January's new recipe

This past week I made a very tasty new recipe that I got from pinterest.com, it was penne with roasted asparagus made with a balsamic sauce.  It was really, really good!  I love balsamic vinegar and I was a little worried that the flavor would be lost, but since it is simmered down for the recipe the flavor was still really strong.  And the asparagus was a really nice addition because it was a bit crunchy/crisp.  I'm also trying to switch to using whole wheat pasta, but since I have some pasta that I've stocked up on, for now I'm mixing half and half (which is why this picture has penne and rotini pasta in it!)  And I added some parmesan to the top also, because I like it.

January's pleasure reading

While we were in Colorado I was able to read Bossypants, an autobiography by Tina Fey.  It was a quick read, with some chapters sort of like those in The Da Vinci Code and other Dan Brown books.  I really enjoyed Bossypants and it was a nice way to pass time in the mornings and evenings.  I have a thing for (auto)biographies and this one didn't disappoint!  Tina Fey, like David Sedaris, just has a way with making ordinary things funny.  I noticed a lot of parallels between her life and Liz Lemon on 30 Rock, so it was interesting to learn a bit about where she get the inspiration for her writing.

She gave an introduction that I found amusing:

"If you are a woman and you bought this book for practical tips on how to make it in a male-dominated workplace, here they are.  No pigtails, no tube tops.  Cry sparingly.  (Some people say "Never let them see you cry."  I say, if you're so mad you could just cry, then cry.  It terrifies everyone.)  When choosing sexual partners, remember: Talent is not sexually transmittable.  Also, don't eat diet food in meetings.  

Perhaps you're a parent and you bought this book to learn how to raise an achievement-oriented, drug-free, adult virgin.  You'll find that, too.  The essential ingredients, I can tell you up front, are a strong father figure, bad skin, and a child-sized colonial-lady outfit. 

Maybe you bought this book because you love Sarah Palin and you want to find reasons to hate me.  We've got that!  I use all kinds of elitist words like "impervious" and "torpor", and I think gay people are just as good at watching their kids play hockey as straight people. 

Maybe it's 70 years in the future and you found this book in a stack of junk being used to block the entrance of an abandoned Starbucks that is now a feeding station for the alien militia.  If that's the case, I have some questions for you.  Such as: "Did we really ruin the environment as much as we thought?" and "Is Glee still a thing?" 

... Or perhaps you just bought this book to laugh and be entertained.  For you, I have included this joke: "Two peanuts were walking down the street, and one was a salted."  You see, I want you to get your money's worth."

I also have two Betty White autobiographies and a biography of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies, to read, so I'm sure I'll get around to those sooner or later.   I read several more books at the end of 2011 but I slacked off on writing them up on here (I slacked off with just about all blog things at the end of the year and will probably slack off until the end of February as well).

Anyway, this was a really entertaining read  :)

2011 in review

Well it’s not quite the end of the year, but I haven’t updated in a while and I’m waiting around lab for one of my experiments to finish and I was thinking about the past few months and how they’ve really flown by.  This entire year really has flown by actually, but when I really think about everything that happened it seems impossible that it all fit into one year!

January

- Started by 6^th semester of graduate school without any classes or TAing responsibilities – it was weird!

- Spent a lot of time in lab because I was trying to get enough data to submit to the 3^rd International Conference on Self-healing Materials (which I did!)

- Submitted an Intent to graduate form to get my MS in the spring!

-Starting working with my first long-term undergraduate student, a Pratt Fellow who will be working with me until he graduates in Spring 2012

- Began work at Ethicon with some really awesome folks

February

-Went to Costa Rica for a week with Keegan, my best friend, and her boyfriend!  It was amazing and I’m so happy and fortunate to have been able to go

-My review paper submitted and accepted in 2010 is published in print in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A

-R21 Monty wrote with my data receives funding!

March

-This is probably when I found out I was going to England… yeah, we’ll go with that

-More work on my thesis

-Somewhere in here we started planning a Biomaterials Day event to be held at Duke in April 2012 with funds awarded by the Society for Biomaterials

April

-Successfully defended my MS thesis!

-Went to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with Caitlin – it was awesome and I can’t wait to take Keegan!

-Work presented at Society for Biomaterial’s annual meeting in Orlando, FL

-Celebrated Easter in Hilton Head with Keegan’s family

May

- Celebrated my 25^th birthday!

- Celebrated 5 years with Keegan!

- Around this time I had lost about 12 pounds for the year

June

- Went to England to present my work!  This was my first trip to Europe and I can’t believe it took me so long to get there!  Keegan and I had a great time exploring London then relaxing in Bath and Cardiff before returning to the hustle and bustle of London

July

- Lots of work, can’t remember anything particularly special happening this month

August

- Started my fourth year of graduate school – HOW HAS IT BEEN FOUR YEARS ALREADY?

- Submitted first draft of my first research paper to Monty

September

- Attended Campout 2011 and unfortunately did not win tickets in the lottery but managed to procure one anyway…

- Went to the Midtown Music Festival in Atlanta, GA primarily to see The Black Keys but also to visit with Keegan’s sister

October

-More work, mainly a blur

-Presented at BMES 2011 in Hartford, CT; also able to visit Keegan’s grandparents that weekend

-Starting training new MS student to work with me

November

- Submitted a paper with one of the MS students in the lab who worked on my project; will hopefully hear if that is accepted and then I will have second authorship on a research paper

- Submitted abstract to the Material Research Society’s spring 2012 meeting; was freaked out by the use of 2012

- Went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlando, FL – WAS AMAZING AND I CAN’T WAIT TO GO BACK!!

-Played paintball for the very first time and had a ton of fun

December

- Monty actually reads paper given to him in August; edits quickly made and article submitted!  Will hopefully hear back soon about any revisions necessary

- Set prelim date- yipes!

- Started applying for internships

- Will leave to go skiing for the first time

- Ending the year at -12 pounds from last year (not anticipating any more loss over the holidays - definitely hit a big lull from England through October, now at 133, down from 145 last year.  Never did make it below 130 although I hovered tantalizingly close to it for about a month in the summer.  There is always next year!)

And just because I always track where I’ve been during the year:

North Carolina

Costa Rica*

Florida

South Carolina

Alabama*

Mississippi*

Louisiana*

England*

Wales*

Connecticut
Georgia

* indicates locales that were new for the year!

October pleasure reading, part 4

This month I also read two other John Grisham books, The Associate and The Client.  Both of these books were less depressing than the first Grisham books I read, so that was refreshing.  They both ended in slightly ambiguous ways but at least I can tell myself that the main characters got their happy endings (instead of knowing that they died or something).  When I return these books to the library I'll see if there are any remaining Grisham books that I haven't read, but I also have a few biographies that I want to read so maybe I'll get to those first :)

October pleasure reading, part 3

This month I also read The Existential Detective by Alice Thompson.  Honestly, I only picked this book up from the New and Noteworthy section of the Duke library because I saw my name on it, but it turned out to be really interesting and a quick read.  It was a story about a private detective who was hired to find a man’s wife.  Throughout the course of the story,  he keeps flashing back to earlier points in his life where we find out he had a daughter who was abducted and never found.  Anyway, the book has a nice, if weird, ending and that’s really all I need from my books.

October pleasure reading, part 2

At BMES 2011, I was able to read some on the plane/in the airport and during conference down time.  I borrowed a book from my friend on an impulse and I enjoyed it.  The book was called Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon and it was not really the type of book I would usually read, but that's okay.  It was short and quick but a bit sad because it was basically about two women that fall in love with the same man and each make big sacrifices to try to be with him.  It did parallel The Little Mermaid a bit, but this was definitely a lot darker, like the actual fairytale by Andersen.  It really makes me want to go on a Disney-watching binge...

October's new dish: Beef stew

This month I made beef stew, the first time I’ve ever used our Crock Pot to make a meal!  It’s not an awesome Crock Pot (I bought it for about $1 at a yard sale the summer I graduated undergrad hah) but it did the trick.  I followed this recipe for the most part, except I just bought two frozen bags of stew vegetables from the store instead of chopping all that stuff, but it turned out nicely!  There was so much left over that Keegan had lunches for an entire week, so that was nice.  I made this recipe because it’s getting chilly and also because stew beef was on sale at the grocery store.  I lucked out with timing for things being on sale because the meat, frozen veggies, and beef broth were all on sale.   I would make this recipe again but I think I’d scale it down a bit; there were a LOT of huge chunks of veggies in it so it took longer to cook than it should have.  I could also let them thaw more before starting this because the recipe was not for frozen veggies.  I also need to figure out the best amount of “browning” for the beef before I add it to the stew because this beef didn’t pull apart as nicely as beef in other stews I’ve had.  I guess now is the part of the marriage when Keegan gets to endure my cooking experiments! :)

This week I stocked up on chicken because it’s about 60% off; as a result of that and some crazy sales on Greek yogurt, this week we saved $38 and spent $56.  I’ve really been falling behind tracking our grocery spending so I’m missing about 3 weeks of information (basically since campout) but oh well.  The receipts keep a running tally of how much we’ve saved with our MVP card so I’ll just have to look at that the next time I think about it.  Then I can at least ball park what we saved in those weeks.