So, I totally didn't mean to vanish for nearly a month. It has been kinda hectic for me with the semester ending, all my weekend trips, and the beginning of the summer session.

I actually have a mental backlog of posts I want to make, so have a list!
- two 100 noms posts (I have had the pics for weeks now, oops).
- two 100 science things posts (again, I know which 2... )
- I'd like to make a post with my feels on the 2 Tribeca films I saw (Rat King and Caroline & Jaackie)

I had thought about making an Avengers feels post.... but I feel like everyone has done that already. Speaking of which, I am going to see it again tonight and I am preeeeetty excited about it. My change in LJ icon default reflects this.

School-wise... things go on? I have started TAing with my new class and it's been pretty okay so far. (Side note: I just got a call on my phone from Forks, WA and I am giggling to myself). The material is not difficult, it's just a lot to learn for the first time and then be able to teach. But I will muddle through!

But I don't actually care about that! I care more about all my tv shows ending for the season and destroying my emotional state. I watched the Hawaii Five-0 finale last night and was a mess for like an hour afterwards... which.... is not something that apparently happened to everyone else who watched it? I know it's stupid TV, but I love it anyway because they all have excellent faces and it's entertaining.. and that is enough for me. *sits in corner and sulks*

I have to watch The Finder still (which was unsurprisingly cancelled. I will miss it anyway). I also have The Mentalist.... which has destroyed me with all its other finales, so I don't expect this to be any different. And this time I won't even have more episodes to ease the pain. (Someday I will make my post of Patrick Jane feels and no one will read it, but I won't care. Someday). AND THEN GRIMM IS ON FRIDAY AND I ACTUALLY WILL DIE SO NOTHING ELSE WILL MATTER. /cough.

Wow, based on this entry, all I care about in life right now is TV. Oops.

Anyway, I hope things are good for everyone out there. Now back to work! :)

Hello LJ!

So I vanished again after announcing my projects, oops. I have gained a few new people though, so welcome! I feel like I should have warned for grad school complaining in my sign-up comment.

ANYWAY, here is my first post for the delicious side of my project.

First up is something easy because I had some ground beef that I needed to use up last week and I always default to either tacos or pasta sauce. In this case, I had avocados on hand, so tacos it was!

( one, aka recipes are silly )

In other news, I woke up at 5am to be at the lab by 6. And I just agreed to meet with my advisor around 2:30/3pm. So that was stupid and there is not enough coffee in the world right now.

{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

Hello friends.

As stated in my previous entry, I am doing the 100 Things Challenge!!! In fact, I am actually doing it twice. (Hi, I am bad at decisions.)

Challenge One: 100 Awesome Science/Nature Things (tag link)
Since starting grad school, I often feel like I have gotten less excited about the universe and all the awesome things it contains. I spend so much time being focused on one topic (in this case, circadian rhythms) that I feel like I'm in a rut. So I am going to pick 100 things that are awesome and exciting. There will probably be pictures and while they may start as mini-lessons, I am pretty sure they will end up being excited rambling in the end. I want to be excited about the world again!

Challenge Two: 100 Things I Have Cooked (tag link)
One of my new year's resolutions was to cook from the various cookbooks I have acquired. This... has not really happened, but I want to change that. (10 bucks says I am taking pictures of Kraft Mac N Cheese within a month). This will be everything from dinners to snacks to desserts.

So yes, this is happening. :)

So.. remember how last week I was like "I need a Grimm icon"? I should have probably checked my LJ icons before making that statement. Self, you have TWO. shut up, i know i have a lot of icons. Also, I went looking for more tonight and I ended up saving some Sherlock icons instead. My kingdom for a good Captain Renard icon. Don't make me do this myself, internets.

ANYWAY. Last week's episode of Grimm was everything I wanted and more! I already word-vomited over most of the people who care, so I suppose I shall spare you all my ~feelings. The fact remains that I love all their perfect faces.

It was a pretty off day for me today. Mostly it was leftover funk from last night. I was lying on my bed, reading on my kindle, and I ended up passing out for a couple hours. I ended up waking up around 11pm so I could watch last week's h50 with people, but I was in a really mopey mood. The worst part is that I know WHY I was in such a terrible mood, but it's so stupid and petty that I don't even want to talk about it. As a result of my nap though, I ended up barely sleeping from 2am until the sun was up (we're talking like... I could not get comfortable and I woke up every 30 minutes or so). Then the sun was up and I promptly passed out (managing to sleep through all 3 of my alarms) and didn't wake up until noon. So.. that was less than awesome since I was SUPPOSED to be at the lab around 10:30-11. *sigh*

So yes. My life.

In other, more fun, news: I have decided to try the 100 Things Challenge. I will make a new post for it tomorrow, but I wanted to throw my idea out into the universe before signing up and intro'ing it properly... for the 3 people who will care.

The premise is to pick a topic and write 100 blog posts about that topic. I was thinking about it today while avoiding grading and I have kinda chosen a topic. I want to do 100 Awesome Science/Nature Things. It's not going to be super deep. Sometimes I just have moments where I'm like "man, the heart is really awesome" or "i really just want to talk about trophic interactions", so I figure I can use this as an outlet. It could be like mini-science lessons, except with more of me being excited. (OMG I AM GOING TO DO A POST ABOUT BARNACLES AND IT WILL BE AWESOME, JUST YOU WAIT.)

...Have I lost you all now? I bet I have. *woe* I promise there will be lots of pictures?

Anyway, I will think more about it tomorrow and possibly start an intro post for it. Sometimes I feel like being in grad school has made me LESS excited about science and I'd really like to get that back. This project might be a good start. :)

edit: After some thought, I am also going to do 100 Things I Have Cooked. That would will take much longer to accomplish, but I do enjoy documenting new things I have tried in the kitchen.

I need a Grimm icon.

Grimm was confirmed as being something that will be at Comic-Con in July. I made a really embarrassing, inhuman noise when I read the news on Facebook. I promise that I am not searching the internet for a large bag to use when I kidnap David G. he is tiny, he would totally fit

In other news, the West Coast is live-tweeting tonight's episode (or they possibly just finished) and I am dying because Manda is away and I can't watch without her AND I MIGHT HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL MONDAY.

brb, curling up in bed with my kindle and maybe crying a little. /over-invested

So, I am alive. That is good.

The semester is coming to a close, but the summer is looking pretty busy.. so this isn't as exciting as you would imagine. Luckily, some of this busy is going to be travel!

HI I AM STILL EXCITED ABOUT GOING TO COMIC CON IN JULY.
I have my registration. The hotel registration thing was this weekend. It was a bit of a shit-show, but we got a hotel room on the shuttle route, so I can't really complain. We might try to upgrade to something walking distance to the con, but I am honestly not too worried. Now I just need to work on buying a plane ticket (although.. perhaps not until my next paycheck oops). I have at least 2 of my outfits planned, so I need to figure out if I'm actually going to try and cosplay (and what I would do). In other news, you should all probably not be friends with me.

I have seen The Hunger Games twice now and IT IS STILL FLAWLESS. I have too many feelings to really express, but let's just leave it at - I love all their faces.

Speaking of flawless.... GRIMM. I still LOVE EVERYTHING that happens on that show. Juliette and Nick are adorable and the preview for next week might have nearly killed me. Every time I get info about the new eps, I just flail myself into a mess, really. I realize that like.. 3 people I know actually enjoy this show, but whatever. I do what I want, Thor.

On the book front, I just finished Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire. It was a lot of fun. For the unaware, she's the same person who wrote the Newsflesh series (which.. omg last book soon!). The main character was quirky enough to be interesting, but not to the point of being annoying. The ~romance part was a bit predictable, but the universe that story is set in is fascinating enough to make up for that.

I am still trying to decide what to start next. I have Song of Ice and Fire on my kindle, but I also have Divergent, The Sherlockian, The Fault in Our Stars, Dresden Files, Temeraire, and Chaos Walking. TOO MANY CHOICES HELP.

And last of all.... my whole back hurts and I am weirdly sore all over. I did not want to start this week feeling like I've been hit by a car.

HAPPY MONDAY!

So I just finished s6 of Supernatural.



It honestly wasn't as traumatic as s5, but I know it's just going to hurt more soon so... yeah.

Well hello. How is everyone today? Good, I hope.

I have been on Spring Break this week; which really means that I have been doing more reading at home and I haven't had to teach. I have also somehow managed to turn myself into a creature with natural waking hours of... 11:30am-3:30am. This is mostly unfortunate and means that next week is going to be difficult.

I went to visit my parents at the beginning of the week, which was a nice recharge. I also visited the asian grocery store and bought ALL OF THE THINGS. Basically, I just threw my debit card at them and didn't look at the total. I now have a bag of pocky/other candy, a freezer full of dumplings and pork-filled buns, and ramune in the pantry. Also, more supplied for sushi making yay! I also had an amusing conversation with my mother about Lent that... is an accurate summary of my family.

( Lent conversation under cut for length )

So yes, that happened.
This month I get a manderkitty for a week, which is super exciting. I have no plans for us yet, so if any local people have awesome ideas of things to do... halp?

I finished reading Timeless last night and OH GOD IT WAS SO GOOD AND EVERYONE SHOULD READ PARASOL PROTECTORATE. I am sad that the series is over, but I enjoyed the ending and can't wait for the follow-up series. Now, go read it so you can talk to me about it. And while I am telling you all to do things, go watch Grimm because it is the GREATEST EVER THE END.

In other news, I am making two kinds of cupcakes tomorrow to bring to the fangirl party tomorrow: Mint Chocolate and Cookies & Cream. I am subbing the buttery frosting on the mint ones with a minty whipped cream in an attempt to decrease the amount of butter. I am excited and our apartment is going to smell delicious.

COMIC CON 4-DAY PASS WITH PREVIEW NIGHT IS MINE.

I FEEL LIKE I JUST WENT INTO BATTLE.

Now for the fun part... what am I going to wear?!

*shrieks excitedly into pillow*

I really need to start trying to sleep earlier. The problem is that once it hits past like... 2:30am, I start getting really mopey about everything in life and wanting to word-vomit feelings all over my journal that the world doesn't need to see. Last night I stared at the blank entry page for a while and then realized that anything I typed would be a) not good enough and b) far too revealing.

And now I am still awake because I got home and curled up in bed on my Kindle... and ended up falling asleep at 7:00. I woke up at 10 feeling groggy and very hungry. #failure

SO HAVE THIS ENTRY INSTEAD.

First, I still have ALL THE DEAN WINCHESTER FEELINGS. Possibly the less said about that, the better. I am currently mid-season 6 and starting to get sad that I will reach the end of the episodes. Fortunately, I will still have White Collar and SGA to catch up on/finish after that.

In other news, I am starting a rewatch of BBC's Robin Hood. I'd forgotten how cheesy it is, but I can tell I'm going to fall in love with it again. It holds a special place in my heart since it's the reason I discovered Merlin.

... There was possibly a point to this post before I started typing, but I think I've lost it. *curls up in bed again with kindle*