gravity’s rainbow

I woke up at around 4AM today with a migraine, took some drugs, and went back to bed.  I got up an hour later (I love mornings!) feeling well enough to work.  I went to a nearby coffee shop to study for my plant morphology test.  About 8AM a woman wearing half a bottle of terrible perfume sat at the table behind me.  Fifteen minutes later, my migraine was back with a vengeance.

I missed my ecology class and my plant morphology exam.

Luckily, my plant morphology teacher is going to let me make the test up.  I’m hoping I’m well the rest of the week.  I’ve got to make a lot of progress on a big paper before Friday if I want to survive the rest of this semester…

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Yesterday I got quite a bit done:

• Got day old bagel’s from Biff’s for the next week and a half of breakfasts.
• Did 4 hours of math hw (still not done…)
• Washed the kitchen floor, beat/washed all the rugs, and did a mountain of dishes.
• Filled out and mailed my ballot.  Hooray for early voting by mail!
• Went grocery shopping.
• Chopped, cooked, and pureed two large butternut squash. (This isn’t done - my poor blender got too hot, so I have to finish today and then freeze it all.)
• Studied for my ecology class for two hours.
• Caught up on blogs/news reading.

I also drank emergenC and hot tea and tons of water all day long in an attempt to get rid of my cold.  For dinner, I made a vitamin C-rich salad with chickpeas and mustard greens.  It was very tasty.  I love how spicy mustard greens can be - a few bites definitely brought tears to my eyes.

Chickpea Salad with Red Onion and Mustard Greens

• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• a can of chickpeas
• about 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced mustard greens
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings

In a smallish bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, vinegar, oil, and mustard.  Stir in garlic and orgeano.  Put the chickpeas, mustard greens and onion into a medium bowl.  Add the dressing and toss well.  (My CSA newsletter tells me this recipe is from The Good Herb: Recipes and Remedies from Nature.)

Hopefully I’ll be as productive today!

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What I’m actually reading vs. what I’d like to be reading.

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I know you don’t look at my blogroll, so I thought I’d point you in the direction of a few blogs I really enjoy.

If you like plants, Seeds Aside is awesome (and has a great sense of humor). If you’re addicted to shoes, Manolo’s Shoe Blog points out the best. If you’re into art, Le territoire des sens finds some great pieces. If gender turns you on, you should be reading Sugarbutch Chronicles. If you’re going to grad school, or thinking about being an ecologist, Ruminations of an Aspiring Ecologist lets you know what you’re getting yourself into.

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I ended up with enough scholarships, grants and fellowships this semester to go to school full time.  I’m not taking out any loans and I’m only working part time, too!

Pretty much this is going to be the best semester of my life.  I’m even turning down some commitments I made when I thought I was going to be in school part time which means that I might actually get some sleep this semester!

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I might have committed to too much this semester.

Classes

• Plant Morphology
• Genetics
• Ecology
• Discrete Math
• Calculus based Intro Statistics

Clubs

• Botany Club, president
• SEEDS, web coordinator, field trip project co-director, grant writer
• Tri-Beta, liaison with Botany Club
• Associated Students for Women’s Issues

Work

• Project for Undergraduate IGERT award
• Project for Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology (UMEB) fellowship
• Webmaster for UMEB class

Next year, I’ll plan in sleep.

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I’ve got a scholarship interview tomorrow.  Any money I get at this point will reduce my loans for the semester, which would be wonderful.  I’m a little nervous and very worried that I’m going to have a migraine.

Yikes!

***UPDATE***

I got it!

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I took a course this summer that required quite a bit of fieldwork.  Toward the end of the class, we split into small groups and planned our own projects.  My group wanted to ask about forest succession.  We went on an exploratory jaunt through the Michigan State University’s Experimental Forest the first day of the project.  It was not very successful.

First of all there were MOSQUITOES.  I put that in all caps because I have never seen such a high density of such hungry insects.  I would have eaten DEET to keep them away.  Jenny was stung by a bee and was quietly disgruntled about having been “bitten on her bum” for the rest of the afternoon.  Joanna made the mistake of sitting down and was treated to a large number of very irritated bug bites in awkward places.  I ended up bleeding from a briar with my face in poison ivy.

Overall it was kind of terrible, but we bonded over the experience and were better prepared the next time we went out.

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My favorite place to study

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