Godjilla!

A love letter to my ear muffs

2010-01-04T15:53:00.001-08:00

As the months went by and the weather got colder, everyone I talked to about Chicago talked about how cold it was going to get: how I’d need to get a robber mask so my face wouldn’t freeze off, how I better not get into trouble outside because my phone screen would freeze, how I might as well say goodbye to my toes because I’m definitely going to lose them to frost bite. But what those jerks forgot to tell me is that all you really need to survive the winter in Chicago is a pair of ear muffs. They keep your ears from freezing and breaking into a million pieces and--bonus!--they muffle the sound of all the aggressive and impatient drivers honking their horns.

I was in ear muff heaven as I walked home through the snow today so I took the scenic route through the park near my apartment. My behavioral neuroscience professor, who studies birds, had prompted us to get back to our biological roots by paying attention to plants and animals, especially the the red cardinals on the snowy ground. Coincidentally, I was wearing my Christmas gift from Markus--a bright red coat--and I was a little surprised that all the lady cardinals didn’t come running. While thinking about ear muffs and cardinals and various other silly things, I walked by a snow man covered in dog pee. Someone else must have felt sorry for the yellow snowman since his smile had been turned into a frown. I’m sure there will be days when I’m so fed up with this cold as balls weather that I’ll feel like that frowny, dog pee covered snowman. But it’s nice to know that there will also be days when I’m snug and warm in my cardinal red coat and glorious ear muffs.

Awkward, awkwarder, awkwardest

2009-08-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

Working with a bunch of scientists, I get to experience a higher than average amount of awkward exchanges. I know from experience that when your brain is full of numbers and genes and amplification plots and DNA primers that you sometimes forget to say, “Hi, how are you?” But sometimes the awkwardness goes way beyond forgetting to say hello.

My boss often plays the radio while we’re both working at our desks. Usually it’s music from the ’70s, which is apparently considered oldies now, but lately it’s been music from the ’90s. So one day, while staring at a behemoth spreadsheet, I wondered what we were all smoking to make Sugar Ray so rich. Then, just as I was about to ask my boss a question, I heard the familiar percussion intro to Closer by Nine Inch Nails. Apparently my boss was less familiar with the most explicit song of the ’90s because he kept the radio on while Trent Reznor sang about his super intense feelings toward his girlfriend. I grew increasingly uncomfortable until Trent sang “I wanna [bleep] you like an animal” and my boss hit mute on his computer. If there’s any way to make a Closer situation more awkward, it’s that.

Later that day, I was sitting with my boss and his friend at lunch when a few other scientists in the group joined us. As an older man who I’d spoken to twice before sat down, I said hello and he responded by introducing himself. For whatever reason, instead of pointing out to him that we’d already met, I introduced myself. Then someone asked me about Chicago, and this man said, “Oh, you’re moving to Chicago? I used to live there.” For the rest of lunch this man and I had the same conversation about Chicago that we’d had once before in front of all the other people who’d been there the first time we had this conversation. At the time I felt like an idiot that I hadn’t corrected him when he’d introduced himself, but as the conversation progressed and the extent of his memory problem became clearer, I was relieved I hadn’t.

Another day, I was eating a quick lunch by myself when I heard someone say, “Psst!” I looked up and a man at the table next to mine pointed behind me. I turned around and saw that another man had fallen asleep face first into his plate of food. I turned back to the first man and he cracked up and pointed out the sleeping man to everyone around us. Another, nicer man came by and woke up the sleeping man, who muttered, “Oh man, I can’t believe I did that!” over and over again before falling asleep face first into his plate of food again. At that point, listening to Closer with my boss and having the same conversation twice with an old man didn’t seem so awkward anymore.

The problem with speaking French

2009-07-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

In college I decided I would not be a pretentious person. I’d been becoming more and more pretentious ever since I discovered the indie movie theater in Houston and started seeing movies like "In the Company of Men" and "The Business of Strangers." These movies weren’t all that indie, considering one starred the guy who’d later be the new Two-Face and the other starred Rizzo from "Grease," but they met one important criteria for pretentious indie movies: they weren’t any fun to watch. I also saw fun, silly, stupid movies like "Independence Day" and "Bring It On," but I was more likely to talk about Neil LaBute’s misogyny than I was President Bill Pullman’s inspiring speech.

Then I went to college and became more and more pretentious (but then, isn’t that what college is for?). I watched actual indie movies with actors who had never been costars with John Travolta. I wrote a paper about "Rashomon" that I was very proud of. I joined a movie club led by a film major and even though I rolled my eyes when people expounded on the symbolism in "Videodrome," I still sat there and listened to it.

But that all changed when I watched "Pollock," directed by and starring Ed Harris. It was so bad I ranted about it for days. That horrible movie set me straight. Instead of trying to figure out what Cronenberg was trying to get across when James Woods’s chest turned into a vaginal VCR player, I just laughed at it. I started getting annoyed when people referred to movies as films, especially when they said stuff like "The films of Jerry Bruckheimer." My anti-pretentiousness hunt extended from movies to other areas like art. I had a really hard time when we studied ’60s performance art in my art class. Seriously? Some weirdo is crucified on a VW Beetle and I have to write about it 40 years later?

But then I went to Africa and learned French, the most pretentious language of them all. It’s even considered pretentious in Francophone West Africa, where only the richest and most well-educated Africans speak it. Everyone else speaks their local languages. Now that I’m back in America my knowledge of French has poisoned my speech so that I’m unable to pronounce French words "properly" anymore. I pronounced "connoisseur" "connoi-sewer" instead of the American-style "connoi-sir" and my own mom made fun of me for it. My coworkers ask me questions about French to help them fill out their New York Times crossword puzzles, and I feel so ashamed of myself as I spell out the words.

Old Jill would have made fun of New Jill when she calls crêpes "crehps" instead of "crayps" (and puts the little hat over the "e"), but I can’t help it. So maybe instead of making fun of film school students and performance artists I should feel sorry for them and their pretentiousness. But I’ll never feel sorry for Ed Harris. That guy’s a pretentious jerk.

You can't spell "ignorant" without I!

2009-06-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I took great pride in how well-traveled I was. I’d been everywhere--from Vermont to Arizona to California to Florida. I considered myself a sophisticated traveler who knew just about everything there was to know about America. But then I started traveling outside the U.S. and realized that traveling from Texas to New Mexico’s a pretty big deal for a fourth grader, but wouldn’t impress a European who’s used to traveling by something called a train, whatever that is.

Even more humbling, in planning to move to Chicago, I realize that I know almost nothing about the midwest. I know the south, the southwest, the northwest, and the east coast, but somehow I missed the great swath of land in the middle (and apparently The Onion did too). I know a little bit about Chicago, having grown up watching Ferris Bueller and Da Bears sketches on SNL, but what about all the square-shaped states that surround it? What’s the difference between Iowa and Missouri? Which one’s Nebraska again? Wisconsin’s the mitten state, right? I’m hoping that after my year somewhere in the middle of the country, I’ll have filled in the gaps in my knowledge about America. At the very least I’ll figure out what the heck an Indiana is.

Living the dream

2009-06-14T15:45:00.001-07:00

Very early in our relationship, Markus and I were going to a party with a group of friends and I said something about how excited I was about drinking beer (to paraphrase my mom, everyone is an alcoholic in college). Markus turned to a friend and said, “My girlfriend drinks beer. You see why I like her?” Over time our relationship has grown to include love, trust, shared experiences, blah blah blah. But I think it’s safe to say that at the most fundamental level, our relationship is based on our mutual appreciation for beer. Markus brews it, I drink it, we’re both happy.

And now we have a keg right in the fridge!

Sure, we had to sacrifice all our shelves, and we’ll never be able to fit a leftover Thanksgiving turkey in there, but it’s worth it when I open the fridge, beer glass in hand, and pour myself a delicious beer, straight from the tap. Markus has been brewing beer for years, and he’s always been able to make decent amber ales, IPAs, stouts, and other standard types of beer, but lately he’s been making great beers, especially the Belgian wheat I’m drinking now. Good thing, too, since in order to support Markus’s beer brewing habit, we’ve decided to give up normal beer. Or maybe Markus is just putting his business degree to work and creating a beer monopoly here at home.

Nerds vs. experts

2009-06-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

At what point do you go from being a nerd to an expert? People tend to assume that PhDs are smart, but really they're just people who are obsessed with a specific thing like DNA or bees or brains. One of the researchers I work for is a chemist who's obsessed with cholesterol. You wouldn't think it, but if you're determined, you can find a lot of things about cholesterol to talk about. All you have to do is find a rapt audience in the form of an underpaid lab assistant. The other researcher I work for is obsessed with gall bladders. Mouse gall bladders, dog gall bladders, frozen gall bladders, gall bladder slides. If it's got "gall bladder" in the name, he's obsessed with it. Sub-obsessions include bile, livers, stomachs, and, surprisingly, flowers.

But what if you're a bit obsessive but don't have a fancy degree to show for it? Then you're just lumped into the nerd category along with Comic Book Guy, Trekkies, and Harry Potter fan fiction writers. Experts aren't necessarily smarter than nerds. They're just so obsessed with something that they're willing to devote years of their lives learning about that one, precious thing. And once they've achieved expert status, only their fellow experts can actually tell if they're smart or not. The rest of us just know that they're talking about cholesterol using words we've never heard before like 2-oxy-5-iso-acetic acid.

Since I'm obsessed with brains in a smart sense and in a dumb sense, I'm hoping I can help bridge the gap between nerds and experts. Once I'm through with grad school, I hope I'll be able to effortlessly switch between talking about how great that part with the helicopter was in 28 Weeks Later and then explain to anyone curious how the particular physiology of the zombie brain differs from the human brain and why head shots are necessary to kill a zombie. That'll surely prove to anyone listening that although all nerds aren't experts, all experts are definitely nerds.

Markus and I do everything wrong

2009-05-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

About five years ago, Markus and I were eating some tapas at a restaurant in Houston when I told him that I was going into the Peace Corps and wanted him to join me but in order to do so, we'd have to get married. He agreed. Several months later, we honeymooned in the middle of Africa. Then we remembered that we'd never gotten around to legally hyphenating our names, so we finally did that last week after four and a half years of marriage. And last Thursday, Markus finally proposed to me and slid an engagement ring on my finger right over my well-traveled wedding ring. While we're catching up on our marriage to do's, we might as well have a wedding five years after the fact. I just hope we don't continue to do things backwards or else we'll only get around to naming our kids when they're going off to college. I apologize in advance, future kids.

Secret handshake with a snap

2009-05-11T16:13:00.000-07:00

My entire family went to Rice University--parents, both sisters, even my aunt and uncle. Rice grads in Texas have a bit of a superiority complex since Rice is the most highly ranked school in the state, as well as an inferiority complex since Rice has some of the worst college sports teams in the state. So when two Rice grads meet, they run through a pretty standard set of questions: What year were you, what dorm did you live in, how much do you dislike UT's and A&M's football teams?

Last week, right before my sister's wedding ceremony started, the wedding party scrambled to make sure everyone knew what to do when. I looked around the room, looking for any last minute tasks, when I saw my other sister talking to a guy who'd volunteered to open the chapel doors. Even though it was game time and we could hear the wedding guests milling about outside, when my sister and the door-opener found out they were both Rice grads, they ran through the Rice grad script. I watched impatiently while the two of them bonded over having lived in the same dorm. Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor a hundred wedding guests eager to get out of the heat and into the chapel will prevent two Rice grads from bonding over Rice.

Later, at the reception, the DJ asked for all the Rice grads to line up for a group photo. I watched as a quarter of the guests gathered together on the dance floor and made wiggly Rice Owl fingers for the photographer. But I didn't feel too left out because my cousin, who's a few years younger than me, told me that when she'd been rejected from Rice, she'd looked up to me since I'd also been rejected from Rice. The rest of them can have their silly hand gesture. My cousin and I will start our own club for Rice University rejectees who are happy they were rejected.

I'm not just defined by the groups I don't belong to, of course. The previous night at the rehearsal dinner, Markus and I chatted with a guy who'd studied in Ghana. People near us looked slightly puzzled while the three of us rambled off all the hard to pronounce West African cities we'd visited, the obscure tourist sites we'd vacationed at, and the disgusting-sounding food we still craved. It doesn't happen often, but whenever I meet someone who knows about Burkina Faso, I'm as happy as a Rice grad who's just met another Rice grad. It's like a secret handshake, but with an African-style snap at the end.

I’m George Will and I’m really cranky and tired and need some warm milk

2009-04-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

By guest writer Markus

“Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling . . .” It sounds like an old, grumpy man yelling at passing kids while trying to spray them with water, but it’s actually George Will from the Wall Street Journal. His most recent nonsensical, old person rant is about the devil’s fabric: denim.

He equates denim to being working class and slovenly. Way to win friends, George. He goes on to say that we should all dress like Fred Astaire and Grace Kelly. Forgive me if I don’t want to dress like this guy:

George, we need to talk. Denim does not signal a disorder in the “national psyche.” It is not “childish” to wear denim, nor should adult “gamers” be criticized (by the way, George, you don’t need to define the word “gamers” because you’re the only person in this country who doesn’t know what that means). Actually, George, playing video games has been shown to increase brain activity and help people learn. Maybe you should play a video game before you criticize them.

If you’re looking for disorders of the national psyche maybe you can start criticizing guns and the idea that the second amendment, which states that guns should be used by a militia to protect the security of the state, can be used to keep guns in people’s homes. I’m pretty sure that most people buying guns aren’t part of a militia. That’s a disorder, George!

So the next time you’re sitting in your front yard with a garden hose, dressed in a tux and a top hat, about to hose down some passing kids that are wearing jeans, and inspiration strikes, ask yourself, should I really publish this? Will this achieve anything or will it make me look like a complete fool and contribute to the insignificance of printed newspapers and op-ed columns? As much as I like to make fun of your antiquated thinking, you’re worrying me and I’m sure your kids are very embarrassed.

The Tell-Tale Imodium

2009-04-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

While running errands this weekend, I walked into my bank, wandered over to the desk of a banker who'd beckoned me, sat down in a chair in front of him, and explained my problem. Then I saw it: sitting in his inbox, next to the TPS reports and the stapler, was an open box of Imodium. For the next half hour, whenever I wasn't reciting numbers for the banker to type into his computer, I stared at the box of Imodium. Did he know his gut medicine was clearly visible? Did he care? And, most importantly, what did the poor guy eat?

Later I walked out of the bank and mulled over my thoughts on guts, Imodium, and bankers. I realized that I wasn't really interested in the internal workings of the banker's guts; I was really interested in figuring out why I'd been so shocked to see Imodium on the banker's desk.

In the Peace Corps a combination of unsanitary food, a tight social network, and boredom means that everyone talks about everyone else's guts all the time. Small talk often includes questions like, "You don't look so good. Is it E. coli or amoebas?" (both if you ask Markus). When you're thinking about, talking about, and medicating your guts all the time, seeing a box of Imodium on someone's desk would not be shocking at all.

But now, after almost a year back in America, I've almost completely reassimlated into American life. And if there's one thing Americans don't do, it's talk about other people's guts. So I'll stop talking about guts, but the bankers of the world need to hold up their side of the bargain and put away their gut medicine. Gross, bankers.

Ch-Ch-Chicago

2009-04-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

Did you know that in addition to being a band specializing in power ballads and a fishnet-drenched musical, Chicago's a city? It's true. And as it turns out, I'll be getting to know Chicago the city very well very soon. This fall I'll be at the University of Chicago working on my master's. It's a year-long program: three quarters of classes and time during the summer to work on my master's thesis, so once the clock strikes first-day-of-school time, I'll be working my butt off for an entire year. Meanwhile, Markus will be back in Seattle, working his butt off so that we can pay for my fancy learnin'.

Other than visiting a couple of times, I haven't spent much time in Chicago, so I've been asking people about it. Here's what they've said:

--"Oh, Chicago! Chicago's not an easy place to live."
--"I'm glad I left Chicago for Seattle."
--"Chicago's kind of like Houston. Fat, badly dressed people."
--"I can't wait to leave Chicago."
--And the one that strikes terror in my heart: "I'll tell you what kind of coat you should buy later."

So I'm super psyched to live in Chicago! But, seriously, most of the people I've asked about Chicago live in Seattle, which, like San Francisco and New York, is one of those dream cities that you never want to leave. So their opinions might be a little bit skewed. Regardless, I was pretty bummed when my informal poll found that Chicago's not a very popular place.

But then I remembered Ferris Bueller. Ferris loves Chicago! So much that he risked getting caught skipping school by his parents, his psycho principal, and his mean sister just so he could go to the Art Institute of Chicago, see a Cubs game, eat at a fancy French restaurant, and wreck his buddy Cameron's car. So, really, if it's good enough for Ferris, it's good enough for me.

Come on, George, answer the question

2009-04-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

I say this all the time, but the other day I experienced the best thing ever. My supervisor was out sick, so he asked me to sit in on the weekly lab meeting. When I walked in, people I knew greeted me and people I didn't know said flattering things like, "Oh, so you're Jill. I've heard so much about you. Your supervisor raves about you." But before I could get a big head, the meeting started and I remembered that I was the least educated person in the room because it sounded to me like everyone was speaking in tongues. As usual, I only understood a little of what they were saying but tried to follow along with what felt like an interested and intelligent look on my face.

Then one of the researchers went to the white board and illustrated the experimental design for his next study. I was in heaven. Hypotheses! Controls! Independent variables! And then the other scientists chimed in. Incorrect hypotheses! Unreliable controls! Unnecessary independent variables! The expression on my face changed from trying-to-look-intelligent to stupidly-enjoying-every-moment. When I took my first methodology course in college, I realized two things: that I wanted to be a scientist and that no matter how enthusiastically I described a really clever experimental design, people who didn't want to be scientists just didn't care.

The discussion quickly became very heated. The amount of yelling from the men next to me was directly proportional to the amount of diagrams the researcher presenting his experiment drew on the board. At one point the man next to me smacked the table with his fist and shouted, "Dammit, George, you're not answering the question!" There's nothing a researcher hates more than illogical scientific reasoning. Nothing.

When I got home that day and Markus asked me how my day had been, I excitedly babbled about the lab meeting, ignoring the familiar trying-to-pay-attention-but-failing expression on Markus's face. I didn't care that he was zoning out because that lab meeting was the best thing ever.

Parlez-vous Scientist?

2009-04-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

The other day I was eating lunch with my supervisor and his friend when three scientists sat down with us and started talking about cells. I listened silently while five men in glasses talked in highly technical terms about the pros and cons of harvesting inter- vs. intra-pancreatic ducts from mice and which method they should use to grow and feed the cells they've harvested and which acronym-test to use to analyze the data.

I understood maybe every fourth word, which is exactly how I'd felt when I was learning French. Back then I'd think: "Ok, she's asking me a question, what . . . what . . . day is it? No, that's not it because she already said 'Sunday.' Something about dinner . . . something about my host family. Hmm, maybe she's asking what my host family made for dinner last Sunday." Then I'd answer, "Soup!" and find out that "Soup" was definitely not the right answer.

This time, however, I managed to figure out enough of what they were saying so I could ask my supervisor questions about it while we walked back to the lab after lunch: "So, is it hard to harvest pancreatic ducts in mice?" Not the most intelligent question, but at least I got the animal and the organ down. It was my way of saying, "I speak scientist too! At least un petit peu."

And I do speak scientist! Rather, I speak psychology, which I'm learning is more different from biology than I'd assumed. Later that day my supervisor was showing me how to perform reverse transcription on dog gallbladder cells. Even though he was mostly concerned with making sure I knew how to pipette properly, I kept asking questions about the experimental design. Pipetting's great and all, but I wanted to know more. When I asked if the different cells we were working with were from different dogs, he seemed confused and told me that they were all from the same cell line. I explained to him that I was used to psychology experiments, where it's crucial to have a huge sample of people who are representative of the population under study. The idea that you can make the animal you're studying a control was remarkable to me. You didn't have to ask the dog what its income is, what its education level is, how many siblings it has, or what it's political leanings are because it's a dog. Who cares?

My parents instilled in me a great sense of curiosity about the world. My mom described to me how to a normal person a bridge is just a bridge, but to a physicist it's equations about arches and gravity and force. Looking at a bridge and seeing equations sounds a little too "A Beautiful Mind" for me. Instead I look at people and see monkeys. Monkeys reacting to their environments, monkeys interacting with other monkeys, and monkeys trying to survive and reproduce. But monkeys are complicated, especially human monkeys. It's so much easier to take a cell from a monkey and look at it instead of dealing with the monkey as a whole. You can't pipette a whole monkey.

I just need to figure out how to study a whole monkey by breaking it down to its cells. And just like I eventually became fluent in French, I'll eventually become fluent in scientist and be able to hold my own against a bunch of scientists in glasses talking about pancreases at lunch.

Night of the Living Burkinabé

2009-03-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

I've always liked zombies. Probably because I'm so interested in psychology that the idea of people who have lost their human characteristics and are essentially walking brain stems appeals to me. Or maybe I just like seeing people shoot monsters in the head with a shotgun. Either way, I was excited to see that there's a new Resident Evil game coming out. Then I saw that it's set in Africa. And the funny thing is, it looks and feels just like Africa: the women in their pagnes, the men drinking giant beers, the mud brick buildings with roofs made out of metal sheets, the goats and chickens. How cool!

There's something about Africa, though, that causes people to freak out and get all sensitive. They start using vague terms like "heritage" and "tribal culture" and "tradition." And that's fine, usually, because Africans certainly have a long, interesting history that influences their modern lives quite a bit. But just because African farming technology hasn't improved much in the last several hundred years and women pound millet just like their mothers' mothers' mothers did doesn't mean Africans are dumb and vulnerable and need to be defended from the evils of Hollywood or video game makers.

I'm sure that if I explained to my old students that there's a video game in which you have to shoot rabid, killer Africans that look just like them, their heads would explode. Like, literally explode. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being a picture of a seed germinating (looking up from their notes for a moment to glance at the picture), 7 being a picture of a jellyfish (cries of "That's an animal?!"), and 10 being my see-through human body book (barely contained chaos), a video game in which zombie Harounas and Salimatas run at the screen before getting a shotgun blast to the head would be at least an 11.

And the reason why is because my students wouldn't care that the person doing the shooting is a white guy, and they wouldn't care that one of the weapons used against the African zombies is a machete. They wouldn't care about any of that because they'd be too busy saying "Holy crap, ZOMBIES!" Because they would know that when it comes to zombies, it don't matter if you're black or white.

Alcohol is bad for you

2009-03-12T17:06:00.001-07:00

You might think that science is all about Erlenmeyer flasks and Bunsen burners and fizzing, bubbling chemicals, but you'd be so, so wrong. It's actually about inventing very cold things and hiring someone to touch these very cold things all day long. Even if I wear protective gloves, my finger tips are no match for hours and hours touching so-cold-it-burns boxes of blood lollipops and other tissue samples. So my fingers have developed finger tip mittens--lovely callouses that cycle between getting bigger and peeling off.

Last week, with my fingers covered in three protective layers--freezer mitts, latex gloves, and finger tip mittens--I finished up organizing the tissue samples kept frozen in liquid nitrogen. But I had trouble opening the last container of samples and mystery liquid splashed all over me. OH GOD, LIQUID NITROGEN, SO COLD! Wait. It's not that cold. And what's that smell? Instead of feeling my skin freeze into one solid, easily crackable block, I smelled the pungent scent of alcohol. Gross. Apparently some evil scientist didn't think dangerously cold chemicals were good enough and just had to throw in some stinky alcohol.

While riding home on the bus, I tried to rub away the peeling layers of skin on my finger tips and worried that the person sitting next to me thought I stank of alcohol. But my days of cold torture are finally over. I now get to do real science: reverse transcription and real time polymerase chain reaction. I'm so excited I even made a video about it. Check it out.

My nemesis, the tank

2009-02-19T21:44:00.000-08:00

Today I got to experience what it would be like to live in the dystopia of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut short story, Harrison Bergeron. In the story, everyone is forced by the United States Handicapper General to have the same level of intelligence, physical attractiveness, and athleticism. Ballerinas wear weights so they're not more graceful than anyone else, attractive people wear ugly masks, and smart people have radios in their ears that broadcast grating sounds every once in a while so they can't think straight. Judging by my experience today, I guess I'm a smart person.

I got to show off my mad anal retentive skills again by sorting some frozen gallbladder, liver, and various other organ samples, but unlike the blood lollipops, these samples were alive, so they had to be kept in liquid nitrogen. The last time I dealt with liquid nitrogen, I imagined my arm freezing and breaking into tiny little arm pieces, so I was extremely careful. But I've been dealing with liquid nitrogen all week, so the sense of danger has worn off and I no longer imagine the various situations that would end in some part of me freezing and shattering.

But just as my mind started to wander to the next time I could get my cookie fix, BLAAAAAA! What the?! That was the worst, most piercing sound I ever heard. Totally freaked out, I looked around the empty room, trying to find the prankster with the air horn, but didn't find anything. So I went back to work. A few minutes later, BLAAAAAA! Ok, so it's not an air horn. Is it an alarm? More searching, still nothing. A while later, BLAAAAAA! This time I was pouring liquid nitrogen from a pressurized tank into my bucket and felt a burst of air on my face. Turns out one of the tanks was BLAAAAAAing while venting excess air. I didn't want the tank to explode (that would be way worse than a frozen arm), so I let the tank keep on venting. All day long.

No matter how much I steeled myself for the next BLAAAAAA, I always flinched. I began to believe that the tank was messing with me, surprising me when I least expected it. BLAAAAAA! Touché, tank. Sometimes people would come into the room and the tank would scream, BLAAAAAA, and they would freak out just like I did the first time I heard it. After I was done flinching, I laughed to myself at the looks on their faces. Finally, I came to an understanding with the tank. It was just trying to keep me safe is all. I'd been working around liquid nitrogen so long I'd started to get too comfortable with it. The tank was there to say, "Put on your gloves, Jill! BLAAAAAA! Try not to splash yourself. BLAAAAAA!" So thanks, tank, for looking out for me.

I wonder which is worse: a world where people are forced to be equal so that no one feels inferior or a world where an otherwise sane person starts to believe that a tank has a personality.

Aplets and Craplets

2009-02-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

Today Markus and I received in the mail something that's only slightly better than a flaming bag of poo:

Dear Markus,

CONGRATULATIONS on your employment in the State of Washington! In appreciation for your joining the Washington State workforce, we are sending you this box of Aplets and Cotlets, the recently designated "State Candy of the State of Washington." These delightfully soft apple and apricot confections with walnuts and all-natural flavors are created right here in Washington State by Liberty Orchards in Cashmere, Washington.

We hope you will share these confections with your wife, Jill, and savor your new employment in the great State of Washington. We know you will enjoy them.

With sincere WELCOME!

Someone who hates you.

The recession? I'll think about that tomorrow.

2009-02-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

I watched my favorite chick flick, "Gone with the Wind," a few weeks ago, and instead of wondering why Scarlett liked wimpy Ashley when Rhett was so dashing, I focused on how her experience being poor transformed her into a greedy, money-obsessed woman. That night I dreamed that Markus and I were so poor we couldn't afford food. The next morning, while eating my Lucky Charms, I remembered my dream and felt the familiar pit of anxiety form in my stomach. We didn't have to shoot Yankees like Scarlett did, but Markus and I both got very worried when our bills were due. Toward the end of my Peace Corps service, I counted down the days until it would be over and I could finally stop sweating, sleeping under a mosquito net, and eating goat meat on a stick. I wish I could've counted down the days until Markus or I found a good job, but I didn't know when that would be.

But unlike "Gone with the Wind," this story has a happy ending. After almost five months of searching, Markus will be starting work Monday as a training specialist at a local insurance company. And although I won't be the breadwinner anymore, my boss told me this week that he wants to double my hours. So the next time I eat Lucky Charms, I'm going to think about marshmallows instead of the recession, and the next time I watch "Gone with the Wind," I'm going to think about Rhett Butler instead of the damn Yankees.

Snuggies, Cheese Loaves, and The Garlic Press

2009-01-31T22:08:00.000-08:00

By guest writer Markus Fleisch

I went to the grocery store this evening and was pleasantly surprised to see long lines of people buying various things like chicken wings, pretzels, salsa, cheese party trays, twenty-four packs of beer, and, everybody’s favorite, Velveeta or the generic brand Cheese Loaf. All of this because The Garlic Press released its second issue. Right now, families are gathered around their computer monitors, possibly bundled up in Snuggies, enjoying the outrageously funny articles. So grab your snacks, put on your Snuggie, and join millions of other people at The Garlic Press.

My first earthquake

2009-01-31T10:10:00.001-08:00

Markus is only four months older than me but for some reason was a year ahead of me in school (maybe he slipped his kindergarten teacher a twenty to look the other way), so I've heard him describe how scary and amazing and exciting the big earthquake during his freshman year was many, many times. I was still down in Houston, probably dodging yet another hurricane, while he woke up wondering why his bed was jumping around the room. So I was very happy to read the news this morning and find out that there was an earthquake this morning. Of course it was only a 4.5 and I slept right through it, but still. Earthquake!

More like awesome retentive

2009-01-29T16:54:00.000-08:00

I don't think much of Freud. He was a dirty old man who thought way too much about babies and sex and is the main reason why psychology isn't universally viewed as a legit science. But he did invent some fun and useful phrases. For instance, I seriously doubt I had a traumatic time being potty trained, but I am definitely anal retentive. My family constantly reminds me of the few (seriously, only a FEW) times when we'd go to a restaurant and I'd organize the sugar packets--real sugar separate from the Sweet 'n' Low separate from the Nutrasweet. Maybe I just wanted to prevent accidental gross fake sugarizing of iced tea, they don't know!

Either way, I've stopped caring about sugar packets, and now I have an even better outlet for my anal retentive tendencies. And I get paid for it! After I finished organizing hundreds of boxes full of blood samples in a huge, ridiculously cold freezer, my boss handed me a giant list of frozen blood samples that I have to find. As I pluck the blood lollipops one by one out of the boxes and moving them to another box, I check them off my giant list. It's the best thing I've done at work so far. It's totally mindless, totally tedious, totally anal retentive, and a whole lot of fun. It's nice to know that my years of organizing sugar packets were good practice for my future job as a blood lollipop organizer.

Four more years!

2009-01-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

It's official: Markus and I have been married for as long as Dan Quayle was the Vice President. So I know Markus at least as well as I do Dan Quayle. Not only do I know that he knows how to spell the word "potato" and really doesn't care that Murphy Brown was an unwed mother, I know a few other things too. Like that his favorite color is blue. Took four years to learn that. Most importantly, I know that he's not some one-term loser. He's going to be Husband for Life.

Everything's coming up Milhouse

2009-01-20T15:08:00.000-08:00

Today at work, my supervisor said the dreaded, "Jill I need to talk to you about something." I run all over the VA hospital all day, going in and out of people's labs, using their equipment, moving their things around, and I'm in and out of freezers that absolutely have to be kept so cold it burns the tips of my fingers if I don't wear oven mitts, so there are many, many ways I could screw up. Did a liver sample and a brain sample get mixed up? Did I spill vials of blood all over the floor? Did the freezer catch fire?!

Luckily, I haven't accidentally set the hospital on fire yet. He told me that another researcher at the VA wanted to hire someone for a full time job starting in July and my name came up. But he doesn't want to lose me, so they'd schedule me so I could work both jobs. Although I felt bleary from my cold, the fluorescent lights, and possible exposure to the hazardous waste I'd just disposed of, I still managed to feel excited and happy. I'm hoping that I'll get in to one of the six grad schools I applied to, but if I don't, it's nice to know that I'll have a job available for me. I'll just have to try not to cry all over the rat livers.

The Big Lebowski 2: Judgment Day.

2009-01-06T17:41:00.000-08:00

Today I got to experience what it would be like to be in two of my favorite movies. First was Terminator 2. I'm used to dealing with cold things at work. I walk in from the cold, go get some cold dry ice, open the cold freezer to take out some cold liver samples, cut them in a cold machine, then put them back on the cold dry ice and back into the cold freezer. But today I got to experience the ultimate in cold: liquid nitrogen.

When my supervisor was explaining to me how to pour liquid nitrogen from a huge tank into a styrofoam-lined bucket, I tried to concentrate on what he was saying but I was too distracted by the thick smoke floating around our feet. And later when he had me slice liver samples on dry ice, drop them into the bucket of liquid nitrogen, and then fish them out with giant tweezers, I had trouble concentrating because I kept thinking about what would happen if my arm accidentally slipped into the bucket then hit the counter and broke into a million pieces. But unlike the Terminator, my arm pieces wouldn't fuse together into a shiny cop body. They'd just melt and make a mess that I'd probably have to clean up later.

At the end of the day, arm still in one complete, not frozen piece, I checked my voicemail and heard Markus telling me something about toads. The connection wasn't very good, so I tried to figure out what he'd said: I stepped on a toad. . . . Our rental car was towed. . . . Our car was towed and they've found it! Hooray! But then I listened to my next message and heard Markus describe the state of our car. Some idiot kids had broken in the driver's side window, removed the license plates, knocked off the rear view, and spilled fast food and Coke all over the inside. Great. Now, instead of an unstoppable robot cop from the future, I felt like the Dude when he recovers his stolen car, which has been trashed and used as a bathroom by some homeless people, and asks the cop, "Do you have any leads, man?"

When our car, a brand new Honda Civic, was stolen, we'd assumed the thieves had taken it to a chop shop and that we'd never find it again because it was in pieces (and there's also the small matter of the dealership not installing the LoJack we'd paid for, the damn crooks). But now that we find out it was probably some punk kids who stole it just to go through drive thrus and throw their garbage around, it really pisses me off. Not only are they car thieves, they're stupid car thieves. I'm so law abiding I'd wait at a red light for half an hour in the middle of the night and even I know that you should take a brand new Japanese car to a chop shop.

So after my movie-full day, I have a choice: Should I pull a Terminator and go on a killing spree or should I adopt the Dude's attitude and just go bowling?

The Garlic Press

2009-01-01T16:43:00.000-08:00

Writing's such a great way to turn frustration, disbelief, or beer-fueled introspective conversations into something tangible. I almost certainly would have quit the Peace Corps if I hadn't used writing as an outlet to vent about Africa. For instance, after my epic six hour, 42 kilometer journey involving a rushing river and the possibility of serious injury or death, I sat in my dark, sweltering house, shaking with anger. But then I started writing and turned my frustration at unbelievably crappy African transport into a fake news article about Bush's innovative new public transportation system. One of my worst experiences became one of my favorite blog posts.

So I was flattered and pleased when Brooks, an RPCV from my training group, asked me to join him and Joel, another RPCV, in creating a satirical news website called The Garlic Press. Several weeks later, the first issue is up and I'm very happy with it. Now, in addition to serving as a means of soothing my frustration, organizing my thoughts, and amusing myself, writing serves as a means of keeping in touch with old friends. Is there anything writing can't do?!

Note from Markus: I helped too!

Escape from Seattle

2008-12-21T15:24:00.000-08:00

Here's my bus stop right outside my apartment building (and that's my bus!). This is the highway I'm going to take on the way to the airport. This airport. Seattle's taking the week off whether I like it or not.

Adventures with sperm

2008-12-18T09:35:00.000-08:00

In order to support my eating and paying rent addiction, I've been trying to get a second job. So this morning I grumbled my way out of bed, chugged some coffee, and put on my businessiest outfit for an interview for a lab tech job at the Seattle Sperm Bank. My only worry was that they'd do a bait and switch: baiting me with a job description describing basic lab duties and switching it with a job that involves handing men plastic cups and Playboys.

Then I walked outside into a snow storm. Oh shit. Markus, my illustrious chauffeur, turned on the defroster in our rental car and slowly, slowly, SLOWLY started driving down the first of many snow covered hills. Being Houstonians turned Africans turns Seattleites, neither of us is comfortable driving in the snow, and it turns out, neither is everyone else in Seattle.

The sperm bank is at the bottom of a ridiculously steep hill, so Markus and I agreed that the sperm would just have to wait. So we parked at the top of the hill and crunched our way down several flights of snowy stairs. I made sure to keep wiggling my already-ridiculously-cold-in-hot-weather toes in my no traction, no insulation, fancy work shoes. Half an hour later, we dusted ourselves off and I went to the suite of the sperm bank and stood there admiring the artistic representation of a sperm on the locked door to the closed office.

Half an hour later, Markus and I got bored with watching cars skid and twirl and spin like ice skaters and trudged back up the hill to the car for the slow, slow, SLOW drive back home. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow will keep me away from the sperm bank.

Get your stink opera out of my movie!

2008-12-17T08:26:00.001-08:00

My number two movie pet peeve is opera music in action movies. (I'm saving my number one movie pet peeve for something truly heinous, most likely involving Ed Harris, Tony Scott, The Lord of the Rings, and Crash.) You're sitting in the theater listening to cheesy action movie dialogue while trying to unstick the last few Junior Mints from the inside of the box when you look up and there's a car flying through the air. BAM! BOOM! POW POW POW! You're happy as can be munching on the last Junior Mint. And then the slow motion kicks in and opera music starts playing. Wahn wahn.

Take the new Wolverine movie trailer for example: There's a guy with a weirdo haircut and magic claw hands slicing into a Hummer, which is now flying through the air, and leaping twenty feet into the air to land on a hovering helicopter and the opera music kicks in as if to say "Put down your popcorn, people, this is serious." No, it's not! Opera is serious; action movies are the silliest of all movies.

So the next time you find yourself filming a scene in which the hero is shooting a bunch of bad guys while doing slow motion swishy turns and leaping through the air as everything around him explodes, don't get all Amadeusy. Watch some episodes of Miami Vice and try again.

The problem with feeling sorry for yourself

2008-12-14T16:43:00.001-08:00

Markus and I bought a brand new Civic after getting back from the Peace Corps back in August. A few weeks later, some kids kicked dents in it. Some what-the-hell-kind-of-people-kick-in-a-stranger's-car?!, one rental car, and a $500 deductible later, our car was good as new, and we were happy once again with our first new car.

But then yesterday Markus and I realized that our car wasn't where we'd parked it outside of our apartment building. Now we get to play phone tag with the cops and with LoJack. You never hope you're going to get your money's worth out of LoJack, but now we're glad we were feeling pessimistic about car theft and opted to pay for it.

So this Christmas, we get to celebrate having one part time job between the two of us and one brand new car that we're making payments on being driven around by some asshole. But every time I try to feel sorry for myself, I just can't do it. Too many other people--people I know and people I'll never meet--are having a worse Christmas than me. So I'll just sit here thinking about unemployment and Zimbabwe and other horrible stuff while trying to figure out what to do. It's good to have perspective.

¡Sí, se puede!

2008-12-10T21:47:00.001-08:00

The other night, I was at a screening of Battlefield Earth and the good guy was trying to rally the other humans against John Travolta and said "Yes we can" and everyone in the theater cheered. I guess The Onion was a bit premature.

In other news, Battlefield Earth. WOW.

My Mom: A One Act Play

2008-12-05T11:23:00.000-08:00

Scene 1: Driving to the airport.

Markus: How long do you think it will take until your mom mentions the TV show Chuck?
Jill: I give her five minutes.
Markus: I agree.

Scene 2: Driving away from the airport.

Jill: Welcome to Seattle, Mom and Dad.
Mom: Yeah, it’s nice to be here. This reminds me of Chuck. Let me tell you about it.

THE END

Cinderella in a lab coat

2008-12-04T07:42:00.001-08:00

At first I just thought it was really neat to have my own badge. Then I snapped on my gloves and felt great. Then I put on my snazzy white lab coat and thought, this is it: there’s nothing better than wearing a badge, gloves, and lab coat.

Suddenly, I can do all sorts of sciencey things like get up close and personal with chemicals with “Danger: Radioactive!” stickers all over them (“They’re not actually radioactive,” says my supervisor). I can measure out precise quantities of glutamate, which I used to know only as a three-letter abbreviation and a chemical structure I could never remember exactly. And, best of all, I get to cut micron-thick slices of frozen mouse liver using the world’s smallest deli slicer. Frozen mouse liver!

But then the clock strikes midnight and I have to throw away my gloves and hang up my lab coat and someone says, “Hey Jill, wash these beakers after you’ve taken out the recycling.” So I scrub beakers while looking longingly at my lab coat, day dreaming of the next time I can put it on. Who needs glass slippers and a prince when you can have a lab coat and frozen mouse liver?

FOOTBALL!

2008-11-27T20:59:00.000-08:00

Last year's Thanksgiving in our village in Africa was awesome, what with the squealing pig slaughtered by a nice guy named Adlai and the clucking turkey slaughtered by a nice guy named Mac and all the vultures trying to crash the party, but it was missing something, and this year I figured out what: football. And not just any type of football. Ridiculous, ass kicking football. We drank our brunch mimosas while watching the Cowboys kick the Seahawks' ass 34-9 (go Seattle?) and later drank our coffee and ate our pumpkin pie while watching UT beat A&M 49-9.

My mom refuses to accept that since I left Texas at 18 and never went back, unlike my sisters and my parents who all went to Rice in Houston, I have zero--no, make that negative--interest in Texas football. So when she insisted we watch the Texas/A&M game and root against the despised UT (Note from Mom: Oh, they're just so smug!), I enthusiastically rooted for UT just to spite her and laughed and laughed as they kicked Aggie ass. Note to the Aggies (and the Seahawks): field goals aren't as important as touch downs. This Thanksgiving I'm thankful for two HILARIOUS football games.

Evolving dog jacket technology

2008-11-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

Today I saw a dog in a jacket. So I got to thinking about the evolution of that dog culminating in its appealing to its owner in such a way that the owner would buy a special dog-shaped jacket and put it on it during a cold fall day. Way to manipulate your environment, dog!

Richard Dawkins talks about an extended phenotype, which is more than just a physical trait like eye color or body hair; it encompasses all the behaviors that improve the survivability and reproductive fitness of an animal. For instance, a beaver’s dam is part of the beaver’s extended phenotype because it is beneficial to the beaver and is the result of gene-controlled, instinctual behavior.

Dog fur is a part of a dog’s phenotype in the traditional sense. But puppies' cute, Kewpie doll features that appeal to humans to feed them, take them to the vet, protect them from other dogs, and give them shelter are part of its extended phenotype. And the phenotypic feature of looking at a human with sad, puppy dog eyes in such a way to make the human say, "Oh, is Poopiekins cold?" and putting a dog jacket on it, which keeps the dog warm in the winter and therefore increases the likelihood that it will survive to reproduce--that’s an extended phenotype. And that’s one clever dog.

SCIENCE!

Diary of the Dead is the world's worst zombie movie

2008-11-06T21:28:00.000-08:00

Worse than Zombiez, a ghetto zombie movie with no budget, equal parts bad acting and FUBU-wearing zombies eating spaghetti off their victims' stomachs. Worse than Flight of the Zombies, Snakes on a Plane with zombies. It's the zombie movie equivalent of Crash. It's got all that movie's fabulous acting and all its wow-that's-deep social commentary, helpfully IN YOUR FACE so you don't miss the point. It's the zombie movie for people who love NYU film students philosophizing about film and reality and cameras and the internet and editing movies and filming instead of saving their friends from being eaten by zombies.

It takes one of the most awesomely entertaining movie subjects ever and makes it even more painful than a freshman year Philosophy of Philosophy class. I mean, this movie has INSTANT SLOW MOTION REPLAY of scenes that JUST HAPPENED. You know, in case you forgot. It even shows you the film makers editing the film--riveting stuff. It's also got a dumb blonde from Texas--you can tell because she speaks like a Californian except for when she remembers to slip into her oh so convincing drawl--who knocks a zombie out then says, "Don't mess with Texas" and drives away in an RV while the Yellow Rose of Texas plays on the soundtrack. What?! Oh, I forgot to mention that even though it's the crowd-pleasing, vomit-inducing shaky cam format, it's got cheesy horror movie music, including AAAAH-oh-it's-just-a-cat fake scares. Freaking fabulous.

This is almost bad enough to turn me off of zombies forever. George Romero would be rolling in his grave if he weren't still alive and directing this atrocity of a movie.

Mini Review from Markus: Poop covered in truffle oil is still poop.

Gopstoppers

2008-11-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Markus and I put on our political shirts--an anti-Bush shirt for me, a pro-Green Chili Party shirt for him--and patriotically walked our way down to the poll station, admiring the political Jack o' Lanterns along the way. Then we patriotically filled out our ballots and patriotically watched them get sucked into the machine.

On the walk home, we mocked the Republican running for governor who was so ashamed of his party, he managed to convince the state to allow him to run as a candidate from the GOP instead of as a Republican. That doesn't seem like a big deal except for 25% of Washingtonians don't know that the GOP and the Republican party are the same party that have brought such wonderful issues as Just Say No to Mexican Immigrants and Just Say Yes to Incest Babies to the political discussion. Luckily, the other 75% of us know better and voted against the Republican wolf in GOP clothing.

That evening, I happily played with my do-it-yourself electoral map, feeling like a toddler with a colorful toy as I played around with laughable scenarios: a big red California, a big blue Texas! Markus, meanwhile, spent his time dreaming up new excuses to eat tortilla chips--crab and artichoke dip, a hundred layer dip, cheese from the back of the refrigerator dip.

I realized that this was the second presidential election that Markus and I had been through together. We'd seen each other during political despair and during political glee. He saw my delusionally optimistic side, staying up late until the bitter, bitter end as well as my justified optimistic side, babbling about non-evil Supreme Court justices, rolling back Bush's tax cuts, and giving some hard earned cash to sweaty and cranky Peace Corps Volunteers. I saw him express guarded pessimism mixed with an insatiable craving for tortilla chips. Nothing like politics to bring out the core values of a voter: tortilla chips.

Note from Markus: Hey! Just because I eat a lot of tortilla chips doesn't mean you have to make a big deal out of it. Now excuse me while I eat some tortilla chips.

Behold the enemy

2008-11-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

All this time, I've been convinced the end of the world would be at the hands of zombies. So, naturally, this morning when the power went out in my apartment and two entire Seattle neighborhoods, I knew immediately that it was the Zompocalypse. But it was actually caused by a goose quacking its way into a power line and and managing to get itself electrocuted. Unless it was a zombie goose, I might have to fear a new enemy.

Life after the GRE

2008-10-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

For the past ten months, I’ve spent at least a little bit of time every day learning fancy pants words and struggling to figure out the difference between the radius and the diameter of a circle. I said things like "Pipe down. You’re so freaking garrulous" and "Sorry, I rescind my last comment." During awkward silences with people I just met, I struggled not to blurt out the formula for calculating the area of a parallelogram. I was a GRE monster.

But now it’s over. I went through the security check so thorough it felt like I was visiting someone in prison instead of an outdated PC in a soundproof room, I wrote a painfully mundane essay criticizing the logic of the imaginary CEO of an imaginary company called Budget Brands Cereals, I proved that I know the meaning of loquacious but not of torrid, and I broke into a sweat trying to multiply 534 by 786 in less than a minute. When it was all over, I clicked a button and POOF! there were my scores.

Not knowing what the numbers meant percentile-wise, I felt miserable on the ride home, convinced I’d bombed the test. When I got home, I compared my scores to the averages and realized that I’m not such a dummy after all. And that studying for one little test for almost a year, in addition to causing several existential crises (Is the point of my existence really to memorize obscure, ten-letter words that I’ll never actually say? Will knowing how to calculate the area of a triangle make me a better person?), can also result in a damn good score.

So now it’s over and my bookshelf looks naked without all its colorful and ugly GRE prep books. No more bitching about how psychologists have found that standardized tests aren’t accurate predictors of future performance but that every psych department in the country requires that you take one, no more lightning round square root quizzes at the dinner table, no more meeting new people and saying, "You’re studying for the GRE? Me too!" Goodbye, GRE. You were a total pain in the ass.

Let me take a moment now to remember standardized tests past. The TAAS test (doo doo doo), the PSAT (doo DOO doo doo doo), the SAT (doo doo doo), and finally the GRE (doo doo DOO doo doo doo).

W is for Wranglers

2008-10-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Oliver Stone said that while making his new movie, W, he consulted with noted Texologists, who told him, "Rarely seen outside of their native habitat, Texans have an air of mystery around them. Some scientists claim to have seen Texans chase down tequila shots with Lone Star, then climb onto the bar, hook their thumbs in the top of their Wranglers, and do a little line dancing. Others believe that the standard outfit of a cowboy hat, bolo tie, and giant belt buckle make up some kind of uniform that indicates to other Texans that they are members of the same tribe."

Oliver Stone likes to keep expectations very, very low. He knows that no movie can ever compare to the masterpiece that is Natural Born Killers, a thoughtful and subtle movie that was groundbreaking for being the first movie to include its own Cliffs Notes, projecting the words "killer" and "too much TV" right on the characters. You know. In case you didn’t get it.

W is slightly less subtle than Natural Born Killers. In case you didn’t know, George Bush is from Texas. The first half of the movie takes place in Texas, which is apparently 40% cowtastic ranches, 40% kicker bar, and 20% Dr. Pepper. Yeah, Texas has a whole lot of ranches, kicker bars, and Dr. Pepper, but it’s way more interesting than that. It’s not about guns, cows, and big hats. It’s about prayer in school, wacky secessionists, and complaining about all the Mexicans and people from Louisiana. It hasn’t always dripped republican red. Ann Richards, the governor before Bush, was a respected democrat. And people have definitely forgotten about the Alamo, but they think about Tex Mex all the time.

If Oliver Stone wanted to make an accurate portrayal of George Bush, he could’ve started by making an accurate portrayal of Texas. Step 1: Actually go to Texas. Step 2: Stop with all the damn cowboy hats. Fool me once, Oliver Stone, shame on you. Fool me . . . you can’t get fooled again.

Congo is an amazing movie and here’s why

2008-10-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Jill, Monkey Scientist

If you like robot gorillas with No Fear backpacks emoting, then this is the movie for you!

The first time I watched Congo, I was a jaded horror movie loving preteen, who, after watching Freddy Krueger eat screaming meatball heads, wasn’t at all impressed by a few monkeys with lasers on their heads. Now, thirteen years later and a whole lot more jaded, I can enjoy Congo for what it is: a stunning cinematic achievement.

The plot has something to do with killer gorillas in some country in Africa (I forget where exactly) and Sean from Nip/Tuck has a perm and Tim Curry’s some kind of evil gypsy with a weird accent and they’re all scared of the monkeys. Mix all this together and you have a recipe for amazing.

Exhibit A
Sean from Nip/Tuck is about to get mugged by a silverback and instead of flailing his arms and running away or punching the damn monkey in its stupid monkey face, he submissively lowers his eyes, appeasing the mugger silverback. The resident monkey expert is impressed by his monkey know-how, and Sean from Nip/Tuck replies, "I know. I’ve read the books." But you don't have to take my word for it!

Exhibit B
Apparently the producers blew all their money on robot monkeys (who can afford real monkeys now that they’ve got a union?) so they had to film a scene on the Universal Studios boat ride. But instead of Jaws attacking the boat, it's Jaws with a hippo head on it attacking the boat. Terror ensues!

Exhibit C
The evil robot monkeys--you can tell they’re evil because they’ve got white fur, one of this movie’s many insightful criticisms of colonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa--are zombie wrestlers! After leg sweeping and clotheslining the humans, they eat them. And BAM! There it goes. My mind is blown.

All I really needed to know I learned from Congo: Never trust a robot monkey.

MANIC! Depression . . .

2008-09-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

My obsession with getting into a good grad school and I have known each other for longer than I've known most of my friends. I've been talking about wanting to go to grad school for almost seven years, and now that I'm staring the application in the face, I'm having a bit of a psychological problem. Up and down and up again, I happily babble about how much I love neuroscience, and how I'm so glad I finally narrowed down my interests in everything psychology and biology into an actual study-able field, and how I'm going to look so fancy in my Freemason-esque PhD robes or I'm despairing about my chances of getting in anywhere and how no one cares that I sweated my ass off in Africa for two years when I could've been washing beakers and shmoozing with the people who are in charge of my future.

This must stop! I'm not going to go on lithium just because my Type A side is invading the other aspects of my personality. Anyone who's spoken to me for more than five minutes has seen the freaky transformation that takes place when I start talking about the brain: the twinkle in my eyes, the enthusiasm in my voice, the total disregard for the attention span of whoever I'm talking to while little cartoon brains circle above my head. In the last couple of days, I happily rambled to some friends about the fMRI studies of people with strong political views, I explained to my mom why mitochondria have DNA, and I understood some of what was said on House. Obviously, I need to get my nerd on in grad school. Brains everywhere need me!

The More You Know

2008-09-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

If you stand too close during a chainsaw pumpkin carving contest, you're going to get a lot of pumpkin guts in your beer. Watch out!

From Stuff!

Hurricane Schmurricane

2008-09-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

Even though I live just about as far away from my hometown as you can get without leaving the States (Alaska--and Alaskans, as Sarah Palin has demonstrated--isn't really America), I got a few phone calls from alarmed friends asking if my family in Houston is ok. This is sweet, but also a bit confusing. It's just a hurricane; what's the big deal? The obvious answer, of course, is Katrina. Hurricanephobic people say the word “Katrina” as much as Giuliani says “9/11.” And I suspect there are a lot of Hurricanephobic people in states that wouldn't know a hurricane if it knocked a tree into their roof, blew down their door, and flooded their basement.

There were three times I felt like a total outsider in Washington. The first was when I realized my political opinions were no longer considered Mega Left like they had been in Texas. Apparently, defending Bill Clinton is not the radical statement I'd been led to believe it was. The second was when I opened the door on my first freezing day of winter and realized I'd made a terrible mistake moving from a swamp to an iceberg. And the third was when the house I was living in had a couple of inches of water in the basement after a storm, and all the Washington natives panicked and formed a bucket brigade. Hilarious! (Stay tuned for the future post “Holy shit, that was an EARTHQUAKE, aka Jill craps her pants.”)

So like most people who are dumb enough to have lived in an area of the country that is obviously defying some serious odds by continuing to exist, I'm pretty nonchalant when it comes to common natural disasters, and I find if fascinating that a hurricane has been the big story for so long during an election year. I'm glad I got out of there when I did, though. Otherwise there'd be no stopping my slide from nonchalance to idiocy like the dudes who go surfing in Galveston Bay during a hurricane and tell the windswept reporters, “I'm just SURFIN'. Ain't nothin' wrong with SURFIN' is there? Just SURFIN'.”

Howdy, culture shock!

2008-09-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks after puttering around Denver the day before the Democratic convention started, I ended up in the Minneapolis airport the day after the Republican convention had ended, waiting to board my plane to Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. I've seen a lot of cowboy hats in my time, but never before have I seen cowboy hats like this. White plastic hats covered in Don't Mess with Texas stickers sitting on top of fluffed up and Aqua Netted Peggy Bundy hair. Most of this hair was white, but one woman's was black. You know, because she was black. And a Republican. In a cowboy hat.

And the fun didn't end after I got on the plane. I plopped down into the middle seat and started stretching in preparation for armrest battles, but then a middle aged dude covered in McCain stickers sat next to me and started talking about how hot and humid it is in Houston. Oh yeah! Texans! I enjoyed my fair share of the armrest while making small talk with my neighbor, whose hobbies included helping me out of my jacket and asking me if I needed to get past him to go to the restroom.

I also got to know the guy sitting behind me, who talked in a loud Fargo accent for the entire flight about how Sarah Palin is a force. A real force.

Some people look at their parents and can't believe they share the same genetics. I look at my fellow Texans and can't believe we shared the same environment.

We meet again, Ikea

2008-09-03T18:41:00.000-07:00

There comes a point in every twenty-something's life when they say, "Goddammit, I'm in Ikea again." Try to discuss the pros and cons of getting the Klapsta chairs or the Kramfos loveseat with the Ektor cover and not feel like a total idiot. But the satisfaction of successfully stuffing two huge Tullstas into our tiny Civic (not to mention buying something called a Tranby) is totally worth it.

Monkey see, monkey do well at Trivial Pursuit

2008-08-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

As a twenty-something movie addict who likes tv, music, and politics, I know a lot about pop culture. I can tell you which tv shows have jumped the shark, Who Wore It Best, and which director is totally overrated (hint: It's Peter Jackson). Or at least I could two years ago. Now I keep seeing ads with teenagers smiling and jumping and wearing Gap clothes in primary colors. Is High School Musical a tv show, a movie, a Broadway show, or does some random high school have a theater department with way too much money? I'm confused.

Coming back to America and realizing I'm pop culturally clueless, I immediately set out to answer all my pertinent questions like are Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus two people or one? I've tried to intellectualize my interest in silly pop stars and stupid movies by thinking I'm just studying human interactions, but the truth is, I'm just a monkey doing what monkeys do: wondering what other monkeys are doing (and wearing and dating and starring in Ocean's 54).

Embracing my monkey nature allows me to bond with other monkeys and gives me an advantage in Trivial Pursuit. And everyone knows this stuff doesn't matter. If it did, the game would be called Of Utmost Importance Pursuit. And personally, I wouldn't want to live in a world where knowing who the NFL commissioner in 1953 was is crucial.

Peace Corps America

2008-08-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

Markus and I have been very interested to see what our first encounter with an RPCV in America would be like. Would we recognize each other? Would we speak French? Would we make fun of black people? Would we talk about how much we miss Burkina? During our trip through Colorado, our RPCV friend Joel convinced us to pick him up in Fort Collins by singing a siren song of a brewery tour with all you can drink beer. Markus's body is 70% beer, so of course we had to go.

I'd scrubbed all the Africa off of me as soon as I stepped off the plane. Never again will I wear army green 3/4 length pants, choose my shirt based on which one has the fewest holes, or coordinate my sweat rag to my outfit. Joel, on the other hand, was pure Africa, from his brown-tinted fly fishing hat to his Chacos. Markus and I laughed out loud when we saw shirt #3, pants #4, and hat #2 walking down the street. So, we had no problem recognizing each other.

After spending time in Texas, my I's had become Ah's, my y'all's were coming fast and fierce, and my rate of speaking slowed down to accommodate all the twangy vowels spilling out of my mouth. That shit wouldn't fly outside of Texas. Hanging out with Joel, I also had to battle with my brain to not speak Franglais. I hadn't been having too much trouble speaking unadulterated English in America, but with Joel there it just seemed easier to blurt out the French words that are still fighting to come out instead of translating everything into English. It's exhausting to attempt to speak like a normal person instead of some freaky Texan-French hybrid.

Another thing that I've had to scrub from my vocabulary is making fun of black people, which, people tell me, is considered racist in America. Of course when I say black people, I mean Africans, who are some of the most hilarious people on earth: just try not to laugh while watching a big, beefy black man rocking out to Celine Dion. The only black American that Markus and I make fun of is Obama, who's not quite as funny as his African relatives, but he's getting there. Picking a dude from Delaware as his running mate is pretty damn hilarious.

One thing that was very easy for all three of us to do was to say how much we loved being in America and how we don't miss being in Burkina at all. Back in Burkina at the start of the second school year, I was walking to my first class of the day and thought, “Oh man, I'm having to do this all over again.” For a moment I felt like I was suffocating. But then a tiny kid ran up to me and respectfully took my bag into the classroom and I walked into the class and started talking about earthworms. I felt much better. When I think about my PCV friends who still have a year to go over there, I get the same feeling, but then I remind myself that living through it isn't nearly as difficult as it sounds when you describe it. You can sound all macho and tough when you say, “Yeah, I lived in an African village for two years without running water or electricity. AND I taught classes of 100+ kids. In FRENCH.” But it's actually really easy to do once you're used to it. So I'm glad to be out of there, but it's not like I just broke out of prison or something.

Like most PCVs, our friendship with Joel was based almost entirely on drinking beer. So it was fitting that we reunite at a brewery. Joel's friend, who works at the New Belgium brewery, gave us an awesome private tour of the place. At the first mention of hops and barley, my eyes started to glaze over--as much as I want to be interested in what Markus wants to do, I just can't get jazzed up about overly complicated ways of saying “this beer tastes bitter, this beer tastes sweet.” But then Joel's friend showed us the taste testing room, where all the employees taste off beers and compare them to a good beer control. The science lobe of my brain lit up when I saw how similar the room looked to the room where I did experiments on my rat in college. Who knew beer could be fun?!

My sister Amy and I both inherited the spilly gene, which is expressed by food and drinks going everywhere but your mouth. So, naturally, when Joel's friend offered to let us taste some pre-beer by sticking our mouths under a tap while he poured, I managed to get it all over my face. Or maybe I'm just so into beer now that tasting it just wasn't enough.

So I've figured out that any worry I had that I wouldn't have anything in common with my PCV friends once we were all back in America is silly. We're all still the same people, just a little less bruised, scratched, and sun burned. And if it turns out we really don't have anything in common anymore, there's always beer.

Pee Wee loves America too

2008-08-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

Possibly the greatest movie moment ever is when Pee Wee is on the phone and wants to prove to his friend that he's in Texas so he steps out of the phone booth and sings, "The stars at night are big and bright!" and everyone stops, claps four times and sings, "Deep in the heart of Texas!" I've never tried it before, but I'm sure that if I sang Deep in the Heart of Texas in downtown Houston, everyone would stop and sing with me.

I complain a lot about Texas (see the "I can't believe they elected Bush governor!" and "Concealed handguns my ass!" rants), but I secretly like the place because it fits its stereotypes so well. Cowboy hats, pickup trucks, oil, cows, it's all there. So are the heavy accents, friendly customer service, mega churches, and Jesus fish. Texas is the only place where ATM doesn't stand for automated teller machine and where people sport their W '04 bumper stickers without shame. It's also the only state that has billboards for Lone Star beer making jokes about seceding from the union.

While tubing down the Rio Frio on my family's annual vacation, I was deep in the heart of Texas. Everywhere I turned there were burnt umber longhorn hats, beer tubes piled high with Bud Light and Miller, frizzy bleached blond hair, and even a beer cooler stereo blasting country. The longer I floated and the drunker I got, the more Markus made fun of my emerging Texas accent. "Where in the country are you fine people living these days?" becomes "Where y'all fruhm?"

I was feeling very much like the Texan I am until people started noticing our beer cooler. My sister and I bought a University of Texas cooler to annoy our UT hating mom, then everyone graffitied it, giving the longhorn buck teeth and cross eyes and writing "Tuck Fexas" along the top. Being the only one in the family who went out of state for college, I have zero interest in Texas football, so it was unfortunate that it was my turn to be tied to the beer tube the day we were surrounded by big time Texans.

"Are y'all from Texas?!" screeched one bleached blonde. My sister said, "Why would we be tubing down a river in Texas if we weren't from Texas?" The blonde responded, "Then why does your cooler say Tuck Feh . . . Tuck Feexas . . . Tuck . . . how do you pronounce that?" "It's the school," my sister said, "Did y'all go to UT?" "No, we went to Sam Houston!" Then the bleached blonde and her bleached blonde friends started screeching the Sam Houston fight song. After that encounter I didn't feel at all Texan anymore.

But during my Texan Identity Crisis, I was watching the Olympics with manic intensity. I didn't care how corny I sounded while cheering "USA! USA! USA!" And I didn't care how racist I sounded while making fun of the Chinese women's gymnastics team. I was so thrilled that an American won the gold in the all around women's gymnastics competition that I stayed up late to watch the medal ceremony and let the patriotism wash over me. The Olympics are a whole lot more fun if you've been missing America for the last two years.

So although my apathy about Texas football prevents me from feeling like a true Texan, my love of watching America kick ass in gymnastics allows me to feel like a true American.

Dawn of the Dead

2008-08-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

I had an awesome, zombie-themed day yesterday. Markus and I were up in Bellevue, Land of the Construction Crane, because he had a job interview. While the veteran teacher of classes of 100+ bored African kids answered easy questions--"Do you feel comfortable speaking in front of a large group of people?"--I wandered around and indulged myself. I walked around the mall, where all the stores were still closed at nine in the morning, and pretended I was all alone in an abandoned mall trying to escape the zombie horde. I wandered into the UW book store and bought World War Z, a book about the zombie apocalypse written by Mel Brooks's spooky son. I had a nice conversation with the woman working in the book store and considered it a sign that I should go to UW. Then I texted Markus that I was at the Starbucks across the street from where he was interviewing and drank a mediocre cappuccino while reading about the Chinese cover up of the zombie outbreak. Meanwhile Markus tried to figure out which of the two Starbucks across the street I was in. And the cool thing is, during all this wandering I didn't have spastic kids chasing after me, calling me whitey; I didn't compulsively wipe my sweaty face off with my grungy sweat rag; and I didn't calculate the days left before I could get out of there. With zombies on the brain, I thought to myself, "I've returned from the dead!"

I wish I could be one of those RPCVs who can't shut up about their amazing experience living with all those amazing people and eating all that amazing food and doing such amazing things. But we're sending aid to Africa and not the other way around for a reason. Living in Africa's not fun. It's uncomfortable--physically, emotionally, and politically. Living in America's tons of fun! The other night I hung out with some old college friends and couldn't get over the way boys and girls interacted. Boys looked me in the eye when they talked to me and--even weirder--listened to me even though my smarter, more interesting, much more male husband was sitting right next to me. After two years of being ignored and occasionally being insulted or harassed because I'm a woman, I'm just a person again. The only problem is now that people are paying attention to me, I have to come up with interesting things to say.

In one of my cheesier moods, I said to Markus the other day that I feel like myself again. I'm not the Nalgene-toting, army green pants-wearing, sweat rag-brandishing PCV I appeared to be to other Americans. And I'm certainly not the demure, silent wife I appeared to be to the Burkinabé. I love the city, I don't like camping, I have a lot of opinions, and I don't like chauvinism. And I'm finally back in a place where I can wear nice clothes without worrying about getting peed on by a goat, where no one assumes that I'm a tourist that needs to be told how to put my bag in the overhead compartment on the bus, where no one makes a big deal out of my race, where people ask me questions and aren't surprised that going back to school is a more immediate concern than having babies. After two years of resisting the people and what they wanted me to be, I'm able to be myself.

Rock, paper, light switch!

2008-07-31T21:44:00.000-07:00

My favorite thing to do this past week at my parents' empty house has been to brag to Markus, "I can find all the light switches in this house with my eyes closed." To my surprise, Markus hasn't acted as impressed as I thought he would be, but I'm still very proud of my skill. Walk into the house after two years away, walk forward, flip the right-most switch, voilà, the foyer's lit up. Now walk down the short hallway to the kitchen, reach over to the right, flip the near switch, and the kitchen's lit up. Walk forward a few feet, flip the left-most switch, and the hallway's lit up. Walk down the hallway until you reach the light switch on the opposite wall, flip it, and now the stairs are lit up. Walk up the stairs, reach to the left, and now the landing's lit up. Turn left, reach to the right, flip the switch, and now my childhood room's lit up. Aaah, sleep. Must remember to turn off all the lights.

I've been struggling to write my grad school essay not because I have writer's block, but because I love neuroscience so much I can't narrow it down to just one topic. It's like asking a cat on an airplane to choose between chicken or fish. Should I write about developmental psychology, which I liked so much I took an additional class, with the consequence that I had to take even more crappy communications classes so I could graduate? Should I write about sex differences, the subject of my most passionate debates after Evolution: Fact or Fiction? and Who Should Dylan End Up with, Brenda or Kelly? Or should I write about memory, the star of many a long Jill Babble about everything from Roshomon to my freaky memories of home?

I'm still waiting for the reverse culture shock and I feel like if I stay in Texas much longer, it'll happen here, courtesy of those freaky memories. The giant pickups, the Don't Mess with Texas bumper stickers, the high school, that place on 528 where I talked my way out of a ticket, it's all so eerily familiar. I could handle the flashy light chaos of Times Square, but for some reason I can't handle the realization that the shower in my old bathroom sounds exactly the same as it always has when the water turns on and hits the shower curtain.

What is going on here? Shouldn't I be alarmed by all the consumerism, the wastefulness, and the lack of a sense of community instead of buying trendy gadgets, throwing away oodles of fast food wrappers, and getting annoyed at people going 50 on the freeway? My RPCV friend Caroline, who's been back in America for a few months, said she hasn't experienced the dreaded reverse culture shock because her experience in Africa was so different from her life in America that her brain can't even comprehend it.

Did somebody say "brain"?! What exactly is the mechanism that makes humans so freakishly adaptable to all the climates and situations the earth has to offer? How can the same species live in heated apartments in holy-crap-it's-cold-Russia and in mud huts in kill-me-now-it's-so-hot-Africa? And what does it say about human survivability that a lucky little white girl can survive two years in one of the harshest environments in the world and live to tell the tale of how weird ubiquitous light switches are? I plan to find out.

Jillmark

2008-07-31T20:35:00.000-07:00

Markus and I have been doing a lot of coupley things lately. Like buying our first new car together. And our first new fancy computer. Not to mention the other coupley things that have become old news like finding a place to live. (We got a little confused a couple of years ago--went looking for a nature-friendly place on the west coast and ended up instead in a place that was REALLY nature-friendly in West Africa. Oops.)

When Markus pointed this out to me in a wow-this-is-a-big-deal manner, I realized that I didn't really consider it a big deal because what's the big deal? I'm just buying a car and a computer, renting an apartment, discussing the next ten years, and planning our kids' college funds with Markus. So? Well, the so part is, of course, that being so nonchalant about making these major life decisions is really weird. It either means that we're not taking all of this seriously, or that we're so serious about them that we don't even have to think about how serious they are. If it's the former, we're doomed. If it's the latter, that's pretty damn cool. As I said to Markus, it means that we're so secure in our relationship, it's preventing us from getting excited about things that should be exciting. Hmm, maybe I should work for Hallmark.

Note from Markus: College is for east coast liberal hippies and our kids will take no part in this PETAing, tax raising, gun controlling, Hillary Clintoning institution.

A good summary of the Africa situation

2008-07-30T14:52:00.001-07:00

In The Know: Is Our Wealth Hurting Africaâ��s Feelings?

Fatty fatty fat cat

2008-07-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

When I walked into my parents' house after two years in Africa, I saw two massive piles of black stuff on the floor. And then the black stuff started meowing. I was so distracted by the sheer size of the cats that I couldn't think about anything else, let alone put down the fifty pound suitcase I'd just lugged up the stairs. I looked at Markus, who was equally appalled by the monsters at our feet. Then I looked at my friend Alicia, who'd picked us up from the airport, and was shocked that she didn't even notice that the cats were dinosaur-sized. She just said that one of them was really scrawny. I'm guessing by "scrawny" she meant "ginormous." I'm not sure; my English is a little rusty.

This wasn't the first time I'd been freaked out by the size of American cats. Last month when we were in San Francisco, my family and I went to my parents' friends' house, and as I walked in, I glanced down and physically recoiled at the sight of the jumbo mass of calico fur staring up at me. For the rest of the evening, I struggled to be social instead of gaping at the endless expanse of cat stomach lolling on the carpet.

My reaction to American cats, which would probably consider my African cat a tasty snack, is an example of my reaction to America in general. Markus and I just arrived in Houston after visiting my friend Amelia in New York. I had a great time just walking around taking in the skyscrapers and the cars and the people and all the other stuff I hadn't seen in two years, but I felt more comfortable in the airport than I did in the city because in the airport I could commit a major American faux pas: staring. I stared at people's shoes, I stared at their hair styles, I stared at their purses, I stared at their clothes, I stared at their skin color. Hello, America, meet African Jill. After two years of enduring being stared at, now I was the starer.

I stared until my eyes hurt. But then I was walking around the city, and American Jill slapped African Jill and said, "No! No staring," and long buried habits took over so that I could function as an American again. Figuring out the subway map, acting normal in a restaurant, not saying mean things about people in loud English. Lucky for me and my ability to not get punched, this all came back.

But there's a voice in my head that keeps insisting that I'm in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Why else would no one notice how unbelievably clean the streets, the taxis, the subways, people's feet, and even the homeless are? Why else would no one gape at the incredible amount of white people walking down the street without black men shoving phone cards, jewelry, or spears in their faces? Why else would people calmly pour Friskies into a bowl while giant monsters swarm around their feet? I'm still waiting for the ironic twist.