Cozy, and done

So the grad school applications? All done, with time to spare. One program now wants me to email scans of all my transcripts - apparently their main admissions office is slow handing over materials - so ok, I can do that. Suzanne, I did apply to HMS BBS - I think a couple of my recommenders are in that dept. one way or another, via the stem cell institute - and YES the people are doing some extremely cool stuff! So yay, done, and yay, all the programs are molto spiffomondo. As we say in fake italiano. Which I clearly don't speak, except for musical directions.

And the semester is done! I may have passed orgo. Maybe. I really loved lab and did well with it - it's so cool when the experiments actually work the way they're supposed to, and I think I want a sep funnel for Christmas (yes, I priced them on amazon). Just the rest of the course, not so much. Ah, well. Neural stem cells course was great fun, and the synaptic plasticity tutorial is year-long, so the professor keeps telling me to quite worrying so much and relax and and ... okay, relaxing now.

I am making a small hat for my tiny nephew, out of some yarn from Rhinebeck (where I became the last knitter to hear about and purchase such things as this). This morning I re-learned through trial and error how to make the braided edging I like to do so much - blergh, good thing it's small. When you try every other option and none of them work, the remaining one is correct! Amazing! Hint: the easiest way to knit 2-color alternating k1 of each color is, um, not effective if what one is trying to make is Latvian braid.

I've done so little knitting this year, it feels rather strange to be making an object that will probably be done quite quickly. Unlike the two socks presently on needles, second socks both. There's been studying and studying and goofing off (those sanity breaks that keep one from self-disembowlment during a semester of orgo), and precious little else, so it's a nice thing to be doing.

I've been cooking more than usual lately, and have discovered great places to buy Indian spices (powdered dried unripe mango! totally makes aloo paratha!) and also got pointed toward H-Mart (thank you, Lynne). This is pleasing. I've accumulated a bunch of recipes for which I was missing the one weird ingredient, and now I've got all that stuff, thank you (black mustard seeds! black & also green cardamom pods! coriander seeds! all in vast quantities! etc.!), so I can make all kinds of stuff. Way fun. I'll be cooking up some lotus root soon.

So between the food, and the alcohol, and the Oh Wow I Still Have Electricity, things are warm and cozy around here. Hurray! Happy snow to all! Merry Christmas! Happy Solstice! Happy End of the Year! I think my new year's resolution (to the extent that I do such things) is to do stuff other than school all the time, and see more of friends (starting today, in fact - party is ON). And knit more. So I'll see you around.