Splenda with Fiber, really people?

Today's been pretty chill for the most part. I've been hearing this faint ringing of fire-truck sounding sirens for the past 15 minutes, finally I look out my office window, and there is indeed, a fire truck with a handful of firefighters and some on-lookers doing some serious-looking talking in front of the atmospheric and ocean sciences building. Hmm...I have no idea whats going on, but I'm mainly just concerned with the fact it took me 15 minutes to turn my head slighly to the right and look out my window.

I've been really delving into reading the scientific literature lately. My down-time waiting for bacteiral cultures to grow couples with this new program called Papers (for mac), and launced me into a 5-paper a day habit I'd like to maintain for as long as I can. There is just so much to read, and I don't find a direct correlation between reading, remembering, and using that new-found knowledge in a paper. I don't yet anyway, but maybe sometime soon, as I become an older graduate student. I find it so amazing that the people around me (the professors and post-docs) can remeber hundreds of papers, who wrote them, and what the key points are. But, I hear that it comes with time and practice.

I'm working on trying to isolate iron-reducing colonies that I grew on an iron silicate mix I precipitated from a reduced state in artificial seawater which mimics what we think seawater in the archean would be compositionally (about 3.5 billion years ago). Anyway, I'm working with these enviromental enrichment (mixed) cultures and trying to see which iron they like to reduce, and what carbon source they like to pair that with. Its realy intresting work, but it involves spending a few hours innoculating tubes, letting them incubate while checking reduced iron every day or two, and letting them just grow for a week or two. There is substantial down time, which is spent for the most part either reading papers (as I've mentioned above), or watching the West Wing (or a Bravo reality TV show), and spending time with my Amazing boyfriend (who, as I write this is up to his eyeballs in school work and work of his own). So, the take home message, is that I really feel guilty when I have free time, because I keep thinking that every hour I don't read papers and try to get some education in now, is another hour its going to take me to finish my graduate work. The thing is, I'm not sure if thats true or not. I wish that my advisor had a 4th or 5th year graduate student that I could draft off of (to use a bike term, as it is tour de france time).

No matter, I'll keep plugging away, if for no other reason, than with John not at home, and with no one really here at Weeks hall, theres nothing better to do.