Goodness it's been a while!

Sorry I've been a bum and haven't posted in a long time, I guess I've been busier than I thought. As usual, not too much new and exciting has happened lately... I guess nothing other than man drama. It's really true what they say - "when it rains, it pours!" At one point I had 6 prospective guys that showed interest in me. Fairly quickly I whittled it down to three that I was interested in, then picked up another interest (though it is someone I've never met, so it would be like a blind date). Now I'm down to one guy (Nick) who is showing some real promise, and another guy (Rob) who is very slowly trying to step up his game. Nick is a 4th year grad student in my program (same as me). I've known him for over three years now, and just a couple weeks ago he asked me out. We went to dinner and a movie (the movie was "Departed" - a must see for those of you who haven't seen it yet) which was really nice. He's been a perfect gentleman so far, and even though he's an inch or so shorter than me he's definitely making up for it with his niceties. We're actually going rock climbing tonight which should be a lot of fun:) So I'll keep you posted on how this one goes... Though I fear that since I said something about it I may have jinxed the whole situation (as past experiences have taught me). I'm optimistic, but still very wary of being hurt. Truthfully I'm not really ready for a relationship with anybody, but I figure at the rate I'm going I never will be! Thus, I'm taking this one slow because I gotta get back in the game eventually right?!

In other news, the Buckeyes are taking on Michigan this Saturday. I might add that I'm totally indifferent to whoever wins the game, and that that really gets under people's skin here. It's obsurd how seriously people take this game here!! I garauntee there will be riots on campus after the game regardless of who wins - because if OSU wins they're gonna celebrate like idiots, and if they lose they're going to rip the town to pieces. I'm so serious. These people are crazy. I'm planning on not even leaving my house - not that anything will happen in my neighborhood, but there's going to be a lot of drunk people starting tomorrow (yes, Friday) and going all night Saturday, and I don't want to be on the road with them.

Okay, enough with football. Lab is going alright, hopefully better in the coming weeks. I met with Larry the other day and outlined the experiments needed for my two papers. So far I only have two sets of experiments left for one paper, and one set for the other. However, when I say "sets" it really means one technique run several ways. For example, I need to probe some tissue samples with antibodies against the proteins we're interested in... It only requires one technique, but I'll have to do it about 5-6 times. The good thing is that the experiments I have left should be fairly straight forward, since I have most all of the samples. It's just a matter of preparing the samples and running the experiments. Larry and I agree that we want the papers out hopefully before the end of the year... It's a pretty steep deadline, but I'm optimistic that I can make it. Oh yeah, and the last grant Larry submitted to the NIH for my project was rejected. Stupid republicans and their distaste for research!!! >:-(

Well, that's about all I have for now... I have to go anyways to meet Nick at the climbing wall.