA in the cold room instead of at room temp
2. Re-pHing a buffer solution with ammonium ions instead of hydroxide ions (do you think they'll notice??)

And for my next trick...

I've been neglecting the blogging recently, but it's hard to get pensive at work when I shouldn't be spending long periods of time online anyway, and I'm not going on at home at all really. So it'll probebly be mere status reports until I get myself sorted out with my own machine, and it's own connection. IE, when we move into our new place (and I have money)

I passed my DMV driving test this morning, I feel SO much better now that's done, and I'm finding lots of Ford Escorts in my price range, it's what I've decided on as my best bet going be prices, what's available and consumerreports.org reccomendations. With luck I may even be able to afford a '95 Escort Wagon AND a computer. Woohoo.

I'm off to learn tissue culture now.