7/7/00

I got attacked by a bird today. It wasn't the first time, either. As anyone who spends a lot of time in the vicinity of the UCSF campus knows, the neighborhood is home to several families of extremely territorial blackbirds, and just about everyone I know here has either been a victim or witnessed a bird attack.

The birds' m.o. is to approach from behind and then dig their talons into your skull. I've never heard of this conferring a major injury upon anyone, but it is startling, and of course rather embarrassing. Damn birds...

This week I officially started in the lab in which I will conduct my Ph.D. research if all goes according to plan. I haven't really done much yet, although I did stake my claim to a desk by bringing in a lot of my books and journal articles. Even after I'd done this, though, the desk didn't look very lived-in, so I brought in a few pictures and stuck them up on the bulletin board above the desk.

This is the first time in almost a year that I've had a desk to myself at work! It's also the first time all year I've had a permanent work phone number and mailing address. And last but not least, it's the first time all year I've been able to devote myself to lab work full-time, which will be a nice change. While I admit that I learned a lot in my classes this year, they were also a real pain in the ass. I only have two more required classes : Ethics and Scientific Writing. I don't anticipate either of these posing a major challenge.

I had to give lab meeting today for the lab I just finished up in. It went OK, I guess. Lab meetings are just what they sound like: members of a lab get together, usually once a week, and one of the members of the lab gets up and gives a presentation about the work he or she has been doing over the past couple of months. My presentation was something of a challenge, because I worked on several different projects during the course of my time in the lab, and many of them are still unfinished or inconclusive, so presenting my work as a coherent story wasn't easy.

I was also very relieved that the giant hickey Alvin gave me on Monday has faded to the point of near-invisibility. Ever since I got back we've been getting along better. I went over to his place on Monday night and we watched a really interesting documentary about Thomas Edison on public television. The next day was, of course, the Fourth of July. I'd planned on doing work at home, but I actually ended up spending most of the day doing grocery shopping and then making food for a barbecue in the park with some of my classmates. Anyway, I guess I didn't really look in the mirror much that day, because it wasn't until 2 p.m. when I was getting ready to head out the door to the barbecue that I noticed the huge purple spot on the right side of my neck. It was horrifying to realize that I'd been walking around all day with that thing on my neck, and even worse to discover that dabbing concealer on it did nothing to reduce its obviousness.

Nobody said anything about it to me at the barbecue, but I know they must have noticed! We played charades and when it was my turn to act (I had to do "Superfreak," which my team wasn't able to guess and then "La Femme Nikita," which they were), I felt sure everyone was staring at my neck. Charades was really fun, though. I hadn't played it in years...I guess most people don't play it very often after the transition to adulthood...or any other game for that matter.

Anyway, when I got back from the barbecue, I called Alvin to yell at him for the hickey. "Oh, yeah," he said, "I noticed that this morning, but I too afraid to tell you."

Well, at least he knows enough to be afraid of me...

Later that night, I went over to Andy's place in Fisherman's Wharf. He keeps trying to convince everyone that he lives on Nob Hill, but it's really Fisherman's Wharf. As his roommate pointed out: "we don't live on Nob Hill, we live at the bottom of Nob Hill--and that's Fisherman's Wharf!" Anyway, the aforementioned testosterone-blessed roommate was also there, as well as a few other friends. We hung out for a while drinking wine and then walking around, and then finally we watched the fireworks. They were good, but I'm not sure if going over there is really worth all the hassle. I had to walk for more than an hour just to get to a part of the city where the streets were uncongested enough to enable the movement of public transportation. Also, I was kind of surprised that a city the size of San Francisco has to use taped music to accompany the fireworks! You would think that they'd be able to cobble together some sort of community band in a city of 750,000 people.

And then not much else of note has happened this week. And now I'm just really happy to be done with rotations and classes and all settled in in the new lab.

The forum: Embarrassing hickey stories and When Animals Attack!