GAHH

People who shouldn't have existed. Or at least never made up reactions:

• Knoevenagel
• Claisen
• Aldol
• Michael
• Robinson
• Reformatsky
• Hofmann

These stupid things are kicking my ass. How am I supposed to take this exam in 2 hours when it took me 4 hours to take the practice one??

MORE Tour

I love the Tour this year. The Top 10 in the GC are so close! This has nothing to do with my own life but they're things I'm thinking about.

Amazing:

• Mikel Astarloza's stage win. I love it when someone wins a stage of the Tour for the first time. It's the highlight of their career and you can feel their excitement and joy when they cross that line and punch the sky. As fun as it is to see the salute's people plan out (see: Vinokourov rocking the baby, Contador's point and shoot), it all seems a little too cool, too noncholant. I love the huge grins and the excitement and the hugging of the reporters he's that excited.
• Lance Armstrong's comeback. When Andy Schleck attacked and brought along a bunch of the pack, including Bradley Wiggins, Contador, Andreas Kloden, and his brother Frank Shleck, Armstrong missed the acceleration boat and got left behind. But after a couple minutes away from the group, riding along with some other people, Armstrong launches his own attack and closes the gap back to the group full of Top 10 riders by himself. His acceleration was crazy. Almost Old Lance-like, but then... Old Lance wouldn't have been left behind in the first place. But he looked good.
• Kenny Van Hummel, the Lanterne Rouge, is STILL in the Tour, 3:35.54 behind Contador and 45 minutes behind the guy in front of him. I love that he hasn't given up, even in the mountains. Tomorrow will be hellacious, I hope he makes it.
  

Heartbreaking:

• Jens Voigt's high speed crash. I hate watching people crash at high speeds. While Joseba Beloki (2004) was definitely the worst (slipping on melted tar, back brakes locking up, back tire popping off, slamming onto the pavement with your hip during a descent down a mountain and shattering your femur), this still sucks. Sometimes the riders like to take their hands off the bike for a little while, take a look around. Apparently Voigt chose the wrong time to do it, his bike hit a bump, and he went flying face first into the road at around 50mph, descending down a mountain. He was apparently knocked unconscious for a couple minutes after the impact. It's no fun losing
• Cadel Evans is no good this year. Man. Come on. He was one of the favorites and is definitely just... not up to it this year. He's in 17th place, 7:23 behind Contador, and with no real way to make up that time. Disappointing.
  

One thing I'm sad about is that I don't get to watch the live coverage. I like Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin better than the American announcers... but when did Bob Roll start pronouncing "Tour de France" correctly??

"Reverse Racism"

Booo to shots

I hate them. Nobody likes them, but really. It's not so much the initial pain of feeling the needle enter your skin (and then your muscle), but it's more so the feeling as they push down on the plunger on the syringe and you feel the vaccine-y goodness trying to enter a space that was quite happy before without any additional liquid. Bleh. Now my arm is sore and with my luck I will probably have a slight fever tonight because that always happens when I get shots. Silly immune system.

More Tour

People I was already a fan of:

• Alberto Contador, Team Astana(in the yellow! Whooo!)
• Lance Armstrong, Team Astana (seriously just impressed he's still going this strong at 37. Contador is the better rider IMO, but he's also 11 years younger. He knows he's not going to win, but he's really classy all the same)

People I am now fans of:

• Bradley Wiggins, Team Garmin-Slipstream (ummm... he's awesome.)

On a dumb note, I reallly like the argyle on the Garmin uniforms...

Also, how on EARTH can people ride up mountains for 5 hours straight?!

Guhhh

Today, I had two people say things about my weight.

I guess I need to start running again... Muhhhhhh.

WHAT THE FUCK

what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck

WHY?!?!?

Lanterne Rouge

So much respect for this guy. I hope he makes it to Paris.

A goal.

Money

• Stop spending so much of it.
  ie. stop eating at Space Market
  
• Find a job to make it.

I don't believe I've ever been so aware of how dependent I am on my parents for everything. And now I am uncomfortable with spending anything.

Stress.

Thinking about the future puts a huge knot in my stomach and then I'm pretty much paralyzed for the duration of the thought. Then I just want to curl up in a huge ball and sleep forever. It's frustrating. I know nobody ever lives the perfect life that they want to, but that's no good. I don't really want to give up trying to perform so that I can make myself a better candidate for med school.

I think I'm not taking the MCAT on Friday like I thought I would. I'm not ready. Physical sciences are the worst thing on the entire planet. I'm probably taking 2 years off before Med School. I think I need to go to grad school. I think I need to do something related to science during these next few years. I think I need to stop dreaming and face reality.

I'm pretty sure I need a better study space. This is maybe a little bit ridiculous and messy. I don't know how to be a Real Person.

I kind of wish I bought this blanket. Look at the paw! Look at its floppy ears! Isabelle actually ended up buying it... but considering it's meant for children and didn't really reach to my knees, I guess I made a good choice.

Dearest Brother

Stop being such an annoying pain in the ass. Clearly I am studying for the MCAT so that I can have some kind of future. Stop walking into the room while I am studying and trying to ask me stupid things about the wii that happens to be in the room. And when I say that "I'm trying to study, please don't talk to me" that doesn't mean it's okay for you to say "okay, I'll just mumble then" and make inane noises as you slap around the tv. You have claimed the best study room (Eric's room) with your own massive desktop computer which is why I am forced to be in the common room. You are turning 32 in 10 days. Stop acting like you're 12. Also a string of other harsh questions that I'm not going to type out because then I'll feel like a bitch.

And what the fuck are you doing right now that makes so much noise?!?!? And do you really think it's cute to walk in here and hand me a pair of headphones used to block out the noise of gunfire? Yes, I can no longer hear myself type but these really, really aren't comfortable.

BAHHHHHH

Pens! Pens! Pens!

I have lost my two favorite pens somewhere, somehow, and I am devastated. See, you may not know this about me, but I'm pretty much constantly on the lookout for the perfect pen. These past few days? I have been obsessed. An idiosyncrasy has revealed itself to me.

See, there are a lot of things to look out for when choosing a pen to use. Type of ink, for one thing. I prefer gel pens over ballpoint pens because the ink tends to flow more smoothly. Fine point over medium, and if possible, extra fine. 0.3-0.4mm extra fine. This goes for pencils, too. I cannot use 0.7mm pencils or pens or anything of the sort. 1.0mm? Blasphemy! I have only found one ballpoint pen that I really like (the Pilot Better Retractable pen [fine point]), but I can no longer find it in stores.

I blame the cultivation of this obsession on my Calculus TA during the fall of 2007 (that's right, I'm talking to you, Steffen... not that you read this) for giving me the the best pen known to man: The Pilot Hi-Tec-C (0.4mm) in Black. It's supa fine and doesn't bleed through (most) notebook pages. It also comes in a rainbow of colors ranging from Blue, Black, Blue-Black (?), Brown, Brown-Black (again, ?) Mandarin Orange, Clear Blue, Strawberry... I think there are around 27.5million different colors. Swoon!

Unfortunately, this pen is, for some reason, NOT SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

What the hell, Pilot? What makes you think this is a good idea? I used to perfectly happy with your Pilot Precise V5 and your Pilot G2 but now whenever I write with it the width of my letters seems monstrous in comparison to the fine lines I grew used to with your Hi-Tec-C (0.4) and G-Tec-C4 (0.3). You draw me in and then leave me hanging! WHY?!

Stupid pens. I have found you online, but you require a $5 shipping fee and I am cheap! (But not cheap enough to buy a bad pen.)

I'm currently using a Muji 0.38mm pen, or so it claims, but I think it's lying to me. Plus the ink shows through and then my notes look messy. I can't have those benzene rings showing all over the place. Clean! Thin! Lines! Why are you kept from me!

Oh great, now I sound like a crazy person. But honestly, a good, really good pen is hard to come by. Now excuse me while I go squander some money on pens.

headdesk

I just caught myself thinking that my iced tea sure looked similar to my filtrate in lab today. WAYYYY too much organic chemistry on the brain.

Speaking of which, is it blasphemy to say that I'm actually enjoying this class? Or at least, I think I am when we do practice problems. Because honestly I think I space out a lot during recitation and lecture so I'm not really sure. But the people I've been hanging out with are all really cool, even though I'm not entirely sure of two of their names and I'm too embarrassed to ask again and again. One of the girls is also ridiculously pretty, it's not even fair.

Then again, our first midterm is on Friday and I'm not really sure what to expect, so chances are my opinion of the class could change drastically.

Travelog

Hello from Martha's Vineyard! It is beautiful here, I'm glad I decided to actually make it out, even though I'm apparently incapable of sleeping in now even though I'm still tired. Lame.

So I did a lot of traveling yesterday to get here, which almost caused me to not come since I was afraid I'd be stranded in various places due to traffic. So I decided to ignore my ticket for a 330 Bolt bus from NY to Boston and go for 230 Fung Wah bus from NY to Boston. You know, Fung Way really isn't that different from taking Peter Pan or anything like that other than being a lot cheaper. And I guess you have to go to Chinatown to catch it. But we left and arrived pretty much on time, which is way more than I can say about most of the times I've ever taken Amtrak. I just remembered this one really delayed train trip I had coming back from Spring Break freshman year, but I'll get into that later. Maybe in another entry because I remember it pretty vividly but then this post will be too long.

The bus gets into boston around 630, 645, so I take the bus to Woods Hole at 7, and the ferry to MV at 9, finally getting here around 945. Ran into Ange, Leslie, Johannes and Van-anh on the ferry so we had to squish the four small asian girls into the backseat of Nick's civic.

Today we're having a cookout around 2ish, and then there's going to be a parade in Edgartown at around 5. Excitement! I want to go to the beach but I don't think anyone else is awake and I still need to do a lot of studying...